Red Dead Re-Deadcoats - 6th at Slovak Nats

Saan 3116

I recently moved to Italy from the US for a year, and decided that as long as I'm here, I should try and hit up some of the Netrunner events. My first foray into this was attending the Slovakian Nationals, hosted in Bratislava. Seeing as I had literally no idea what the meta looked like over here, I decided I'd throw caution to the wind and just bring what I personally have been working on. This is my Corp.

This is the latest version of a deck I've been messing around with for several months, modified for the newest MWL. In case your eyes fail you, the fairly obvious goal of it is to have really annoying to steal agendas, and make the runner need to steal 3 of them. Meanwhile, due to "Clones Ain't Dudes", you only need to score one of them. There's also the lethal win condition of the runner having stolen an agenda, and die for their troubles. This is made all the easier if that agenda was Obokata Protocol.

Agendas

This is pretty self explanatory, but why not. 6/7 agendas are hard to steal from centrals, with the leftover agenda being Labyrinthine Servers. Why Labyrinthine Servers and not some better agenda, like Hades Fragment or Utopia Fragment? Because for some dumb reason that didn't occur to me until the morning of the tournament, and all the rest of my cards were back in Italy. Why not a different agenda, like Nisei MK II or Philotic Entanglement? Those are great cards, but they don't help me directly with my only-score-2-agendas game plan, and I can't threaten Punitive off a 2-pointer, so they really go directly counter to both my win conditions.

As for scoring, if I have a very safe scoring window, I really prefer to score the The Future Perfect or Lab Servers. This is because, once in the remote, they're not safe any longer in the same manner that they are "safe" in the deck. TFP because I no longer have the Psi game to lean on, and Lab Servers because they still need to random access to get it. For riskier scores, I vastly prefer Obokata, because it can turn them into vastly safer scores, or set up Punitive kills. Even in the earlier game when the runner is fairly poor, an Obokata behind a Komainu is almost completely safe. If they eat the Komainu, they can't take Obokata. If they install a Sentry breaker and take Obokata, there's a decent chance they just die. If they don't run, yay, I'm on 3-4 points.

If they install Film Critic and run... we'll cover that in a bit.

Murder Murder Murder Murder

If you've seen some of my other corp deck lists, you'll notice that I'm a fan of meat damage. If you haven't, Hi, I'm Saan, and I enjoy multiple win conditions. In this case, it's Punitive that does the lifting. Having effectively 4 Punitives in my deck through the use of Consulting Visit means that I very consistently have one or more when I need it. The funny part is that I made this deck without seeing anyone doing anything else similar. However, at the Slovakian Nats, the same idea was EVERYWHERE, in the same ID, in Nisei Division, in classic PE... people loved the Okokata Punitive idea (though no one else was on Consulting Visit, so take that, Eastern Europe).

And man, people hated Film Critic.

Most people's answer to it was Voter Intimidation, which makes sense, seeing as it's in faction and all. However, Voter Int gives the runner a 33% chance to keep the FC in play, and I really don't like that. FC turns off both my win cons of having hard-to-steal agendas and murdering innocent runners with imPunity (Puns! I got em.). I went the extra mile and included MCA Informant, which is a card that they can't ignore, and will lead to the death of FC. That's the other reason Consulting Visit is in the deck, is that it's another copy of MCA Informant.

Money Concerns

The deck needs just loads and loads and stacks of fat cash, which is the reason it's in Pālanā in the first place; more money. You need to be able to both score fat, expensive agendas (8 credits with a Clones attached. Gross), and also rez big, fat ICE (8 credits for a DNA Tracker. ...Actually kind of a bargain?), and you need to be able to do both while also threatening to kill the runner with the money you have left over.

This lead to me adding basically every reasonable econ operation to the deck, as well as 2 Launch Campaigns to beef it up even further. The rest of Jinteki's econ options suck (Medical Research Fundraiser gives the runner econ, so that's off the table, and the drip econ options seem very uninspiring for this kinda deck), so thank the Boggs that Celebrity Gift was saved from rotation.

Upgrades

This section is short. Yay! Batty is because he can kill with Komainu if the runner isn't looking, and can end the run after an expensive trip through my scoring remote. He's not as good as Caprice, but I usually don't need him to be, seeing as I only score 2 agendas. Ash does what Ash has always done since time immemorial, and is the last really reliable scoring upgrade, also enabling me to turn my economy into a win condition. Crisium Grid is there to help stop things like Deep Data Mining and Indexing for when I can't find a Mirāju, and also helps me reach that influence limit for Consulting Visit.

Ice

I wanted a good mix of expensive, scary ICE as well as some annoying but cheap options in order to be able to defend servers without blowing my credit pool to shit, and this is where I landed.

