Tennin Lightning (Chicago Regionals 2014)

Congratulations, big tournament. So you play this as a fast advance deck mainly recurring Trick of Light and clicking for credits?

Yea, though it only takes 2 credits to trick out a 3/2, and I want to toss every shock and Shi.Kyu into archives, so power-drawing with Jackson when dirt poor is usually OK.

Congrats on Chicago! May I ask a couple of questions about the deck?

1) First, it seems to be quite light on econ (Tennin, 3x Hedge Fund, 1x Scucessful Demo), especially considering that Shi.Kyu is expensive, did you feel that was an issue in some games? (Such as versus Ser Gabe.)

2) Where would you usually put Caprice? (HQ versus Crim, R&D versus Shaper?)

3) Did you face any Noise or Katman decks? Somehow the early-game of your deck feels susceptible to them, though I could be wrong, Shock! + Shi.Kyu is brutal against DS.

Thanks!

I'm surprised your only candidate for holding advancement tokens (to be used with Trick of Light) is just your playset of Ice Walls. I'd be worried not to draw one of them, but it seems based on your win that you didn't run into this problem.

Narziss: You can put Tennin advancement counters on any installed card, not just Ice Wall.

Econ is light, but ICE is cheap and only needs to cover centrals. I never bid more than one on Shi.Kyu (only one player ever took it as a -1 pointer). I had no trouble with AI in general due to swordsman, and purging after R&D and HQ are 2-3 deep is usually enough to keep datasuckers pretty low for the rest of the game.

Caprice usually went on HQ, as agendas can pile up pretty quickly in there while waiting for combo pieces.

The advancement counter doesn't need to be placed on Ice wall. There was one game in particular where I placed 2 counters on the runner's console because I was concerned about ICE destruction.

Yes, this does seem very light on the econ - It's difficult to argue with the results though! I suppose having very cheap to rez Ice helps in that regard. I usually feel awful clicking for credits but most of the time if your cost spread is low you're not hurting too badly econ-wise doing so.

@dtelad11 Thanks for this clarification!

@kranse Regarding ShiKyu's and betting just 1 on those - you mostly plan to shove them to archives and act like shocks nr 4/5/6?

Thanks kranse!

I love this deck. Amazing. 2 Archived mems and a reclaimation order is brilliant. What I love about this deck is that you are playing on razor's edge, and it seems as if you real have to maximize diversion and an extremely high level of skill to have leverage or control over your opponent. Perhaps I am wrong on this, but I don't think I'd expect too many people to be able to netdeck this and have immediate success with it. Too bad we didn't get a chance to play each other, would have love to seen it in action. I really didn't think a new Jinteki ID could pull off the championship, and I am delighted to have been proven wrong. Bravo!!!

I've been testing this deck since, and although it was hard for me to see why it was good on paper, when you see it in action, it is kind of an unstoppable beast. Every time Tennin's ability fires, it is like 2 free clicks, and considering you're only defending HQ and R&D (and so those two severs are very taxing and well defended), there are many turns in which your opponent just stores up on credits instead of running over those taxing servers (thus letting Tennin's ability fire).

I don't even find the need to ice archives, as Shock! and Shi.Kyu have that covered, and as Kranse implied by saying there isn't a need to create remotes except for Jackson, so I've found that you don't need to spend any ice on remotes.

Although it is perhaps too early in testing for me to say, but if I see a weakness in this deck it is early HQ. The runner might be more concerned trying to get an R&D lock and might be afraid of running a Jinteki HQ (mainly fear of the unknown evils that Jinteki might be hiding in there). But I think the best move for a runner might be to go for HQ first against this deck, and when it becomes too taxing, only then go for R&D.

I guess the problem for runners nowadays is that it is hard to know what exactly the corp is running just by knowing the corp ID, but that deck diversity is all the better for the health of the game. That mystery, however, gives Jinteki a lot of power.

Exploratory romp 'bout to hit the meta.

Awesome! I've been looking at Tennin for a while thinking it was going to be a brilliant identity once someone figured out how to use it. Well done!

I am running quite a similar build. Agendas and Assets are more or less the same. Main deviations are ICE and Operation. My econ is Subliminal Messaging + Celebrity Gift (Subliminal is awesome, seriously!) and Pop-up Windows.

I run quite a different ICE composition:

3x Ice Wall (well, that's a no-brainer :) ) 3x Inazuma 3x Sensei (that ICE is huge!!!) 3x Popup-Window (economic Caprice Feeder!) 3x Chum 2x Komainu

That stuff is cheap to rez and expensive to break. Only 1 "solid" ETR with ICE Wall, but suddenly Sensei requires a Decoder to break Pop Up. Or Chum. Or Inazuma.Yog-trolling :)

I run 3 Reclamation Orders and no archived. Maybe 2 : 1 is better, ill give it a try.

