"Mushin or no Shins?"

This is the CI deck I have been building and playing this weekend, and believe it to be a strong competitive option. Rogue CI decks are often quite good when there are other prominent CI decks in the meta, especially when the style to beat them is very different. Credit to @Handsome Jack for their initial CI/Punitive list that I began with as an initial concept.

The main issue I had with that deck, was that in playestesting the deck really had no fallback option. Yes, you could feasibly score out, but charging an MCA Austerity and then hard advancing blank 5/3s is a tremendous burden on your economy. It was also slow, predictable, and fragile. However, using multiple punitives to protect your agendas felt strong, so I started tinkering with different options that kept the kill-con, but had a more practical vector for scoring out.

I tried speeding the deck up in various different ways, but found the problems were still the same, rushing to my kill-condition did nothing against judicious runners who were able to match my economy and/or were playing some hate cards. The fact that I couldn't realistically threaten a score felt like the weak link of the deck, so I started thinking about different ways to get a scored 5/3 that were easier on the pocket.

Enter: Mushin no Shin.

Saving me a ton compared to MCA+AAAAA, Mushin no Shin. And best of all, as long as you have Punitive+Punitive or Punitive+Archived Memories, it's just a leaner, cheaper, and deadlier way to slam your agendas on the table. The core of the deck is deceptively simple, get your kill online, and start tabling cards while you money-up. Since your agendas are rarely helpful to your immediate plans, it doesn't hurt to let the minefield get a bit ripe and hope the runner gets fidgety. There are just no good 5/3s at the moment that suit our strategy, so better to think of them as board pieces than scored pieces.

That is, except for Hades Fragment, which despite it's normal use as durdle-insurance, is actually a cool bit of tech for this deck. A clever runner knows that CI's economy is heavily linked to its draw, and that if they can force you to play all your clearance cards, you might run out of steam and deck out before they even lift a finger. This takes that option off the table and forces the runner into an aggressive position, unable to let unscored Mushins sit until you are ready to score them.

It should be clear pretty early if your Cerebral Overwriters are going to be for being cheeky or if they will require some finesse. They help enable a win against a runner with film critic or a more robust economy. Since you will have to leave agendas on the table for at least a turn, if you need to score out, better to keep the runner hesitant to pick up any of your installed cards. There are also those games where you just can't find a punitive to save your life, these allow you to possibly win on 1x, or at least start populating the board instead of durdling while the runner sets up.

Project Vitruvius is a little wonky compared to just playing all 3 pointers, but I find that generally speaking, if the runner is lucky enough to scoop up PV, they probably did it early and it's likely you didn't have the kill anyway. If it's late game, you can probably triple PC their ass to get your 6 meat damage. It is also nice to have one FA option in my backpocket to get creative with.

Bryan Stinson could be any other tech, but it all felt too fragile and durdly, and the option to double my economy can't be understated, even if the runner isn't often under 6 credits.

11 ICE has been pretty good to me, most of the ICE don't get played every game, so it's really about finding the right number that your centrals are a bit taxing, and you can an ICE out in the remote farms where Jeeves and Bry Guy can hang out. Maybe score an agenda if you're feeling froggy. +/- to fit your playstyle, without Account Siphon or Vamp, it's pretty safe to cut the ICE, I'm just a chicken.