My barriers are basically just gear checks that make my opponent install Paperclip, and then tax it a couple bucks after it's in play. I wanted one Himitsu-Bako in order to move an ETR to my scoring remote if I couldn't find one early in order to give Batty something to ETR on, as well as occasionally pad my hand more against a probing runner.

As for Sentries, Pup costs one credit and will tax the runner like 10 credits over the course of the game, if not more. Komainu is really expensive to run through and makes drawing up in order to mitigate Obokata stealing an awkward thing. Snek can occasionally kill programs, and also gives Batty a fun target. Errand Boy... kinda just exists because it's expensive to break, and gives me cards and credits if they don't. Okay, okay, it's really only there because I needed a 1-influence Weyland card to make the Consulting Alliance work, and it had to be an ICE, and all the rest of the 1-inf Weyland ICE suck even worse.

Code Gate time! 3 DNA Trackers belong in any Jinteki deck that can support them, because it's insane. Crick is okay because it still does what Crick does, and that's been fine for me. Lotus Field... is okay? It's 3 to break with almost anything these days, and being unable to be lowered with Datasuckers doesn't matter nearly as much any more. I might look for a better card. 5 for an ETR is a lot to ask. Mirāju is fricking incredible, though. It kills Indexing on R&D (don't rez it until they pay to go back in after the initial Indexing run), it helps both filter additional agendas back into R&D, and it occasionally helps me cycle additional Clones back into my deck for a potentially better card right now. 2 feels like a good number.

How'd The Deck Do?

I lost one game with it in swiss where I never drew one of my 4 Punitives in slightly more than half my deck, and the runner was dead on either agenda steal. Naturally, the first one he accessed was Labyrinthine, and was the free steal, so that wasn't great either. After that, he just sat around and clicked Mopus until there was really no way for me to reasonably score any more. I thought I had found a window for my final agenda, but he was able to eek out just enough credits to get in, to the credit.

I also lost one game in the cut, in what I think was the coolest way to lose a game with this deck. I was against someone playing Hayley with 2 Film Critics, so this was already not the best (I might try and throw in a Preemptive Action to recycle cards like MCA in a future version). He had used one to get an agenda early-ish on, but I found my Consulting Visit and used it to MCA the one that was out. His next turn he places down the second FC (darn), runs R&D, and sees an Obokata. He hosts it on the FC with the MCA on it, and then trashes the MCA'd FC and clicks Opus once. I think "huh," and IAA my final agenda, knowing it's 100% safe in my expensive server with a Batty and an Ash protecting it. The next turn he plays Freedom Through Equility and runs Archives for the win, stealing Obokata.

Basically, I had the win had I not used MCA informant, which I thought was hilarious. However, the chances of all that lining up exactly (me MCAing his FA when he had both drawn his Freedom and there being one of 3 agendas on top of my R&D) was incredibly low, so I don't count that as a case against MCA, because the chances of this happening are still nearly infinitely better than the 33% chance that Voter gives you.

Anyhow, the deck did very well for me, and my only losses happened due to kinda shitty luck. In the future, I might try and find room for a Preemptive (as I mentioned earlier) and/or a second copy of Consulting Visit. That might be going overboard, though, but I'll test it out.

Final thoughts

Hilariously, none of my wins game from killing the runner. All of them came from scoring out. However, I won from scoring out because the runner knew I had Punitives in hand, either through runs or Celeb Gift showing them off, and often declined to steal agendas because of this, allowing me the ability to simply score out under the threat. As I said, I would have won one of the games I lost if I had found one, but such is life =)

After the tournament, I realized that this deck is basically just the old Deadcoats idea, but thrown in Jinteki, where it just makes more sense right now. It wasn't my intention, but damned if it isn't the same. Deadcoats in a red identity? Red Dead Re-Deadcoats (Puns! I got em).

10 comments
9 Oct 2017 vor_lord

What about Ice Wall for your 1 inf ice?

9 Oct 2017 Benjen

Needs more Aiki. Maybe as a pup replacement?

9 Oct 2017 remorhaz

@Saancan you elaborate on no Kakugo?

9 Oct 2017 EnderA

@BenjenAiki seems counterproductive. If they break the damage subs and let the psi fire, they're up 2 cards. (Probably.) That helps them steal Obokata Protocol and/or survive Punitive Counterstrike later.

9 Oct 2017 Saan

@vor_lord I've considered it. I decided I like the additional tax of Errand Boy and potential draw/credits a little better than just the gear check of Ice Wall.

@Benjen I'm not wild on the times it gives them draw, but net damage is good and it's really expensive to break. In my practice with it, though, people usually just don't bother breaking it, since I'm not incentivized to spend money on the Psi game each run since I want to stay ahead on it. And how dare you insult Pup! Who's a good boy? Pup's a good boy, yes he is.