What I love about this deck prototype is

a) Andysucker Fails hard against it. When you've got the centrals protected (3 to 4 ICE deep) you purge and Andy cries. She cries hard. b) Getting through the ICE can get extremely expensive. Without a Femme, ICE Wall likely goes strength 5 and beyond. And that for a single Access. Or None, if Caprice is succesful. And then even if I lose a psi, Nisei Mk. II for Uber annoyance :)

What this deck doesnt like:

Security Testing: I strongly think, this Card will see many many Plays. If it Comes, you have six dead Cards (Shocks+Shi.Kyu) in Archives.

Sneakdoor: Same as above.

Gordian Blade (doesn't concern your deck as much).

Anyways, this Tennin prototype is awesomely fun to Play :) Just because you are so annoying!

How about a Woodcutter? With Tennin, you can advance it when unrezzed.

Kicked my ass in round 2. With ToL two tokens on a piece of Ice is like an Astroscript token. I don't want to straight up netdeck this but I have a hard time seeing anything is want to change.

@Ratatosk - Security Testing requires a successful run, so the runner must access cards (Shock or Shi.Kyu) in order to score the credits. If they jack out before accessing, its an unsuccessful run and they don't get the money. I agree that Sneakdoor is a worry though.

@HongKong Koma - I'd love to see cards like Woodcutter get some play - at three influence though, I'm not sure I could justify using it in this deck?

@kranse that's hilarious that you 'advanced' the runner's console, I had no idea that was even possible :D Will be giving this a go!

@evilgaz - Note that the credits from Security Testing replace accessing cards. " The first time you make a successful run on that server this turn, instead of accessing cards, gain 2 [Credits]."

I've been playing this deck all night and I love it. Not only is it really good, it's also really fun regardless of whether you're winning or not. I really loved advancing my opponents Desperado 6 times. I think I'll slot out a Jackson for a Closed Accounts when I play again.

Haven't played Tenin ever, and I thought I'd just give it a try with this deck and played as is. OMG it was good. Even despite my crap plays (practically gave away a Niesei Mk2 to see what the runner would do :P) iand crap draws (all agendas, opening ICE was Grim :/) t performed amazingly. And what a surprise cos it doesn't look like it works at all. But TOL + Tenin tokens = free FA. Who knew!?

Rototurret and Grimm ? Waste of Influence. I did swap it for another Inazuma and Subliminal

@Andarel - ah yeah, good spot, I'd missed that. Cheers.

Oh yes, very good deck. It's kind of a slap in the face as the runner when you look down and your PPvP is advanced 5 times! This deck is also almost Emergency Shutdown-proof...which is great.

In case anyone is interested, here's is my take on the build:

netrunnerdb.com

@kranse "The advancement counter doesn't need to be placed on Ice wall. There was one game in particular where I placed 2 counters on the runner's console because I was concerned about ICE destruction."

Yeah... I'm really curious about how that happened to be. How do you place advancement tokens on a card that can't be advanced?

The card says "When your turn begins, you may place 1 advancement token on a card if the Runner did not make a successful run during his or her last turn."

It doesn't say "on a card that can be advanced". Maybe there's already a precedent to the contrary, but I don't know it. I'm no expert, just my take on the wording.

@DydraPE maybe, but read up the thread, sometimes Shi.Kyu is just 3 more Shocks in the deck. Nobody's saying that you always have to spend flatline money in order to put the runner into a difficult decision.

@hastur makes sense. There's room for discussion though. It went through a Tournament so I guess it's legit anyway. I was just wondering how advancement tokens could have ended up on cards that were not supposed to host them, but hadn't though about the identity.

Tnx, Kranse for good deck ;)

netrunnerdb.com

I made few changes for this deck, feel free share more idea

I've tried this deck and made changes to it... I like it but 2 problems I have..

1) Criminals kill it easy with account siphon / legwork

2) Noobies are so scared about the free advancement that they think they should run every turn at you.. Rezzing Ice or not having the correct Ice in placement can lock you down pretty good, especially if you are getting hammered by criminal events.

Caprice does wonders against criminal events, especially if combined with Successful Demonstration and/or Nisei Mk II. After playing some games with this deck, my only thoughts on change would go to Grim. It's the most expensive ICE and it's not that strong. If I had to change something it would be Grim. Maybe throw in some Guard for some annoying anti-bypass, or consider Komainu to make those 5 creds a little more painful to deal with and apply more pressure, without the BP.

Anyway, a very good deck. Risky, but as soon as that first ToL comes out, every advancement token on the table applies strong pressure, causing the runner to go for dangerous runs with incomplete rigs, which in turn opens up ways of scoring for the Corp.