BigBoy's Battle of Wits

TheBigBoy 8949

Send the Runner to the Emergency Room with this trap deck that actually works!

If you can’t tell, this is a deck that plays Mushin No Shin over and over again until it wins.

A lot of people have made decks like this before, but they have all failed because:

  1. They include stupid other trap side-plans like psychic field and friends instead of just more money and ICE. This leaves them too poor to move fast enough or have any kind of back-up plan. These side-plans ARE NOT do-or-die for the runner like Mushin is. They can be solved safely by good players, especially if they have I’ve Had Worse in their deck.

  2. They use identities that aren’t Engineering the Future. This leaves you totally poor and, secondarily of course, removes a lot of the surprise value of the deck. If you do this out of Jinteki your ICE and money situations are both crap (Exception: Cortex lock is sweet, but we have Brainstorm for the same purpose).

Here is your plan.

  1. Secure centrals with cheap ICE or Brainstorms. You don’t want to lose traps or agendas out of HQ or R&D. The more cards the runner see/trashes, the better deductions they can make later.

  2. Mushin-Advance to 4 (for net 0!) something. If you have to choose between 2 agendas your priorities are: Man-ups > Vitruvius > GFI > ABT. If you only have Overwriter then just Mushin that. If you have Overwriter AND an Agenda then Mushin the Overwriter if the agenda is ABT (the least good one to score) and otherwise just shuffle up the cards or use Random.org to decide (unless you know your opponent and have a read obviously).

  3. If you score Man-ups you are obviously on easy street. Just FA to the easy win while piling ICE on your centrals to buy time. If you get a Vitruvius then you want to jam it up to 7 advancements for the 4 counters. You can use these to recur more Mushins, recur biotics for the FA win, recur Neural EMPs to machine-gun a runner who runs an Overwriter later or does something dumb, or even just recur some money if you get siphoned and need to dig out. If you get GFI out then you can just biotic twice for the win. Just turtle up, Mushin traps (or are they…), and eventually win because you have 3 archived memories. If you get ABT then leave it down until you have a Jackson or 1-2 Archived in hand and then fire away! You don’t have a ton of ICE, but even 1 ICE is something if it’s free.

  4. If your first Mushin is a triggered Overwriter, congratulations! All you have to do is survive until you draw 1 Neural EMP and 1 Archived Memories (or 2 Neural, or a Neural and a Vitruvius counter) and then the runner is dead! Surviving when you have a bunch of EtR ICE and the runner is on 1 hand-size is usually not that hard.

  5. 50% of the time your first Mushin will fail, that’s OK. The worst thing that could have happened is that now the runner has 2 points. Just Archived Memories your Mushin and try again. ALWAYS WAIT A TURN SO YOU CAN ADVANCE TO 4. 4 Brain damage basically guarantees the Neural-Archived-Neural win at some point, whereas a runner CAN STILL WIN WITH ONLY 3 BRAIN DAMAGE. In fact, waiting a turn can bait an HQ run into a Brainstorm since the Runner will want to knock out your Mushin target.

Full Write-up and card-explanations on runthenet: https://runthenet.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/battle-of-wits-a-response-to-the-temujin-meta/

31 comments
12 Sep 2016 jage

12 Sep 2016 scd

This deck looks okay but why not 3x Junebugs those do lots more net damage more than neural EMP does which only does 1 I think

12 Sep 2016 TheBigBoy

Neural always works. It means 1 trap run = GG.

Junebug is fine. I'd play it over Agg Sec if it was in faction.

12 Sep 2016 triorph

This deck is literally cancer

12 Sep 2016 stoppableforce

congrats, you did it. you found a way to get me to stay off jnet for like a month. I'm gonna get so much done at work.

12 Sep 2016 kevo31415

Holy guacamole I cannot wait to try this out. Getting Brainstorm to work is incredibly hard but I love this idea.

12 Sep 2016 munchli21

@TheBigBoy As you already know by all the Gabe decks I've made and piloted so far, I am one of your biggest fans! This one is a beauty and I can't wait to test it! I'd include Fairchild 2.0 though, for even more spice! Thanks for sharing, J

12 Sep 2016 TheBigBoy

@munchliI think the deck is already slightly soft to yog, so i'd stay away from that guy. I think it could be smart to swap quicksand for turing if there is alot of eater/faust +Siphon around.

