Loving it. So, what will we do to you today hackeru san?
Impale you on the neural katana? Two or three times, courtesy of Cell portal.
Or, will we take you for a ride of your life with bullfrogs?

Better keep a Crypsis handy...

Heh. Whirlpool onto a bullfrog out to a large string of unrezzed ICE over an Edge of World installed in the Hakusai grid. Gotta build a deck to get this combo to work just once.

Such a good card. This is going to give Jinteki net damage decks a lot more play. I could just see this throwing the runner into a chum with a neural katana behind it and a Project Junebug.

The problem with using this with Bullfrogs is that after the rival take the bullfrog effect, it can jack out in the beginning of the new server run, before approaching the unrezzed Whirpool. Only way to use this with bullfrog is to put Whirpool > Bullfrog, and teleporting then to a killer server. That might work.

Must the runner access the cards that are installed at the root of the server if he encounters whirlpool ?

Must the runner access the cards that are installed at the root of the server if he encounters whirlpool ?

Yes, accessing is not optional once you've passed the last jack out opportunity (which you can't use with Whirlpool) and the run is declared successful. The exception is with cards that say "instead of accessing cards..." I can't think of any upgrades currently that hurt when you access them though.

Hokusai Grid hurts runners and is an upgrade.

The best combo I can think of is to put it in front of a Matrix Analyzer and a double-advanced Project Junebug. It's dirt cheap, and if the runner takes the bait and doesn't have an AI breaker handy, they're done for.

Unless they overdraw or bring along a Net Shield or Deus X, of course, but how often does that happen?

Nice find with Matrix Analyzer, Hanako. Best thing here is that it requires so little money for a clean kill (6 bits in total, including the two advancing the junebug during your own turn.)
Double Analyzer only costs 2 cred more to use and virtually guarantees a kill (apart from Desu X)
makes for very good bluffing opportunities, as such a server can store a double advanced agenda for as long as it takes... unless infiltration comes along.

And with bullfrogs around, it's never really compromised, as you can steer the runner in the right direction when needed. I'm loving this idea.

I've tried a deck based on whirlpool kill combos once and I hated it. You've got all this utility ice like whirlpool, bullfrog, chum, and cell portal (which I didn't use in this deck but people have mentioned) so that simply defending your core servers is incredibly difficult. It greatly lowers your chances of drawing ice that actual stops the runner (which you don't want in your kill server, as the runner will immediately take the first 'end the run' subroutine they hit, meaning you can't use this kill server to protect ice until it's completely finished). My opponent was running a public sympathy and could take up to 7 net dmg most turns, and pulled out a crypsis immediately (which is already prevalent in most runner decks because of chimera). So unless you can catch a runner without crypsis, and get them with whirlpool after you've got a big trap server set up in the right order (or further dilute your deck with Sunset) before the runner raids your HQ/R&D to victory, you're screwed. It just seems like the odds of ever getting all the trap ice plus all the kill ice plus enough extra ice to defend your core servers plus economy cards to fuel the kill server is just waaaaaaay to much reliance on chance for that one perfect kill moment.

Basing a whole deck on kill combos doesn't feel like an efficent road to victory. Try and build a deck that CAN kill combo, but strives to win by advancing agendas. Bullfrogs are not great for central server defence, but if you have enstablished a respectable ICE wall for example you can use it to jump Runners from a remote you want to score to a central and then when they run the central, back to an empty remote. Be flexible.

You were probably trying too hard. Flatlining a runner is extremely simple.

Case in point:
Chum a Whirlpool in front of a Fetal AI, for an easy 5 point damage. If you're the core ID, that's six, and/or if you have a Hokusaki Grid or Neural EMP that's another point. If the runner doesn't score it, advance it until you score. People seem to think kill combos must be extremely detailed. They don't.

This is working well in my HB brain damage deck! Drag them through some nasty HB ICE and they are lucky to come out alive.

I was thinking that a combo with Chum/Whirlpool/Cell Portal Could be pretty effective. Use Watanabe to make it cheaper to rez Cell, If you can, put a Pop Up in there to get money and steal from the runner every loop if you like. Effective cost of 2 to rez cell portal (watanabe + pop up) makes it easy to have the runner loop several times if needed. Note that Whirlpool gets trashed when activated, so on the second loop Chum is in front of cell portal.
If you use Midori, you can even keep the Whirlpool in your hand until you're ready to spring the trap.

If runner does not pay pop-up he is kicked out.. so I do not think that this is good ice with Whirpool. The combo Chum/Whirlpool/Cell Portal + Whatanabe/Troubleshooter is really good but build it is almost imposible in real game.. ;-)