Iceless Shell Game v1.0

I really need to get in that Houksai Grid.

How on earth do one play against Criminal and Account Siphon? I played this deck yesterday and got crushed by not having credits to pay for the installed traps; first click, got hammered with AS, second click, got run on a remote (either trashed asset or stole agenda), third click the same, and fourth click draw card/s.

I'm thinking of making room for Thomas Haas, just to have an economy ready mid-run - if I get hit by an AS and have an advanced Haas I can rez that on the runners remote run. What do you think?

A solution to the "no money for traps problem" might be popup window. having one in front of a junebug means that you can always trigger it. You may also want to consider a matrix analyzer or two so you can install-advance-advance, then put another counter on the ambush when they run on it (or scare them off an agenda when they think its a fatal Junebug!)

A Pop-up or an Analyzer in this deck would make the "Iceless" thing in the title kind of inaccurate. ;) Running an Analyzer would also need the Pop-up, as it costs a credit to advance the card. But yes, a version of this deck that only ran Analyzers and Pop-ups could be quite fun.

Would some Beanstalk Royalties help out in recovering post Account Siphon?

No, they wouldn't. The problem with Siphon is it disables your ability to fire traps for that particular runner turn... and then your stuff will all get trashed without you being able to fire it.

So far I haven't been Siphoned, but the first turn Siphon threat is one of the reasons I'm thinking hard about Ice Wall. The suggestions of Pop-Up Window and Matrix Analyzer are also interesting. Right now, the only ways to mitigate a Siphon are to either have an unrezzed Hokusai that you can dump some credits into (which will still prevent you from firing your traps) or to already have so much money via Celebrity Gift or Profiteering that you don't have to worry about losing 5c. Currently, I hope to see either Hokusai or Celebrity Gift in my opening hand vs Andromeda.

Currently, the deck really needs to score a Profiteering (great) or Gila Hands (okay) between Siphons to avoid being constantly broke. I need to do some playtesting against my Andromeda to see how feasible that is; I've Siphoned a Jinteki player five times in one game with my Andromeda list, so it should be a good test.

One alternative to ice that I'm also considering is simply adding more operation economy so that I'm not getting Siphoned below 4c very often -- Hedge Fund would be first, obviously, then probably Restructure. I'd cut Zaibatsus and traps to make room. If I find that 3x Account Siphon + 3x Same Old Thing wrecks this deck every time, that's the first change I'm likely to make.

Oh, also, that suggestion of Thomas Haas is interesting. A Siphon player would need to run your Haas server first to force you to take the credits -- which means they'd need to know which server it is. Could cut a Zaibatsu and maybe a Junebug or Ronin for 2x Haas.

Having money that can keep you above 4c is an option, but only unless the run two Siphons in a row (but then even a Haas would'nt be much help). But some good operation money could be feasible. I don't know how efficient Thomas Haas is, but atleast he gives you the advantage of the runner having to guess which server to run on before the Siphon - and if you have credits before that run it's a risky business.

I'll have to try it out next week.

Another problem: If you play three copies of profiteering, you will get bad publicity fast. And the run ends after the access phase, which means the runner get free credits to thrash your assets. lets talk clear: account siphon based decks are a bad matchup. On more point: have you thought about Server Diagnostics? For an iceless build this card seems quite helpful.

Since most of my assets are traps, I'm not generally worried about trash cost. A Hokusai that triggers once is a Neural EMP. If I need to use Jackson for draw instead of recursion, I install and click him once or twice, but never rely on him sticking around exposed. If I added something like Server Diagnostics, though, its trash cost would be a significant problem. I doubt I'd get more than $2-4 from it in most games.

The Runner generally doesn't have a lot to do with all that money, since most of their expensive installs aren't useful cards in this matchup. That leads in to the real problem, though, which is that the Runner generally has dead cards they can keep in hand to play around the net damage. So far, I feel like 3x Ronin isn't quite enough punishment for ignoring remotes and focusing on slowly accessing one card from R&D at a time. If I stick to iceless for now, I need another card that incentivizes running a facedown remote with a couple of advancements on it.

Oh, kollapse -- Haas isn't efficient, he's basically just a bank with slight overhead. But being able to advance him freely and then either pop him before an access to spring a trap or Trick off him to a Ronin or agenda does seem like it would be pretty useful. I think I'll test him in the Zaibatsu slot. Let me know how your testing goes!

I tried Haas out, and he did what he was supposed to do: allow me some credits post-Siphon to make the remote traps punishing. The Siphon problem was not the corp getting tons of credits, but me having none to pay for the traps. I have to do a bit more testing, but Haas certainly made it easier against Siphon decks. He makes the corp unsure of how much money you have for Snares and the like, even when you have zero open credits.

Interesting! I'll try him out as well.

What about anonymous Tip over Jackson Howard? One Click: 3 Cards vs Jackson 3 Clicks, 4 Crads. Or is the recursion ability of him that important?

Ah I see, to refill the Snare!

Exactly. I've also used him after a triple EMP.

An idea... how about a few dedicated response team to defend against Account Siphon? The siphon tags the runner and then each dedicated response team will deal dmg. Just an idea :)

Some Jinteki decks run DRT. I've played against it and it sucks. To use it, though, I think this deck would need more tag support, and maybe Encryption Protocol to make it harder to trash. That's a lot of influence. I like the idea, and I may tinker with it after I finish testing Thomas Haas.

Hell GRNDL Refinery next to Haas. Something for traps and something as an investment.

Refinery needs 1 clik to run, it means you can only play it in your turn, and it doesn't work to save your traps.

Thomas Haas has worked as advertised in testing. I tested with +3x Haas, +3x Ice Wall, -3x Zaibatsu, -3x Kaguya. Having Haas, Ice Wall, and Celebrity Gift gives me three turn 1 options that leave me feeling relatively comfortable against Criminals.

However, I've found in all of my testing that the deck does still rely heavily on Runner play errors in order to win. Ignoring remotes and running R&D once a turn while keeping a full hand works well against the deck; Ronin is often not enough of a threat on its own to bait remote runs. In this scenario I try to score a False Lead and then hope the Runner hits a Snare or Fetal on click 1-2.

With no ice, or only Ice Wall, it's too easy for Runners to just draw up on clicks 1-2 or even 1-3, and then make a run or two with 5-7 cards in hand. This keeps them perpetually out of reach of my net damage, so I'm looking at adding HB ice -- some combination of Eli 1.0, Viktor 1.0, and/or Ichi 1.0.

I don't mind if the Runner clicks through them, because those are clicks they didn't spend drawing cards. The brain damage is unlikely to stick, but even one point would go a very long way. An HB brain damage equivalent to Ronin would be an auto-include if it existed.

Adding ice makes Profiteering somewhat worse, although if they're using bad pub creds then they're installing breakers, which is good for me. Unorthodox Predictions is a possible swap, although then Trick of Light would need to come out for Restructure or Hedge Fund.

I haven't tested this change yet, it's just in concept, but I thought I'd post to this thread and see if anyone else is still playing this style of Jinteki.