Friday 6 December 2013

Android Netrunner: Jinteki Fast Advance

Considering that Netrunner Season 2 ended a few weeks ago, and Season 3 probably won’t be here until the first quarter of the new year, I figured now would be the perfect time to test new deck ideas! I will go through my metagame-analyzing deck-building process step-by-step.

Archetype Choice

The deck that we’re building should counter the strongest runner decks.
Though I’ve been playing Weyland for a while, and it is a strong deck, many runners have taken to maindecking Plascrete Carapace, which hinders the power of Scorched Earth. I believe that Fast Advance is the way to go. Playing Fast Advance means we can focus more of our ICE on protecting central servers, as our agendas will rarely stay in a remote. This allows more control of their access to Datasucker tokens, and use of their R&D Interfaces and Account Siphons. Once we have the economy and somewhat protected remote, we can score agenda after agenda from hand until we win.

Faction Choice

Obvious faction choices for a Fast Advance deck are HB (for the strong economy the core identity provides, plus the extra clicks from Biotic Labor and Efficiency Committee), and NBN (SanSan City Grid in faction, and Astroscript Pilot Program, arguably the best agenda in the game). However, let’s think about other possibilities. What faction likes to play as many low-cost agendas as possible? I decided to try Jinteki Fast Advance. Though it probably won’t be as fast as HB or NBN, I feel that the upside of the Jinteki core identity can slow down the runner a lot. Andromeda, holding the only Yog.0 in her deck, can no longer run blindly into R&D, even if it’s unprotected, because she could lose her most valuable cards even if she steals an agenda. She’ll need to play it and fill her hand with non-crucial cards before she can run.  It’s relative speed that matters, not absolute speed. There’s also the possibility of a secondary win condition in Jinteki’s net damage, which HB and NBN do not have.


Agenda Choices

Though Fetal AI is almost always played in Jinteki as a 3-of, it is not nearly as good in this deck, which tries to advance low-cost agendas as quickly as possible. Braintrust, a 3/2 agenda, is good, of course. Profiteering nets a huge amount of burst economy, and Clone Retirement removes the bad publicity acquired. Basically, we play all the 3-or-less-to-advance agendas in Jinteki and neutral.


Trap Choices

Considering that our primary win condition is fast advancing rather than damage, traps are not as necessary as in most Jinteki decks. Project Junebug and Ronin are outright bad in this deck, since we won’t be partially advancing many agendas and passing the turn. Since we’ll likely be playing vertically (just one remote server with lots of ice), Edge of World seems good, especially since we don’t have to advance it. Snare always seems good, as a surprise win and to get rid of their resources if we’re lucky. I thought about Scorched Earth as a surprise win as well, but it goes against the deck strategy, costs a lot of influence, and many runners play Plascrete anyway.


Economy Choices

We need plenty of burst economy for a Fast Advance Strategy. Hedge Fund and Melange Mining Corp are great, of course. Profiteering will give us plenty of money once we have our SanSan set up and allow us to chain the scoring of agendas. Celebrity Gift is an excellent source of credits in Jinteki, and since we’re not playing many traps, we don’t mind showing off our hand to the runner. When letting the runner acquire a lot of knowledge of our deck (through Celebrity Gift, R&D access, and HQ access), I often like to play a larger variety of cards (more 1-ofs, less 3-ofs), to keep the runner guessing. They’ll see one Neural Katana or Swordsman, and assume you play 3. After a while, they’ll stop trying to analyze, and it will give you an edge. Playing a larger variety of cards also gives you more options on what to play, and makes it harder for them to set Atman strengths.


Ice Choices

We need ice that punish/stop early aggression, so they need to be cheap and punish icebreaker-less running (Enigma, Ice Wall, Himitsu-Bako, Chum). We need ice that can get around the strong and currently popular fixed-strength icebreakers, so they need to change strength or be big (Ice Wall, Chum, Grim, Archer). We need to be able to play around Emergency Shutdown and Forged Activation Orders, so our ICE need to be cheap (all of them, really). We need to outmanoeuvre Atman and Crypsis, so we will play AI-killers (Swordsman) and variable-strength ICE (Ice Wall, Chum).


Other Choices

SanSan City Grid is the card that enables fast advancing in this deck, and Jackson Howard ensures consistency, though it’s not as important in Jinteki as in other decks because stealing a Jinteki agenda from HQ or Archives isn’t as damaging to the corp as in other factions.


Decklist

3 False Lead
3 Braintrust
3 Profiteering
3 Gila Hands Arcology
1 Fetal AI
3 Clone Retirement

3 Snare
1 Edge of World

3 Hedge Fund
2 Melange Mining Corp
3 Celebrity Gift

3 Ice Wall
2 Archer
1 Rototurret
2 Enigma
1 Neural Katana
2 Swordsman
3 Chum
1 Grim
3 Himitsu-Bako

2 SanSan City Grid
1 Jackson Howard

Other possibilities

Trick of Light could be a very real possibility with Ice Wall and other advanceable ICE/traps/assets, but I didn’t feel that I had enough advanceable things to use it consistently. It also doesn’t seem needed after SanSan City Grid is on a remote server. Precognition is a good card, but I felt that there weren’t many dead cards that needed to be filtered away in this deck (no expensive ICE or narrow niche cards), nor was R&D access a huge problem for me (the runner stealing some points will slow them down).

Try this deck out, and let me know what you think! I’m always open to questions, comments, and suggestions.

2 comments:

  1. I love Jinteki Fast Advance (just swept a little local tournament with it undefeated). But this deck seems like it would be a slog to get to match point. You're skipping out on the only in faction FA card (Trick of Light) because you cut all the cards you'd be pulling counters off of (Junebug, Ronin, Fetal) which for the most part turn out to be great cards to babysit a SanSan between agenda. Interns is also key to recur the SanSans. Finally, I have a lot of concerns with your ice selections, but I highly recommend splashing Janus with Restructure to support it. A well-timed hard rez completely ruins the runner, and is surprisingly easy to pull off. Of course in True Colors, you gain Shock, which makes things a bit more deadly, and a Tsurugi or two is a nice addition.

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  2. This deck is slow to get to match point, compared to NBN fast advance, but it's all about your speed relative to the runner. Because the runner takes damage for every agenda scored or stolen, this deck is very fast relative to the runner.

    The thing I wanted to do with this deck was to fast advance. Ronin, Junebug, and Fetal AI are good to kill the runner, but that's not what I'm trying to do here. I aim to have one heavily protected remote, and Ronin and Junebug would only slow me down. Fetal AI is a good agenda, but it can't be scored from hand with a SanSan, and 5 advancement is way too much. Since I don't often have many advanced assets out, Trick of Light isn't nearly as strong, used with just Ice Walls.

    I tried Interns, and it's great late game when they've already trashed a SanSan, but I find that 90% of the time, I would just rather have an ice or economy card. I've played with Restructure in other decks since building this deck, and I think I would add it into this one.

    My ice selection is all early game ice, which work well for quick fast advance decks. The Archers are well supported by many 1-pointers, and, by trashing icebreakers, will re-enable the early game ice in the deck.

    Janus, Shock, and Tsurugi may be excellent cards in a traditional Jinteki deck, but my deck aims to win by agenda points, rather than damage, and I find they all slow my deck down too much.

    Thanks for the suggestions though! And I'm glad to hear you are doing well with your Jinteki Fast Advance too.

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