39% agendas JPE

I've been playing this deck online for a while now, but decided to finally write it up, after an opponent asked for a decklist of it, and in case we see jinteki.net undergo Apocalypse once more.

The deck is 39% agendas, and doesn't have any giant silver bullets; I've won games against Leela, Feedback Filter, and the like, though of course it makes it much harder. I'd say the greatest weakness is to ice destruction + siphon spam + R&D digs/Keyhole/DLR mill - it runs sufficiently few ice that it can't recover from losing a bunch.

You have a few main win conditions:

• 24/7 News Cycle + Philotic Entanglement for the kill. If you can score Philotic early, your life becomes much easier [unless the runner has Turntable.] You can tutor for Philotic with The Future is Now, or for 24/7 news cycle. Afterwards Project Kusanagi can be single-advanced to serve double duty as flatline assistance [if the runner doesn't run it], or power up Philotic [if the runner runs it.] I've successfully flatlined a runner with 9 cards in hand and a Guru Davinder out [process: click 1, advance 1-counter Project Kusanagi, score, trashing Guru Davinder. Click 2, 24/7 for 6 net damage, click 3 24/7 for 6 net damage.] That said, Philotic is a 1-of, it's quite possible the runner will steal it, or that you'll never find it.

• Deck the runner out with constant net damage, and if necessary, Chronos Project recurred with 24/7 News Cycle when appropriate. You can finish up the kill with a few House of Knives counters in this case [it's also a tertiary target for 24/7 News Cycle.]

• Although much less reliable, I've gotten a number of flatlines from the constant net damage, where a runner runs into a Snare! when not expecting it, or runs a Psychic Field on last click. Either Clone Retirement or Project Kusanagi can be scored from hand to finish off a runner with an empty grip. I've even managed to flatline a Gang Sign Leela by scoring an agenda at the worst possible moment for her [she had <2 credits left, and I had 2-3 Fetal AIs in HQ.]

• Finally, getting to 7 agenda points is always a possibility though far more remote. This becomes much more realistic if the runner doesn't run on remotes, or if you score Philotic early.

Notes on strategy:

• Try to ensure that you always have a taxing target for Mind Game, whether it's a Psychic Field out in the open, a DNA Tracker/Archer/Cortex Lock on a server, or an Archives full of Shock!. Although redirecting the runner to an empty server is a possibility in crucial runs [e.g. Siphon], you'll want a threat to back it up the rest of the time, or the runner will just repeatedly run bidding 0.

• At the start of the game, I tend to install agendas and traps out as soon as I find them never-advance style. You'll quickly get a handle on the runner's play style [whether they always run remotes, never do it, or a mix.] The worst possibility for this deck is that the runner always runs remotes, and has enough card draw/recursion/economy to eat traps. In that case, you'll want to play much more defensively, setting up an iced remote to make runs far more taxing. Installing traps behind ice can be effective for baiting out Inside Job and tutors.

• Leela deserves a special mention for this deck; you'll want to play more defensively against her. Try to ice every server, and maintain a single defended remote [whether there's a trap or agenda in there.] Losing agendas becomes much more painful against her due to the high tempo hit.

• This deck has so many agendas that it doesn't run currents. Usually you can disable other currents with never-advance agendas or fast-advanced Clone Retirement [or Kusanagi if really necessary.]

• The ice suite is selected to be reasonably cheap [this deck runs fairly light on economy] while still being taxing. Archer is usually very effective at being taxing, but when facing Switchblade, you'll want to save it for a surprise instead.