Trash Pandas 1.5

Anti-Netrunner is best Netrunner.

Just came up against what I'm fairly sure was this deck on (drum-roll)...Jinteki.net. Fun deck write-up, by the way.

I was playing Gang Sign Leela, with which I generally abstain from installing my Gang Signs when a non-RP Jinteki ID hits the board. I comfortably relaxed with The Source on the board, building up a massive amount of credits with Kati Jones and gradually filling up a frighteningly good 9-card hand thanks to my Logos and your three Mental Health Clinics. Anytime something got advanced, I DDoS/Inside Job sniped it, obviously tossing advanced ice back into HQ so that they wouldn't be Trick of Light'd later.

I was holding an Employee Strike in my hand the entire game in case I ran into any especially heinous assets or upgrades that I needed to trash (Ash 2X3ZB9CY, for example), but as I eventually realized, there were none. This deck has a gigantic and persistent economy through Turtlebacks and untrashable drip assets - you make tons of money, but you have nothing to spend it all on. I didn't even bother Account Siphoning - why bother?

I wouldn't consider my deck to be a "counter" to yours, by any means, I just piloted slightly differently to accommodate Industrial Genomics and exploited the apparent weaknesses by playing cautiously.

My suggestions:

• Ash 2X3ZB9CY is probably going to do a LOT more work for you here than Caprice Nisei. See if you can fit him in.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse is unfortunately just not a very good card. Had it been played, I would have just given up the point. It really will only shine when you can force the runner to literally choose between losing (you have 6 points already) and losing (you have a literal flatline waiting in archives), and that's a really contrived situation to justify 2 deck slots.
• Mental Health Clinic is extremely antisyngeristic with all of your flatline conditions. I would definitely replace it with Sundew or Server Diagnostics.
• Lose the Space Camps. I love that card to death (have built multiple decks around it), but it's just not doing enough work here. Focus on more solid agenda-scoring strategies: The Allele Repression + Trick of Light combo is very strong, and you can just hard-advance the Allele and then use it when they run on it. Consider including a second Cyberdex Virus Suite to handle Clot, and then Caprice or (preferably) Ash as a back-up.

@Bigguyforyou518 - We here at Sanford Refuse Solutions - a division of Jinteki Corporation appreciate your feedback. You are correct in your observation that we've had a GREAT fiscal year here at SRS - so much so that we have no idea what to spend our surplus on! There's been some talk of making our corporate infrastructure completely open-access and allowing full public unrestricted use of our servers. At our last shareholders meeting a very drunk CIO suggested making things more interesting.

We've been watching some of what NBN is up to these days and considering a partnership of some sort, but we're still feeling out where our corporate goals overlap.

The boss man might make an appearance at our next planning meeting, we can certainly bring your concerns to his attention.

Thank you again for your feedback, and enjoy this coupon for one free buffet meal served just underneath the loading dock. Buffet hours are from low tide until the hottest part of the day.

Well that...that is just fabulous.

Well I'm sold. @GrantZilla1979, your enthusiasm is motivational!

The corner office boys are going to take an extended team-building vacation until this whole "labor union" fad blows over.

Or, we'll start mixing in more ammonia and bleach into our product line. Don't tell us how to mix our own inhalants, man - I know how to [passes out]

I want coupons too!

While I have no idea on what you'd cut, Shi.Kyu is a great mean little bit for IG that would be a solid addition. Love your deck design :-)

Ripped off your deck and then made some changes based on playing IG in the past + some meta calls. Still needs work but here's what i've got so far:

TL:DR:

-3 Braintrust

-3 Mental Health Clinic

-1 Offer You Can't Refuse

-1 Grid

-3 Firewall

+1 Chronos

+1 Fetal

+1 Future Perfect

+2 Ash

+3 Subliminal

+1 Ahigaru

+1 Himitsu

+1 Tour guide

Overall changes:

Something I noticed running IG in the past was that it's a VERY powerful flatline archetype, and I think your build reduces that threat quite a bit so I changed the focus a little and retooled a few cards to deal with rampant asset hate (slightly). Of note my builds generally run the idea that i'll score one or two things early and then let them gamble running R&D (with some tax) to see if it kills them. It annihilates faust decks (even with brain cage and friends).

