37 Percent Evil Plans

Sysp 1259

Dropping just before Worlds 2016, Escalation introduces two interesting Jinteki cards (and a weird ID).

DNA Tracker is maybe the most taxing code gate in the game to date. Great stuff!

Project Kusanagi is basically a blank 2/0 agenda. Filler crap, right?

One will be the star in a lot of decks and heavily splashed.

Both are stars in this deck.

Welcome to the world of pain that is post-Escalation PE!

"I love the pace of Russian NEH but it just loses to R&D dig."

"Have you noticed that Criminals aren't playing much recursion beside Paperclip these days?"

"Temujin on Archives. Run, run, run."

"We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester. And certainly cyber is one of them."

If any of these are quotes you've heard in the past month, this is the deck for you.

Random net damage is very strong at the moment with most decks teching against Boom! and packing little recursion. Almost half of the cards in this deck deals one or more net damage when accessed from any zone other than Archives (a lot of them also damage from Archives), which slows the game down a lot. All the eighteen (yes, 18) agendas add to the constant stream of damage. Apart from being a flatline threat in itself, the net damage makes it hard for some decks to form a plans that span multiple clicks / cards.

We take advantage of the recursion part of Russian NEH to play Turtlebacks, Assembly Lines and Team Sponsorship. This is extra disgusting with six 2/x agendas. We don't run the fast advance parts of Russian NEH, instead we play an additional 9 agendas that can be never advanced. The guessing game gets real when you drop Project Kusanagi - House of Knives - Snare! on the same turn. Guessing correctly yields a whopping one agenda point and one net damage. Guessing wrong or taking no action is usually much more damaging.

To win, the runner often must steal five or more agendas. This leaves them vulnerable to our kill with Philotic Entanglement which we also can fire through 24/7 News Cycle. 24/7 can also be used on Chronos Project or House of Knives to gain extra benefit out of Project Kusanagi. It is very possible to also wear down runners with the combination of Chronos Project and constant net damage from almost any action that they take, even through Levy.

During testing, the deck is about 60-40 in flatlines vs scores in its victories. Archer (which is very affordable with Project Kusanagi and one-pointers) does a lot of work, especially when combined with the single Marcus Batty and can allow for a score-out. Same for sniping Paper Clip with one of the three Chronos Project and scoring out behind outside Ice + Vanilla vs Criminal.

I realize I haven't mentioned DNA Tracker yet. DNA Tracker.

I've iterated the list a lot in testing, trying out things like Profiteering (you really don't want bad pub), Dedicated Neural Net (does something fairly unimpressive sometimes) and different numbers on the ice / Sponsorships / Turtlebacks.

The cards that are most likely to be a meta call are Cyberdex Virus Suite, Hokusai Grid (mostly anti-Keyhole tech but not necessary a great one), Cortex Lock / Tsurugi and the amount of Psychic Fields (go up if you expect a lot of Obelus).

Shoutout to chex for tireless spectating like a true stalker and Sam Gullman for making me excited about PE again. Feedback is appreciated as always, and may all your Chronos Projects make your opponent sigh. Thanks for reading.

13 comments
17 Oct 2016 chex

mfw

17 Oct 2016 HolyMackerel

Do you find yourself regularly install-advance-advanceing agendas? People expect Junebugs?

17 Oct 2016 Sysp

@pang4 Never, it is usually better to let th

17 Oct 2016 Sysp

@pang4 Never, I find it's usually better to let them play the shell game. There is a really cute play you can do with Team Sponsorship on the board where you IAA a Project Kusanagi and if they don't run it you can score on your turn, install a 3/x with TS and AAA but but it is usually better to ping them and get the TS trigger right away instead.

17 Oct 2016 Legitamte

This deck looks devious and I love it, but I feel like I'm missing something--what do you install with Advanced Assembly Lines? It seems like you can't really shell game with it because pretty much all of your assets are either traps or relatively harmless econ--I can't imagine it would take the runner long to figure out that they can safely ignore cards installed with AAL. The only other benefit is cheaply getting extra layers of ice on the table--is that worth it?

17 Oct 2016 Sysp

@Legitamte Assembly lines usually installs ice if I have it, that way I don't reveal anything.

If I have Turtlebacks out I usually install whatever in a new remote. The runner really doesn't have any clue if it is a Shock or a Team Sponsorship. If they run it, no big deal, right? Cost them a click, maybe some credits and potentially some damage.

You can also fake being on 2 creds with it and rez to get Snare! money when they go for accessing.

The main use of AAL is really for extra cash with Team Sponsorship when you fast advance with it on the board, as well as acting as Beanstalk Royalties when you need cash. If you have one on the board that they leave alone, you can also install TS from hand before you IAA a 2/x.

Never sad to draw one, they help the opening turn immensly as well since you can threaten DNA Tracker on turn 1.

19 Oct 2016 michaeln

How's your economy? If they trash Turtlebacks on sight, which seems pretty easy for them to do, you only have clicking-for-credits and 3 Hedge Funds to tide you over.

19 Oct 2016 dawspawn

If there's economy trouble, you could try to fit in one or two Stock Buy-Back, maybe instead of the AALs. I've found it to be pretty great in PE.

20 Oct 2016 Sysp

@michaelnEconomy is decent. The most important thing is to have enough to rez the first DNA Tracker (usually goes on HQ if you fear Siphon) and trying to stay over 4 to threaten Snare!. Apart from that you really just need cash for scoring agendas. AAL is good in all of these cases regardless of phase without being amazing in either.

@dawspawn Stock Buy-Back is a very interesting suggestion. Mid to late it should be amazing (runner usually finds minimum two agendas fairly early) but the problem is it being a blank draw in the early game and competing with AAL / TS for influence. I think there is a build that could work that would use Stock Buy-Back and gonna try to do some testing to find it, not sure exactly how you balance the early econ / free install clicks vs huge mid-late game econ bursts.

20 Oct 2016 killj0y

Love this. Was just getting the inspiration for PE with Kusanagi and here is a well tested concept already there. Wishing I had the time to play this one out a bit and see what she does.

26 Oct 2016 michaeln

Ark Lockdown? Perhaps instead of Jackson Howard and/or Archer....?

31 Oct 2016 Everfree616

I feel like this deck needs to get exactly 37 likes just so that the planets can align for sheer style.

1 Nov 2016 phlogistos

@Everfree616 done. let the evil plans commence.