Heretic Palana - (4-0, 49/76, EU/AFR 21)

Is Heritage Committee playable after all?

The deck went 4-0 in Continentals 2021 (https://alwaysberunning.net/tournaments/3014/nisei-europe-and-africa-continental-championship), carrying me to a whopping 49th place (my Hivemind MaxX performance was abysmal). Matchups were: Hoshiko, Zahya and 2x Smoke. Once 241s came around, I had to play (and lose with) runner both times which was a huge disappointment for me - I would have loved to bet my (slim) chance at the top cut on Jinteki instead. Of course, this deck is not Tier 1 by any means - but it served me well enough to feel I could compete.

The decks idea on how to win is fairly complex: Get rich, rez taxing ice, score behind an Anoetic. These are things that Palana is actively good at. Of course, Jinteki glacier has a few very glaring problems and some matchups are fairly rough:

Matchups (as experienced during testing)

419

This is just the worst for me personally, especially with Aumakua. I went with squeezing in even more money and virus hate wherever I could until I felt like the matchup might be barely manageable. From my experience in test games, you still have to get lucky and if you don't you might lose.

Hivemind MaxX

YsengrinSC has a great video with Pinsel and lostgeek on why Jinteki Glacier just folds to Hivemind MaxX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTxizw7Oqok. While this probably is true once you get closer to top cut, I did not once have that experience and always felt like I had enough hate. The anti-virus package does good work, facechecking ANansi can be nasty and Snare! combined with Flower Sermon can win the (otherwise unfavored) late game on the spot.

Apoc & Keyhole MaxX

This is the matchup I was able to test the most and, to be honest, I think it's ok. One Apocalypse will happen usually, sometimes two, but rebuilding board state works fine enough in my experience.

Smoke

I was not able to practice the matchup before the event and faced Smoke two times during Swiss. In both games I was able to tax them out enough to squeeze out a win. Konjin felt amazing in those games. But I might also have been lucky in those games tbf, with how the draws and accesses went.

Dubious Card Choices

All the money and draw I could find

Without some key pieces, the deck is sad. We need to find them. We also need lots of money to use them and cards to discard to Anoetic. Also, the card quality in Jinteki is at a low point atm, so i figured that moar draw might help in emphasizing the few cards in the deck that are above the curve, effectively raising the average card quality a little bit.

Rashida, Spin Doctor and Planogram are obvious choices for draw. Here are some more... special mentions:

Heresy Committee

When @5N00P1 and I were on NISEIs (great) stream, this card got a little publicity (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1124967814, starts at 5:35:21). And to be honest, the commitee is... not very strong. BUT at some place I felt like I needed some kind of draw to find key pieces faster, could not afford any more influence and... well, Jinteki does not really offer many high quality choices here. During the tournament, this card did for me what I wanted it to do (drawing into key pieces, sculpting my hand and prepping RnD) and I was always happy to see & play it. Still - I concede that the slot might probably be better filled with other cards.

Flower Sermon over Nisei MK II

This choice felt crazy when I made it but... as long as Anoetic is installed, Sermon Counters are better than a Nisei Counter in protecting the remote (assuming heaps of money which we have). Not only that but Flower Sermon also protects centrals quite well. The Synergy with Snare! is lovely. And while behind, Nisei counters get significantly worse - while Flower counters are incredibly good in helping you crawl back into the game.

Regolith Mining License

Is it better than NGO Front? Probably not. But it gives more money total and I was scared that I might not be stupid rich enough, so I kept one copy in. Also, it has a real trash cost and I value that in assets.

Expensive Ice

I hear, Tollbooth and Anansi are... not great at the moment. In practice, I was always glad to see them and I think the deck is rich enough to rez them and lose them to Apoc and rez another one again. As long as the runner doesn't manage to work around them, these are great. If they do - they can always access a Snare! with two cards in hand ;)

Konjin

Allows the runner to waste their Boomerangs and Botuluses. Also serves as another taxing ice under ideal circumstances. Performed great in the tournament.

Huge thanks to NISEI and everyone who made this great event possible!

Also huge thanks to all the Netrunner players, who made playing there so enjoyable!

and thanks to manveruppd for the deck name :P