Pretty Fair PE

As a returning player, I cycled through a bunch of IDs, trying to find the best fit for me in this brave new world. After playing around with Palana, PU, and other decks across other factions, I found myself returning to my roots—good old Personal Evolution. I’ve played through almost 200 games (on jinteki.net) with different variations of this deck, and I think I might have landed on my favourite version so far.

The idea behind this pretty-fair version of PE is to mix a long-game approach with a short-game mentality. There are tools here to build for the long haul or to rush through the opening, but the general goal is to control the tempo of the game by pressuring the runner into making difficult decisions. You win when you've rushed to 7 points before the runner gets set up, or if you've worn them down enough that you win no matter what move they make.

AGENDAS

This feels like a fairly standard agenda spread. Obokata Protocol and SSL Endorsement are great because they keep you ahead of the runner, whether they’re scored or stolen.

ASSETS

Breached Dome is here to protect Archives, and to bluff as House of Knives. Snare! is included because, well, why not? NGO Front doubles as bait for a server and as an extra source of income.

ICE

18 pieces of ICE hopefully means that your servers aren’t left undefended in the early game. We’ve also got a fairly robust anti-AI package in the form of IP Block, Turing and Swordsman. The other ICE are fairly resilient to bypass effects (Anansi, Kakugo), punish drawing up (Aiki, Komainu) or are generally taxing (Tollbooth).

My ideal scoring remote is usually protected by Anansi, Turing and Kakugo. The other Kakugos should protect HQ and R&D for maximum pinging with net damage. Install and dispose of the other ICE as you see fit.

OPERATIONS

I included a standard economy package of Celebrity Gifts, Hedge Funds and IPOs, which should keep you afloat for a while. Genotyping is there to recur what’s needed, and protect R&D from random accesses.

Biased Reporting and Financial Collapse punish resource-heavy decks. You can also punish virus-heavy decks with BR or Reverse Infection. Clones are not People can make it so you only have to score two agendas to win.

Naturally, this deck is weak against Film Critic, stealth/trash breakers, recursion and net damage protection. To prevail against these decks, you just need to apply pressure on the right resources (clicks, creds or cards). You might need to sacrifice Agendas for this purpose, and that’s okay.

I consider Reverse Infection, IP Block, Tollbooth, Breached Dome and Financial Collapse to be flexible spots. Mix-and-match depending on your meta/preferences!