Agenda's:

-3 braintrust

+1 Chronos

+1 Fetal

+1 Future perfect

I might drop the Chronos and a future perfect and up the number of fetal AI's, as I think it's a very legit threat, but so far this has worked ok for me. Chronos is a tech card, fetal has gotten me kills. Perfect is just hard as hell to steal even in archives. I dropped braintrust because it felt like it was just a 3/2, and not really needed as just that, especially with ToL plays.

Assets:

-3 mental health clinic

I had a very specific Operation in mind to replace this econ that synergizes better with the secondary "flatline the jerk" win condition. I feel like there's already more than enough asset drip economy in this deck so having a second pad campaign isn't needed (most of the deck isn't that expensive).

Upgrades:

+2 ash (i make the influence space later)

-1 Grid

Grid just feels too weak and is already expensive enough as is that no one is ever going to trash it. Ash is game winning and lets you convert your crazy econ into wins when you suddenly need to score out something like future perfect. Granted your econ is weaker early, and grid is better there, but I felt ash was an acceptable answer to late game. Also it's VERY easy to make sure they'll never have the money to trash ash later on.

Operation:

-1 offer you can't refuse

+3 subliminal messaging.

Offer is a VERY cool trick, but it's only cool when you're at 6 points so I see no reason to run more than 1. This deck loves digging and it's easy as hell to get back and play if you ditch it (3 clicks, 7 credits, repression + 1 in hand, which really isn't difficult to manage in the late game).

Subliminal is great. It's drip economy in operation form (so it dodges a lot of the asset hate) and it forces runs, which is something you want. Further should they get a lucky run early and turn your archives faceup, it won't take long before you can force them out for a turn and get 1/2/3 subliminal back. You play one of them and trash the other two for a free +2 to trash costs. It's not nearly as strong as 3 clinic econ wise, but it also doesn't boost their hand size while giving them incentive to run when they might not (or free econ otherwise).

Ice:

-3 firewall

+1 Ahigaru

+1 Himitsu

+1 Tour guide

I'm still working on the ice, but dropping firewall was something I have 0 regrets about. You've got lots of token holders. Ice wall, repression, agendas, and could probably drop something for an advancable asset(junebug?) if you really want it so i'm not worried about ToL/space camp synergy. The 6 influence for something that gets destroyed by david just didn't feel right, especially when your only late game ice was susanoo. Ahigaru is a monster in a deck that's often going to have a full hand, himitsu is a cheap ETR ice that has some cool tricks shuffling it around to give the runner a headache, and tour guide is devastating in the mid/late game where it can easily have 3 + ETR triggers, which is pretty nasty even for a 0 str sentry.

Summary:

Anyways that's my take so far on a more flatline/mid to late oriented IG. There's a lot that probably needs to be tweaked, but I really feel that even if you keep space camp/medical pavilion that firewall is just NOT worth the space let alone the precious influence. At the very least I think tourguide will often be much better.

Grats on decklist of the week!

Although I have to ask, just for my own curiosity if nothing else - Was this based at all on my Lunar Kudzu deck or is this just convergent evolution? (It's possible we just both homed in on the same idea, but given that they only have 4 cards difference, I'm not going to pretend I don't wish it had been my own deck that got featured, when I published it a month and a half ago. :P)

@Bwob - I think we both honed in on MaxXiMum Trick of Light holders/Asset Spam/Cloudy With a Chance of KillBalls. This was my first go at a ridiculously janky deck and I'm not surprised that I wasn't the first to attempt that combo at all.

What's really weird is trying to make this concept work in NEH which is my next project. But with all of these Scrubber running around this may be retiring for a bit.

