Brainiac - 2nd place at Rio de Janeiro Store Tournament

I've been testing a lot Cybernetics Division: Humanity Upgraded lately. The dangerous game it proposes with brain damage is a different take on HB that I'm really enjoying playing. My main problems with it was Agenda Flooding and landing the last brain damage so I could flatline the runner. I tried a wild array of cards, including Chairman Hiro (a good card still), a full net damage suite, a meat damage suite with Punitive Counterstrike and plain brain damage with Batty. While I do think that Batty and Chairmain Hiro are great tools, I decided to drop the PSI game for a more pragmatic approach. Valley Grid creates deadly servres that the runner just can't run and adds a huge amount of hand pressure. Here is how this deck works.

Early game - I usually go for a fast score. I protect one of the centrals (usually HQ), ICE up a remote and try to score a Self-Destruct Chips ASAP. Another great play is going for a Turing + Ryon Knight combo if you think the runner will run for it. Scoring a single Brain Damage is essential for this deck.

The deadly server - Landing an early Brain Damage is important because it creates pressure in the runner (who can't let you score any Self-Destruct Chips anymore) and because it makes Valley Grid all the more dangerous. A 3 ICE deep remote with Valley Grid is death (if you have a Neural EMP, which you should probably have one already) and the runner knows it. Keep the servers with ICEs that have only Brain Damage or ETR (Eli 1.0, Viktor 1.0, Heimdall 1.0, Turing) so the runner have to break'em all or just get out. You can safely start to scoring you big agendas there while the runner will probably try pressure the centrals. Use Jackson Howard and Blue Level Clearance to get to those agendas first and install them fast. Add Shell Corporation there if you didnt already. If you land a second Brain Damage or scores multiple Self-Destruct Chips, the clock will starts ticking for the runner.

Late game - Add Valley Grid to the most pressured central, keep scoring when possible and keep your eco up with Shell Corporation. Neural EMP will probably be enough at the end.

Special cards

Cyberdex Virus Suite - Its use is pretty obvious, its great to let it open in a naked central to avoid ICE destruction by Datasucker/Parasite or big Medium runs and when its trashed, archives becomes dead for free datasucker tokens runs.

Shell Corporation - Amazing late economy card, works amazingly well with Cerebral Overwriter which I had to remove for Ash 2X3ZB9CY. But its still awesome in your deadly remote or to call the runner for a suicidal run.

Viper - Too damn good to be put on centrals that need protection. Mostly, you want all your ICE subroutines to be broken so Valley Grid can do its thing. Spending clicks in them is awesome if a Ryon Knight is there waiting, but some centrals need a more reliable protection and Viper just works. Just remember to clean out datasuckers tokens when possible. Now, damn Net-Ready eyes is a problem and Lab Dog do not solve it (thats why I dont use it), but you can try it. If Viper becomes useless, install a Valley Grid behind it...its always a good idea.

Heimdall 1.0 - May work like Viper or can be amazingly good in a deadly remote. Use him where you need the most, he is a great ICE mid/late game to activate Ryon Knight or to simply say "No, you don't".

Architect - The impossible to be trashed sentry, this card is so awesome that I added a second one (I started playing 3 Ryon Knight). Break all his subs and you win. Do not break any of it and you win too. Just too damn good in your remote or anywhere, really. This card protecting any of your centrals in the early game make all the more easy to create your remote server. Just grab any ICE and put in there.

Ichi 1.0 - Another great sentry thats expensive to break and obligatory for the runner to break it all. Its problem lies in its trace, that can be ignored by the runner if you are poor, avoiding the #Valley Grid effect.

Turing - I used to have Hourglass for Ryon Knight combos. This is just all around better. Way better. WAYYYYYY better,

Ash 2X3ZB9CY - This card is just too damn good to be ignored, and in this deck its potentially killer. More than once, the runner will run in the third click. He will never run in the last (Ryon Knight) and maybe not in the first because he is really low on cards. Ash 2X3ZB9CY just crash runner dreams of third clicks run. He is extremely painfull in your remote, just completly negating the runner the chance to at least steal the agenda or at least trash Valley Grid and he is the perfect card to be fetch by an Architect

Problems - 44 cards is really not ideal. Agendas will show up way more then you want it, and since this deck is way glacier and slow, I'm pretty sure 49 cards is the way to go. Decks that do not run enough are a huge problem, and Valencia/Noise are terrible matchups. I'm still changing this deck way too much and I probably will put an updated version of it soon. I'm posting this deck because it was this iteration that I used in our first Rio de Janeiro Store Tournament...for an amazing 10 people extremely passionate about this game.

Report - 1st game - Lost to a Kate ppv (that had public sympathy..oh boy) with a very bad agenda flood at R&D (like I said, happens a lot). Even being a fast game, went on to land 4 BD by a combination of Ryon Knights and Architects.

2nd - Lost to a Valencia that almost never run. This is a terrible matchup and I made a lot of mistakes. I should probably try to be more aggressive in scoring in these kind of decks.

3rd - Won against a classic Andromeda for a very long game. As soon as the player got how the deck works, he went very defensive. Most servers got high protected and a R&D run that keep him with a single card was the leave for double Neural Emp (I had 3 in my hand)

We had to end the tournament before the 4th game since we started too late. But was great to finally get more that 5 players together and start spread the netrunner word :) We are growing slow but steady. Now, in FF just localized the game here in Brazil...maybe someday.

Got second place because my MaxX went on undeafeated. Will post a second version of this deck later on, and any feedback is highly appreciated.