Tech Talk - Whirlpool

Welcome back to Tech Talk. We’re going to keep at this whole deckbuilding thing by taking a crack at whipping up a Jinteki deck using the brand-new love-it or leave-it ICE, Whirlpool.

Ah, Whirlpool. Every Jinteki player’s eyeballs popped out of their heads when they first saw the card. “Here it is,” the exclaimed, “the holiest of holies, the grail from which my Jinteki deck will drink and become immortal! I’mma gonna make someone run into Bullfrog and jump ‘em over to a six-advanced Project Junebug installed over a Hokusai Grid! Or, or, or… Yeah, I’m funna make some poor schlub Runner slowly, inexorably make his way down a long tunnel of Neural Katanas right into an Edge of World. Boom boom boom! Slice and also dice! Flatlines for everyone!”

The reality of the situation, of course, is that Whirlpool ain’t gonna be that easy to use. First off, it requires being in the correct position, so a Whirlpool in your opening hand is going to disappoint.

Second, it requires a fair bit of skill to use effectively. No Runner worth his salt is going to just run blind into a tower of Jinteki ICE now that Whirlpool is a possibility. You may be able to train your opponents (i.e. bluff them) into running on an Edge of World, but you’re probably going to have to put yourself in a hole in order to do so, a hole that will be your grave if they figure out what you’re up to.

So, if you are very seldom going to get that big, fat kill off a single Whirlpool, then what the heck should you be doing with it?

Killing the Runner by degrees. Chipping away at them, slowing them down, softening them up, and then either winning by Agendas or flatlining them when they are desperate. It’s very similar to the way that we feel Edge of World (Cyber Exodus) should be played – put it behind one or two pieces of ICE so that they waste a click running and you get to ding them, wearing them down little by little.

However, we still want the threat of flatlining to be very real. And, since Jinteki has the worst mix of in-house Agendas in terms of cost-to-points (one 3-for-2, one 4-for-2 with a great ability, and one 5-for-2 that doubles as an Ambush), flatlining should be something we are actively trying to do. The problem is that, as soon as you put a Jinteki ID down on the table, the Runner is watching for tricksy Net damage. By being known as the Corporation of deception and mind-games, Jinteki actually has a harder time fooling the Runner. So, we need to add an element of surprise that feeds into the idea of flatlining the Runner…

And to us here at Tech Talk, that can only mean Scorched Earth (Core). Runners will often be more casual about tags against a Jinteki deck. They’ll still clear them, but sometimes they may let a tag ride a turn, counting on you’re not having much with which to punish them. We can even maintain the surprise in light of playing ICE like Hunter, since Hunter (Core) behind a Chum (Core) is a pretty standard early-game combo for Jinteki (a super-cheap 6-Strength Sentry that can now cause three Net damage).

With that basic premise in mind, we’ll set about building a Jinteki deck. We’ll use the original flavor Personal Evolution ID in order to keep with the damage theme.

First let’s get some ICE picked out. We know we’re using Whirlpool, since it’s the focus of this week’s article, but we don’t actually want to treat it as ICE, we want to think of it as a trap, an Ambush like Project Junebug or Snare! As we stated up top, we’re not going to be trying to build a single server of doom hoping to lock the Runner into running all the way down it and into some ridiculousness. Instead, we’re going to be playing a bit of a shell game and using Whirlpool to force the Runner to deal with the things we want them to deal with (most likely Traces for tags). Whirlpool in front of Chum and Hunter. Whirlpool in front of Neural Katana (Core) and Edge of World when the Runner isn’t prepped. That kind of thing. Also, Whirlpool can be used as a deterrent. Runners will be wary of hitting one, so they may be using Snitch or other expose effects to check out what they might be running into. If they see a Whirlpool, they may hold off running on that server, assuming you’re trying to, you know, kill them. Why not use that paranoia to install and score an Agenda behind one?

So, back to ICE – We’ll grab a three-pack of Neural Katana, since damage is our game and it’s a nice piece of ICE in the early game. Chum and Hunter are no-brainers for what we’re trying to do, since the combo can pretty reliably cause some damage in the early game and then possibly stick a tag or two in the mid- and late-game (Runner will usually break Chum and then walk through Hunter against Jinteki, if they think you can’t capitalize on the tags). In the same vein, we’ll grab a couple copies of Shadow (Core), since it’s ability to be advanced will seem like the reason we’ve included it, hopefully not cluing the Runner into the fact that we’re trying to land tags in addition to dinging them with Net damage (ah, subterfuge about our subterfuge, does it get any more Jinteki-y?). If we want to stick tags AND play mind games, there’s nothing better than Data Raven (Core). Including it will definitely make the Runner scratch her head but it may actually tip our hand a bit too strongly – you don’t play Data raven unless you care about tags. We’ll want to be careful about when and where we play it but the paranoia it can cause in the Runner shouldn’t be undervalued. Since we’re planning on playing more horizontally than vertically, we’re going to want less ICE than the norm, but we should probably pack something that can actually stop the Runner. To that end, we’ll include two copies of Wall of Static and one Wall of Thorns.

