Viral Amanization - 4th, NY Regionals

This is the corp I took to 4th place at 2018 New York Regionals, going 4-1 in the Swiss and 0-2 in the cut (my runner went 3-2 and 2-0).

The deck started as a Cache Refresh build--I was annoyed by having only two Nisei Mk IIs in the Core, so I set about building around Viral Weaponization. The core combo here is with Amani Senai, which lets you send a card to hand before Viral triggers. This wreaks havoc on (non-Anarch) breaker suites, econ sources, and any other important pieces. If you hadn't guessed, by "other important pieces," I'm referring almost exclusively to Clan Vengeance.

Apart from that combo, Amani provides excellent tempo drain, negating the corp's loss from scoring or further depleting the runner's resources after stealing. With Viral Weaponization and Obo/Kakugo, you're pressuring their card economy at the same time as their credit economy, without expending extra resources of your own. And, really, what else were you going to spend that 8 inf on? Another Surveyor and some News Hounds? Yawn.

The rest of the deck's a pretty standard Jinteki hybrid rush/glacier set up, leveraging Mti's ability for tempo in the early game and econ savings in the late game. Compared to Pālanā, the economy of the ID is more of a burst if you're glaciering up, but I was averaging something like 8-12 creds per game, along with several clicks saved, usually over fewer than 15 turns. I think Mti's greatest advantage is enabling you to draw more aggressively because of the click savings in installing ICE.

I had an absolute blast on the day, and you can see the deck on stream a few times:

Cut Round 1 vs Kenny Deakins on Val https://youtu.be/d17YG1Uf7jU?t=28811

I found Amani in my opening hand, got my economy up very quickly, and set up a Viral soon thereafter. Kenny got CV out and Injected into both his Indexings the turn before I scored it. I got the ruling wrong on whether Viral counts as a single packet of damage or 1 per card in grip. A part of me was thinking that it didn't matter anyway, because I would bounce the CV with Amani. The other part of me wasn't thinking at all, apparently, because I entirely forgot to rez. The now-loaded CV didn't hit any agendas, but it got both Surveyors and badly hurt my tempo--without ICE in hand to pad agendas and threaten installs, I couldn't draw as aggressively as the deck is designed to do. Kenny recovered faster than I could and scored out off an undefended (and somewhat flooded) HQ.

Cut Round 4 vs Rob Waltman on Bendy Maxx https://youtu.be/d17YG1Uf7jU?t=36689

This was one of my favorite games of the day. Maxx is typically a tough matchup both because of the speed with which the runner can get their breakers and the built-in draw negating a lot of the card pressure you can exert. I scored an undefended Obo very early, then conceded an SSL out of HQ, which got my econ rolling again. This was vital as I kept drawing into agendas. Scored another Obo behind a single Kakugo, bringing us to 6-3. Spent a couple turns moneying up, then went for the third Obo right after he Levied. I had also drawn into the other two Kakugos, so I hard installed one and IA'd the Obo. He took the bait and Stimhacked in, hitting three net damage on the way down, leaving him unable to steal, and taking a brain for his trouble, ending his turn with two cards in hand. I felt very smug. On his next turn, though, he SoT'd for an Inject(!), and I'm sat there chanting "program...program..." under my breath, to no avail. 6-6, one card in grip, 4 creds. Next turn, I IAA a Viral, knowing he can't really check it anyway, but hoping to bluff it as an NGO (as I only had 1 credit left) to ward off the SoT DDM with R&D covered only by a Cortex Lock and an Ice Carver on the table. No dice. I Mti trigger the only ICE in hand, an unrezzable Anansi, but he calls my bluff and has just enough to get in, finding a Viral three cards down. GGWP.