12 Sep 2016 berenzen

Time to slot drive-by back into my leela deck

13 Sep 2016 moistloaf

holy sh* this write up is hilarious. deck looks hilariously fun to play and very obnoxious to play against. thanks for keeping the game interesting abram

13 Sep 2016 TheBigBoy

@moistloafthanks. It's a blast!

13 Sep 2016 Oziride

today I "score" a -2 Hand Size (7 brain Damage)

13 Sep 2016 Ladriel

I won against it yesterday on Jnet and i must admit it was only by sheer luck !

It's impressing how you always end up surprising everyone while still building a relevant and strong deck ! Keep up the good work :)

13 Sep 2016 Shiiuga

OK, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but is the 1 a turn so important that you couldn't put this in Cybernetics Division to reduce the BD requirement.

13 Sep 2016 Ironcache

I think EtF is the right call. I mean, there's the surprise factor when someone first click account siphons and sees a Brainstorm in EtF, but even if you know what's coming, lowering the requirement doesn't look like it matters.

The magic number is 4. At that point you kill with Neural EMP x2 (or x1 with Archived Memories between). CD lowers that to 3, which means you still need to Mushin No Shin your traps, or hit an only slightly weaker Brainstorm.

On the other hand, you lose the ability to Lateral Growth-install-credit or Green Level Clearance-install-credit and be able to afford brainstorm turn 1 while having both servers ICE'd.

This does seem weak to any deck that manages to get out a killer/AI and hammer R&D though.

13 Sep 2016 Ironcache

To clarify, the Green Level Clearance play obviously doesn't result in both servers ICE'd, but it does result in a Brainstorm that can be rezzed.

13 Sep 2016 Dr Bees

Winning turn one against an Andy who siphoned and face checked against Brainstorm, taking 8 brain damage, was the highlight of my day.

14 Sep 2016 TheBigBoy

@C6H6This deck does produce some of the best stories :)

14 Sep 2016 Corporations Rule

Better this than any CtM deck.

14 Sep 2016 Simone Suka

we need more brainstorm in weyland

16 Sep 2016 Hongkong Koma

The glorious Eater-Account Siphon-Keyhole-Triptych ruined my games last night with this deck. I definately recommend swapping Quicksand for Turing.

16 Sep 2016 Salem

Thank's for this deck and the write up. I've played it about 15 times and I now understand the "always advance to 4" and the power of Mushin. Nobody comes onto a turn 1 or 2 4 advanced card against HB. The threat of Overwriter at the beginning of the game is too high. Neural EMP is a very good idea. The Corp now has the initiative to kill. I usually drop them because a super-vitruvius allows to play 3x Neural EMP with only one EMP in archives. I like this deck, but I am always disappointed by Vikram 1.0. Its 6-to-rez cost has always terrified me. I don't manage to use Vikram effectively. It bothers me in this little amount of Ices. Viktor 2.0 wouldn't be better for 1c less (I don't see any CyCy) ? Or just a simple Ichi ? Do you have any advice ?

The french translation of the write up is available at run4games.com

16 Sep 2016 TheBigBoy

@SalemIf you don't like Vikram then try Assassin. I think when you have 3 Brainstorm it's nice to have 1 mean sentry that can't be broken by mimic.

16 Sep 2016 Mechanoise

@Simone Suka Then do it. I run a single Brainstorm in my Builder of Nations deck and wins me so many games because the Runner always assumes Weyland is safe to face-check. Even if the Runner knows about it, they tend to hold back their aggression until they can find their mimic.

Brain damage is a permanent mark on the Runner and it's great to see a deck that actually utilises Haas Bioroid's other staple. It's a shame that we always ask ourselves "would this deck be better in EtF"? as this would have been a great Cybernetics inclusion, if not for EtF being better. I slot Snitch and Drive-By so I'm more than happy for this deck to exist :P Nice one.

17 Sep 2016 MrHuds0n

Literal cancer.

17 Sep 2016 c-hung

Have you tried Reclamation Order to help recall mushin or not necessary?

17 Sep 2016 kevo31415

@c-hung with 4-counter Vitruvius and 3x Archived memories I think there is enough recursion in this deck, from my experience playing it.

23 Sep 2016 weepinggorilla

Why no Magnet?

30 Dec 2016 Xer0

Wait, why no Custom Biotics? Its like the best HB ID.

14 Mar 2017 SHIEL

Would you switch one or more ABTs for NEXT Wave 2?

15 Mar 2017 TheBigBoy

No, you need FA to finish the game and 1 brain damage is irrelevant.