TMJT (undefeated in Rockford SC)

Daine 3735

Glacier has always been my favorite way to Corp. From click-taxing RP to (silly and serious) variations on EtF, probably a full 75% of the thousands of games of Netrunner I’ve played have been with one glacier deck or another. But since EtF rotated the only glaciers that looked like traditional glaciers (and weren’t the abomination that is CI) were AgInfusion decks. The loss of the EtF credit meant that most non-CI HB decks were pretty far below the curve.

And then FFG gave us Jinja.

Holy shit Jinja City Grid is an insanely good glacier enabler. Not only is it cheap to rez and brutally expensive to trash, it gives you buckets of tempo by saving you both money and clicks, it still gives you the freedom to pass on its ability when your remote is strong enough and you want to save a drawn ice for a central, and you can even have multiple Jinjas rezzed on different servers at the same time.

As soon as Jinja was released there was a flurry of testing here in Chicago. Derrick, Steve, and Trevor were all putting their own spin on HB decks and making good decks and good jank too. I’d been playing an updated version of the AgInfusion deck I’d played at worlds at Chicago SCs. While it had gone 6-2 at worlds and gotten me 19th place, it had lost 4 games in only 4 accesses in 2 outings and I was angry with it. So seeing my friends pull off disgusting tempo with Jinja at casual nights motivated me to experiment with glacier again for the Rockford SC.

Version 1.0 of this deck ran a slightly lower curve of ice and packed more money. In only a few games of testing, however, I soon realized that I not only had tons of extra money sloshing around, I also wanted slightly better ice. I traded some Turings for a Fairchild prime and a third ichi, took out money for Sandburgs, went to 3-pointers to lower my agenda density (and because SSL and Ikawah are awesome), and packed up the deck with the changes untested.

And the deck went undefeated. By a lot. I don’t say this to put any of my excellent opponents on blast. In a few cases the runner decks got some seriously bad sequencing which meant that by the time they got any money or their first breakers I was already sitting on over 40 credits and a handful of ice defending my remote and R&D. But mostly it just felt like HB glacier at its strongest historical point with an extra turn or 2 head start to set up. The deck took apart a MaXx, 2 Criminals, a Shaper, and an Adam. None of them took more than one agenda all day. Such a small sample size is suspect, I realize, however as someone who has played literally thousands of glacier games over 5+ years, this deck feels as powerful as any glacier I’ve ever played. It’s fun and relatively easy to pilot. While I normally restrain my publishing to decks that I think have the potential to be a new archetype (or are just bizarre in ways I find delightful), I wanted to post this one because I think it’s a very good starting point for people who want to play glacier. You could completely replace all 12 influence with your own spin and it would likely be just as powerful. Add your own favorite bioroid instead of my Fairchild prime. I’ll probably unsleeve mine for now because I’ve gotten a plaque and I want to play more jank, but this will probably make an appearance for me at regionals. While Friday Chip and Imp will make Red Herrings a bad meta call, they’ll probably just become 2 Batty and a 3rd UVC and it’ll be good to go even months from now. Such a simple and consistent combo of AoT and Jinja is likely to remain a powerful option in the meta for some time.

I appreciate your trolling, your insults, and your tangentially- or accidentally-constructive feedback.

34 comments
22 Feb 2018 Daine

Naming credit to Reed Wilson from the Chicago meta. Apologies for the oversight.

22 Feb 2018 CodeMarvelous

Hell Yea Boi? @Daine this looks awesome!

22 Feb 2018 thunderfist

@Daine Which shaper did you play? Just curious

22 Feb 2018 Daine

@thunderfist I played Wu netrunnerdb.com

22 Feb 2018 Daine

@thunderfist I played Wu. netrunnerdb.com

22 Feb 2018 BizTheDad

Do you really need Sandburg? Couldn't those slots be used for something else?

22 Feb 2018 Daine

@BizTheDad Sandburg is arguably the second best card in the deck. Defend it with a non-clickable ice and you’ll basically just win. It costs you nothing to rez but is expensive to trash (meaning Stinson can fire sometimes). It can also be used mid-run to screw with the runner’s math and get you surprise program trashes or get an FC3 to fire. It’s seriosly stupidly good. It feels unfair.