@remorhaz My original thought was that I'd rather tax money rather than cards. Most people, if they steal ab Obokata, are dying next turn. There might be times that Kakugo could enable plays where I would have needed 2 Punitives, and now only need 1, so that merits some thought. The rest of the time, though, when they're not hitting agendas, I just want to tax their money out so that I can use those future Punitives and Ashes, and score those future agendas. In terms of monetary tax, most breakers break Static for 2, and it's 3 to rez. Kakugo costs 1 more to rez, and 1 less to break, which is a pretty poor deal, barring the times where the net damage actually matters. Basically, what I'm saying, is that I sould test Kakugo and see how often the net damage actually does something signifigant. My guess is rarely, but I might as well actually see.

10 Oct 2017 Sutlomatsch

Is there a reason why you only play one Consulting Visit? Whoudn't 3 make this more consistent?

10 Oct 2017 Saan

@SutlomatschI mean, sure, 3 Consulting Visit makes finding single Operations pretty simple (I played 3 Consulting Blue Sun Boom all Regional season, and only lost 3 games out of 4 regionals with it), but where the hell does the room come from? I can cut the Crick, I'm certain, so maybe I can cut a second ICE, and just be weaker early on. However, I don't know why I'd want 3 Consulting. I think 2 might be fine, because it gives me more ways to get MCA shlould I need it. However, having more than 1 Consulting in hand doesn't help me out when it comes to Punitives, because Consulting is a Double. If I only need 1 Puitive, sure, Consulting is fine. But some games the 2 agendas the runner steals that I can actually Punitive them on aren't Obokata, and I need 2 of them, which means that one has to be real.

Anyhow, I think going up to 2 is fine, although it gives the possibility of becoming a dead draw at some point. 3 seems like overkill, and I don't think the 3rd adds enough consistency for it to be worth the slot over the loss of whatever it replaces.

15 Oct 2017 (A)Joke

www.facebook.com Hi Saan, welcome to Italy, this is the link to the italian facebook community about netrunner if you want to check events and tournaments. See ya.

17 Oct 2017 SubTric

@Saan Really loving this deck. I've been plating with it for a few days and it's one of the smoothest corp experiences I've had. I commend you for that.

I've tweaked it (and will continue to do so for the coming games), there's too many changes to list and make sense of so here is my take.... netrunnerdb.com

The main things I changes are that I dropped all your upgrades - Ash 2X3ZB9CY due to wanting to reserve my money for ice rezzing and the punitive trace and I've found that it's rarely come into play for this deck, Marcus Batty as while he's nice for an additional ETR, by the time I'm set up, I probably want the runner to steal from me and the other subs we have ready in isolation are not that stunning (I tried running Neural Katana to trigger from Marcus, but the odds that it still didn't work annoyed me, so dropped it - though I kept one NK as it was useful) and Crisium Grid as it felt like 2 cards to primarily protect me from something that Mirāju does a good job of already, was too much of a drain on resources.

In place of those upgrades I have a full playset of Ben Musashi who has done a waaaaaaaaaay better job of preventing steals than Ash and protects Obokata Protocol from being stolen like nothing else - oh, if only he wasn't unique... surely Jinteki can clone him, right? Pop him in the scoring server and you're laughing! I also slotted a copy of Bryan Stinson, as while he isn't essential, the economy of this deck is, and the chance to play all your transactions again is a nice one (I have also included a Preemptive Action to grab back some econ and other essentials that may have been trashed!).

The core stays the same, though I switched up the ice a little - using Ice Wall instead of Wall of Static (I find it better around as it's only 1 to rez and if you need a strength 3 you can make it so) plus Kakugo as my other barrier which is great on the scoring server. I included a copy of Macrophage as I ran into both Aumakua and God of War during testing and if I'm slow grabbing Agendas they can get into servers pretty easy. I debated using Cyberdex Virus Suite instead as a 1-of, but figured that the ETR trace on Macrophage is always potentially useful if the runner is low on creds by the time they reach it.

Only thing I'm unsure on at the mo is the 2nd copy of Consulting Visit, for the reasons you mention about - when you pull them both one is a dead card. It is useful and having 2 copies does make stuff more consistent. I may be tempted to drop it for another Preemptive action. I've also considered slotting 2 Pop-up Window as it suits the drip econ and light runner tax you've employed throughout.

In all honesty I don't think either variants are 'better', they just pose different ways of getting the job done. Thanks for the great deck!

17 Oct 2017 formerteen

have you thought about trying An Offer You Can't Refuse in this deck? i think it could reasonably replace "Clones are not People". it's similarly costed and would have the advantage of not making your scoring windows so awkward. might be easier to hit that 7th point (realistically your 1st or 4th of course) with it than with clones. it does have the disadvantage of not being an anti-current though. just a thought!