Bodak Yellow (1st @ Louisville, 2nd @ Cleveland Regionals)

Publishing for posterity's sake. Some people laughed at me for months because I kept playing all these NBN cards in Jinteki. Shout-outs to Cardi B.

I played this for the 2017 regional season because I sucked at Moons when I tried it. I thought it would be decent in a meta reliant on currents, Mongoose / Mimic / MKUltra, Medium, and high-impact events. For a while, I was one of the very few people playing News Hound Jinteki, and trying to test this even under a smurf would have been a giveaway, so I hardly practiced other than a few games in the Casual tab -- the theorycrafting turned out to be spot on, which is a first.

This took 2nd at the Cleveland regional, then 1st a week later at the Louisville regional. The Cleveland version had one Targeted Marketing, two Subliminal Messaging, and a GFI instead of Obokata. I made those changes because even with four currents, I still found myself waiting for another current to open a window. Naming Account Siphon with Targeted Marketing can be pretty good, too. At both regionals, I faced Josh Wilson's Inversificator Andy (with Employee Strikes) in the Grand Finals.

From what I've heard, top players have tried out the decklist and think it sucks, which is fine. I brought a modified version of this to the North American Championships, where it didn't perform as well (ended 27th?). If you enjoy Jinteki and Caprice, though, it's a fun deck to play before a lot of key pieces rotate.

Against Criminal: Get three ice, a Scarcity of Resources, or a Targeted Marketing down as quick as possible (first turn ideally) to deal with Temüjin Contract -- play defensively and make runs as expensive as possible. Don't rez Lotus Field unless you really have to (Inversificator). Put a bunch of Sentries on HQ. Put Macrophage on R&D if they're on Medium. Win with Psi games, Excalibur, or just scoring windows. Here's a match I played against Josh's Inversificator Andy.

Against Shaper: Get a Scarcity of Resources down quick to slow them down, and try to score Nisei MK IIs quick while they set up. Leave an unrezzed ice on R&D for multiaccess events. IP Blocks are good if they're relying on AI. Against most factions, I will leave stuff unrezzed if they're just getting single accesses. If you suspect they're on Na'Not'K, don't put more than 2 ice on your News Hound servers. Probably gonna have to win with Psi games. Here's a match I played against Max Williams' Lock Hayley.

Against Anarchs: It really sucks for them to break News Hounds, unless they get an Ice Carver down. Macrophages are pretty good on R&D. If they're doing God of War/Counter Surveillance stuff, make them run into Macrophage, leave an unrezzed ice on R&D, and try and score a Nisei MK II quick. Otherwise, tax them out and win with Psi games.

General strats: Put a Crisium Grid down wherever it's relevant. Score or hide your Clone Retirements. Try and keep a current up -- you can out-current almost every deck. Make people run into Archer and/or DNA Tracker repeatedly. Respect women. Install crap ice early so you can use them as AgInf redirects later in the game after runner breaks better ice in front of them. Stay hydrated. Be good at Psi games.