22 Feb 2018 Myriad

In light of the new MWL are you planning on staying on Red Herrings? Or will you be moving to Batty or Cyberdex?

22 Feb 2018 Myriad

In light of the new MWL would you stay on Red Herrings over Batty?

22 Feb 2018 Daine

@Myriad The MWL changes nothing for me. While Rumor Mill will hurt, this deck already has a great matchup against Black Orchestra. I’m worried about Friday Chip + Imp making Ikawah easy to steal and blanking my Herrings more than I’m worried about Rumor Mill. Batty is an excellent sub for Herrings though Interdiction and Rumor Mill both hurt him. Most of the Chicago kids are on Batty, but I’ve always liked Herrings more. It’s more consistent and lets Stinson fire. We will see where the meta goes. But unlike my runner deck, there are literally no changes I’d make to this deck right now. Cyberdex might be a great addition starting next week. I could probably spare an NGO.

22 Feb 2018 PureFlight

Thoughts on 1-2 Domestic Sleepers to help the scoring plan a bit? I could see dropping a Sandburg and/or and NGO for it.

22 Feb 2018 Daine

@PureFlight A one-of Domestic Sleepers is spicy and I love it. Though I think Sandburg #3 is actually the 46th card. I think 49 is NGO, 48 is Distract the Masses, and 47 is Ichi though YMMV.

23 Feb 2018 Two_EG

Well at least we can use Rumor Mill again.

23 Feb 2018 zmb

No hate for Film Critic? With all those defensive 5/3's i think it will be the prefered restricted card. Both Red Herrings, SSL Endorsement and Ikawah Project are susceptible to FC.

23 Feb 2018 zmb

No hate for Film Critic? With all the defensive 5/3's FC will be predominant i guess. And Red Herrings, Ikawah Project and SSL Endorsement are all susceptible to FC.

23 Feb 2018 zmb

That being said, I like it :-) I've made an AoT/Jinja deck with Alix T4LB07. It feels good to click>trash her for 20c after building Jinja glaciers on RnD and remote :)

Other jank could include Surat City Grid with a Brain-Taping Warehouse ;)

23 Feb 2018 Daine

@zmb Film Critic just isn’t seeing much play around here. Most shapers want Opus, Levy, or Clone Chip instead. Critic is a great splash out of Anarch to handle Jinteki, but big Code Gates already eat Anarch for lunch anyway. But you’re 100% right. If you’re in a place that sees more Critic you should consider Batty instead of Herrings.

23 Feb 2018 Alakallanar

I have played a similar deck for some time. In my opinion CFC Extraction is better than Corporate Sales Team in this deck. With 5+ rezzed bioroids (including Ash) it is strictly better and even with 4 I prefer 8 instant credits to 10 credits over 5 turns. Although I play 4 more Bioroids than this version which might make a difference here. (1 Ash, 3 Ice)

24 Feb 2018 Richard19880215

this is so perfect deck... but Diversion of Funds?

25 Feb 2018 znsolomon

Sorry but...what's up with your agenda suite? are you trying to score 3 3-pointers?

25 Feb 2018 bubbathegoat

I played this list at my SC today with 2x Warroid Tracker. They did good work defending Sandburg and keeping the remote from getting cleaned out.

I had underestimated Distract the Masses. It is a really solid card in this list. Maybe some still like Preemptive Action, but too many people around me are keeping corps honest on discards. The tax this deck forces on the runner isn’t greatly set back by giving them 2 credits.

If you fire Bryan Stinson you are probably going to win. If the runner is playing careful to stay over 6 credits, you are probably going to win.

Scoring 3 point agendas is pretty easy with this list. Stealing 3 from this list is not easy.

25 Feb 2018 onibaku06

This deck looks so interesting and fun to play. Even with Rumor Mill coming back, its still going to be a little taxing. Ikawah Project with Red Herrings is gross. (Which isn't affected by Rumor Mill).

I really, really hate Najja. Any recommendation for a replacement? Also, what do you think about Ravana, Vikram and Hudson in the deck?