It is a bit odd that we both picked the same anti-synergies as well.

How have you refined yours? I've dropped MHCs for Sundews, and pulled in Ash - as well as thrown in Shinobi, Wall of Thorns, and Gemini for more funk.

so this just 100% loses to clot, right? From the list I have no idea how you play if you can't FA out your agendas.

This is loathsome. And possibly awesome.

Your mom 100% loses to clot

@GrantZilla1979 You should honestly give this a spin out of Tennin Institute: The Secrets Within.

It would be a very different deck, admittedly (probably -15 assets +15 ice), but a lot of the fun jank carries over. Like IG, Tennin can create a lot of pressure to run a naked archives (because it's the only cheap way of denying you your Tennin tokens). Space Camp, Susanoo-No-Mikoto, Trick of Light, Allele Repression, and even An Offer You Can't Refuse can all make encore appearances, and your advanceable ice become even better.

Basically, your economy would get considerably weaker, but your fast-advance strategy would get a steroid injection.

@Bigguyforyou518 were I to go that route I would likely return to MHC's for drip economy and incorporate Celebrity Gift, Medical Research Fundraiser and other staple Jinteki econ and spend influence on star ICE.

@GrantZilla1979 - I'm not actually sure what MaxXiMum Trick of Light holders/Asset Spam/Cloudy With a Chance of KillBalls are! Details!

I'm amazed that you went with only one Cyberdex Virus Suite - around here, if your plan is to score with any kind of fast advance, at least 2 are basically mandatory, to get around the Clots. (I would have gone 3, except I have such good recursion.)

How are you finding Genetics Pavilion? You put Snare! in your deck, so you have a bit more net damage than I did - do you find it helps much?

Some other cards I've experimented with that seemed promising: Blacklist, to slow down Clot/Parasiterecursion. Excalibur, to slow down Medium digs and make archives more dangerous if they don't break the Crick. I think they're both worse than my current choices (Blacklist is borderline) but they're worth playing with.

Genetics Pavilion is sooooo good it's worth slotting in other Jinteki decks if for no other reason than a 4 swing on the Runner, more if you have it behind a Pup or small ETR. It doesn't produce Blacklist levels of hatred, but it comes close.

I think it could easily find a home in RP or PE - in the latter case just wait to rez it.

I will say this for the deck though - certain shady characters are making life very difficult on killdecks right now. I thought about taking this to a tourney, but I don't feel like it's just a great call in an asset-hate-heavy meta. Scrubbers are everywhere right now.

Oh, Genetics Pavilion is definitely a good card. I just don't know how worth it it is for things that aren't kill-decks. (And I don't see this as a kill deck. Although maybe yours is more kill focused, since you have Snares.)

I've gotten one Angry Trash kill from Susanoo-No-Mikoto with the Hokusai Grid in Archives, but most of the kills have come from Legworks at 4.3 at the timing structure of a run. Also, Gang Sign + HQ Interface right before I advance the 3rd time on a 'gender since I don't think there's a paid window to pop Allele Repression between scoring the agenda and the Gang Sign access...

I don't think there's a paid window to pop Allele Repression between scoring the agenda and the Gang Sign access...

No, but if you're going to score an agenda, you know in advance. So you can always pop Allele Repression to shed unwanted cards before you spend the final click and trigger score. It does give them a timing window where they can play any last effects after your Allele, but it should work if you're worried about gang signs?

Potentially hilarious interaction with Utopia Shard.

I guess you are playing Valencia or Reina mill as your second deck, with the antirunner theme and all? ;D

I really love this deck, but I would always be secretly worried of Eater due to the FAQ on it which says "If the Runner accesses Archives after using Eater, all cards are turned faceup but no individual cards are accessed".

But...it seems like a ruling that almost no one knows about.

If you see Eater, don't ICE archives if you're trying to get to six points and then pop Offer. With Employee Strike and Scrubber everywhere now, fortunately you won't have to ever worry about getting to six points with this deck.