With so little ICE, the Runner will be making a lot of successful runs, probably on our Centrals. While we can trust in Snare! (of which we’ll pack three copies) and our passive Corp ability to make them pay for Maker’s Eye/Medium and/or Nerve Agent/HQ Interface, we’ll also pack a couple copies of Hokusai Grid (Humanity's Shadow) in order to ding them for dinging us. Remember, the river wears away the mountain over time.

We’ll need economy. The standard Hedge Fund trio will do us well. In addition, we’ll pack Private Contracts over Melange Mining Company, since our remotes will be, for the most part, naked. Luckily, we don’t need a ton of credits, so hopefully, we’ll be okay.

As far as other Assets go, we’ll want Project Junebug and Edge of World. It looks like we won’t have room for Trick of Light (and honestly, we’re pretty cash-strapped, so advancing ICE now to score later probably isn’t in our best interests), so Junebugs will most likely never get higher than one or two Advancements. We’ll want to leave naked Agendas out with an Advancement or two in order to tempt the Runner into our traps. You need nerves of steel to run this kind of Jinteki deck, but man is it fun.

Our Agenda mix is pretty set: three copies of each in-house Agenda leaves us two Agenda Points short, so we’ll grab a Private Security Force. PSF works well with our tagging plan and playing all 2-pointers means the Runner needs to steal four Agendas to win.

We’re not going to hesitate to use Fetal AI as a trap, by the way. Three Net damage and two credits to steal it is a pretty good trade-off for the two points the Runner gets. If you’re going to be reckless with Agendas, try to make sure it’s a Fetal AI.

To round things out, we’ll take two copies of Scorched Earth (since it’s the chewy candy center of the deck) and three copies of Neural EMP. The two of those go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly in this deck. The combo is why you want to try to have an Agenda advanced but unscored on the table every once in a while. Socrched Earth, Neural EMP, Neural EMP, score Agenda, good game. It won’t happen often, but usually one SE and one Neural EMP are enough to seal the deal.

So, here’s the wacky deck we’re gonna try out:


Fatal Caligraphy
Deck Built with the Android: Netrunner Deckbuilder


Identity:
Jinteki: Personal Evolution (Core)

Total Cards: 49

Agenda (10)
Braintrust (What Lies Ahead) x3
Fetal AI (Trace Amount) x3
Nisei MK II (Core) x3
Private Security Force (Core) x1

Asset (10)
Project Junebug (Core) x3
Snare! (Core) x3
Private Contracts (Cyber Exodus) x2
Edge of World (Cyber Exodus) x2

ICE (19)
Neural Katana (Core) x3
Chum (Core) x2
Hunter (Core) x3
Data Raven (Core) x2 â– â– 
Shadow (Core) x3 â– 
Whirlpool (Humanity's Shadow) x3
Wall of Thorns (Core) x1
Wall of Static (Core) x2

Operation (8)
Neural EMP (Core) x3
Hedge Fund (Core) x3
Scorched Earth (Core) x2 â– â– â– â– 

Upgrade (2)
Hokusai Grid (Humanity's Shadow) x2


Total Agenda Points: 20

Influence Values Totals –
Haas-Bioroid: 0
Jinteki: 38
NBN: 4
The Weyland Consortium: 11

A word of warning: This deck is all theory at this point. It is completely untested. It is built on the chassis of an older, pre-Humanity’s Shadow Jinteki deck that did fairly well, but who knows.

HOWEVER, this was done ON PURPOSE. It’s something new we’re trying out here at the old Tech Talk ranch. You see, Tech Talk will be going bi-weekly for a while (actually, it already has, if you hadn’t noticed) but this will give all you Tech-Heads (as we call you here at Tech Talk HQ) something to do between articles. Go out and try this deck. Don’t just take a look and declare it crap, actually take some time and play with it. One game or fifty, we don’t care, just try it out and come back here to the comments to tell us what you think, how it can be tweaked, if it needs to be scrapped, whatever, but take the time to try it out and let’s learn from it together.

Okay, enough Hippie crap. Get out there and flatline some Runners!