Lastly, I completely agree with you on Chip and Imp. That is going to be a new thing really quick.

26 Feb 2018 Daine

``@Alakallanar` I personally think CFC is garbage. It’s possible, probably even that it’ll score you far fewer than 10c. I’m happy to wait to know that I’m getting 10c no matter what. I’ll be ok with missing out on 4 or 6 credits when everything comes up perfectly. If I have 8 rezzed bioroids I don’t need money anyway.

@hero91901029 I’ll cross that bridge when the pack comes out. Might be worth slotting Crisium, but it’s not like Criminal is a threat anyway.

@znsolomon I never had a problem scoring 3 agendas. And I also never had a problem with getting flooded and losing. I was fighting the last war with this deck and wanted the lowest possible agenda density. If you play it with lots of 2 pointers and have success I’d love to hear about it.

@bubbathegoat how’d you do? Warroid seems like a smart include, depending on what you had to cut. I found Stinson to be backbreaking as well. Glad you liked the deck.

@onibaku06 I don’t share your hatred of Najja. It’s great early, it’s always taxing, and it fires your ID ability for only a 2c investment. If you’re going to cut it I’d recommend Fairchild 1.0 or Eli 2.0 for the slots.

26 Feb 2018 Benjen

I just published a version of this I won a SC with today. It is SO GOOD. I only lost once due to a 3 agenda, no ice opening hand.

I took out a sandburg and threw in a Hellion Beta Test and it seemed to work pretty well.

@Daine, this thing is a monster.

26 Feb 2018 bubbathegoat

I ended the day 3-1 on this list (and 2-2 on Apex), but one win was a timed win that I don't want to get into, as that timed win kept me out of the cut. I stuck around for a couple of side games that I also won, but obviously that's not as good as winning games in the cut.

My loss came to Omar with Maw and Bhagat who eventually won the tournament. His trashes pretty cleanly stripped me of any ice to install that could slow the bleeding of cards from HQ and R&D, but oddly never hit an agenda, so a bit of mixed luck there.

As far as my changes go, I went -1 Sandburg -1 Red Herrings to make room for +2 Warroid Tracker and 2 free influence. My meta has a lot of Film Critic, so Herrings is not as reliably useful. I can't normally get a second remote for Sandburg until later in the game, by which time I often had two of them.

Warroid + Sandburg behind 1 or more FC2/FC3 was a pretty effective server, more than once I had a runner access and jack out without trashing for fear of the Warroids. I also used them to keep runners from clearing out the scoring remote, as they have an obvious synergy with Ash.

I think one of the things I like most with this list is how much economy is in the agenda suite. Getting a runner to go low on credits to grab an early SSL and enable Stinson can really power this deck to overwhelm the runner.

So far I think my biggest weakness is over-investing in protecting the remote or R&D (either with extra ice installs or defensive upgrades) when I could either be jamming agendas faster or building a Sandburg remote.

26 Feb 2018 znsolomon

@DaineI've actually had lots of success not running any 3-pointers at all (my decklist has been the top AoT deck until you came along :P). In my opinion, running 3-pointers in AoT is too risky, just because of how much setup they require and how easy it is for your opponent to get into the server if they really want to. They can click through 'roids, trash their stuff to fairchilds...include the fact that many lists are running stimhack now, and I think if you IAA in a server, the runner with just grab the agenda. Instead, my deck uses 2-pointers with powerful on-score effects (CST, CFC and SFT) to gain a leg-up on my opponent, as trading agendas with them out of the remote will always put you on top.

I also think your ice suite is kind of weird. No Ravana 1.0? And I think that you need as many 'roids as possible, so the seidirs are a bit strange to me.

26 Feb 2018 gumonshoe

Looks like the perfect confluence of a bunch of power cards; All of my comments after this point are probably wrong.

Played it a few times and it has less ice than I'd like (weaker start, and more of a gamble for ultra-violet+jinja) but makes up for it with those painful servers that close the game. Femme & D4 are likely the long term problem for this type of deck; or maybe as you said imp.

If you're going to tweak further I highly recommend getting something that closes that 1 point gap for you and then consider losing the 4/2 for another 5/3. 2 agenda glacier is the best glacier. This might not be possible in HB, especially with this influence spread, but I think it's the un-obvious weakness of the deck. Until you've played a 2 agenda deck you don't realize how great it is to only give your opponent 2 chances to get the right run in.

Sandburg is likely closing the gap I had the most trouble with: Ice Carver, Black Orchestra & Fairchildren/Ichi 1.0. Sandburg will simply lock the runner out of some games, but I think its the edge case game where the above comes into confluence that Sandburg really earns it's bread. The lock out games are typically games you were winning anyways.

My questions:

Is stinson showing up often enough? (2 seems low)

How have you been handling Leela/Archives Pressure decks that seek to re-open "closed" servers? (turning wheel, rebirth/Is the ice count sufficient to keep them off archives?)

Worried about new siphon? (Needing to ice HQ turn one to protect your early money was always something that warped HB play when you wanted to focus on just protecting the remote & r&d)

26 Feb 2018 DrCthulhu

Hey, I just wanted to say that this deck rocks. I've been prepping for my first Store Champs for about a month, going back and forth between an ASA rush/glacier deck and CI Boom and I just wasn't super happy about either of them. Then this deck got published and I liked what I saw.

I took a quick practice match against myself and it seemed pretty good and in an archetype I was comfortable with, so I decided to roll the dice.

Being my first SC I didn't have high expectations heading in to the tourney. My only goal was to try to be in the top half of competitors. Out of 16 players I ended up taking 4th...

This deck was undefeated in Swiss (I IDed the 4th round to make top 4 but took a Corp win). So yeah. This is a great, powerful glacier deck that is relatively easy to pilot. I bombed out in the cut, this deck lost to an Aesops Steve deck piloted by a friend and very good player, but it was really due to my piloting errors than the deck. I let him have too much money off Tapwyrm and didn't stack some ice in an optimal fashion. If I were a better player or had more time to practice with the deck I am confident I could have done even better than I did.

Anyways, sorry for the long ramble, just wanted to say thanks to Daine for publishing this list, and I loved rocking it at my first SC.

28 Feb 2018 gegenzeit

Hi, how about loosing the big fairchild and throwing in (drumroll) Heimdall 1.0? I know ... it‘s old fashioned and paper bresks it for 4, but: anarchs on conspiracies are going to be hurt by fc 3.0 and Heimdall is great against those people who have recently started to think Inti is an acceptable barrier breaker (looking at you Ms. Hayley).

28 Feb 2018 SourSweet

With all the NGO’s going around, splash in a Aggresive Secretary, its been a blast!

5 Mar 2018 EmJayBee83

@Daine, this deck is butter. Thanks for posting it.

6 Mar 2018 Emparawr

@Daine Nice to see another person who had such similar ideas when it comes to the AoT/Jinja synergy. Mine is only slightly different. I wonder though, how have the Brian Stinsons been working out for you? Do you feel like they come up often enough and that this deck keeps the runner broke often enough for him to be useful? What bout in a deck that was running 3 IPO and UVC instead of 2?

6 Mar 2018 bubbathegoat

I'm not Daine, but I have played with this list and some variants quite a bit. Bryan Stinson more often keeps the runner cautious to maintain a larger credit pool and slows down their tempo (once they know he's there). Most games he won't fire, but he does his job of making the runner slow down and sometimes check R&D in case it's a Crisium Grid or Ash 2X3ZB9CY to stuff their indexing.

When Stinson does fire he largely wins games, especially in this build with Sandburg. Personally, I've cut Sandburg and instead rely on Ash 2X3ZB9CY and Warroid Tracker in my build to leverage a credit advantage.

Think of Stinson as being like a bomb that the runner doesn't want to go off. Sometimes you can surprise them with it and blow up the game, but even when the runner plays around him cautiously, he's conceding some tempo that you can use.

7 Mar 2018 Krams

@Daine How has Distract the Masses been for you?
I have made some own Jinja glacier decks and I liked Special Report very much as my flood-mitigation-tool, because it let's you draw cards and thus triggers Jinja.