Cracking the Genome

I wanted to start a think-tank thread for the new Jinteki ID:

I am very excited about this ID. It feels like a code waiting to be cracked. Reddit already has a thread, but I prefer this community.

The potential I see in IG is to defend assets without ICE. Drip econ becomes stronger, as do some assets that formerly needed defending but weren’t worth it.

The immediately glaring downside to IG is that you have to defend Archives to protect your ability. Until now, Corporations haven’t had to defend Archives much, and sometimes not at all, Sneakdoor aside. This means IG has another central that it needs to defend, and that means spreading your ICE more thin. Maybe my thinking on this is wrong; that’s why I need you all.

Here are some cards I think this ID likes:

PAD Campaign: already one of the more taxing assets to trash, IG could make this card nearly impossible to trash.
Marked Accounts: I think IG prefers sustainable drip like PAD/Marked to expiring drip like the HB Campaigns.
Reversed Accounts: this could easily be a win/win for IG; either the Runner pays a bunch of credits to trash it, or loses a bunch of credits later.
Architect: installing more assets/ICE/Agendas from RND & Archives seems good for a deck that wants to play assets.
Reuse: ditch cards, pump your trash costs, and get paid in the process. luckily only a 1 influence splash.
Dedicated Server: hard to fit in other decks due to its low trash cost, I think this card could really shine in IG.
The Root: a more powerful Dedicated Server, at the cost of 3 influence. perhaps too much, but definitely a card IG would like.
Jackson Howard: many decks like Jackson, but IG wants him to overdraw and ditch extras to pump trash costs.
The Future Perfect: granted, it’s Jinteki’s best Agenda, but I think it is especially important to IG. RND/HQ may be more vulnerable at times in IG than in RP, so TFP’s ability to avoid being stolen is important.
Chairman Hiro: there is no penalty to having Hiro in Archives. In IG, it’s likely the Runner won’t be able to trash him if they access him out of RND/HQ. You can stash Hiro in Archives, then install him later with Architect/Interns.
Anonymous Tip: affordable at 1 influence, and provides card draw that I think IG will want.

and others I don’t have time to list (lunch break). I’ll leave it to you! Let’s crack this code.

One last thought: I think IG might be the first ID that really wants to play with more than the standard 49 cards, especially with no current Corp option to significantly recover cards from Archives.

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3 Shock. 3 Shi Kyu. That’s how I’d start to build this deck. You immediately Howard draw them into the garbage.

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I can’t take credit for it, but Subliminal Messaging works well too. Draw them back up and then just discard facedown.

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I might top it off with space camp and throw in some advanceable ice & traps; possibly reuse to help get those things into your archives. 3x jackson seems a must, though.

Having to pay to trash snares out of hand is going to be a huge problem, or trashing nisei, who may actually just protect archives so that you can put ash elsewhere.

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Glad to see I’m not the only one excited for this!
Cards that I think are very good for it will be Shock & Shi kyu, so that the runner loses a few cards and/or agenda points whenever they run archives to deny your ability.
Power Shutdown might also be good. You can thrash some programs/hardware while making your assets more taxing.
I really think this ID will make assets live longer than they do in RP, but you need some way to turn that money into a win condition, so I’ll probably use Caprice and Ash to score. [And tax cause they will probably cost a lot more to thrash] and losing caprice to random central server acesses will also be highly unlikely since it increases all thrash costs, not just for installed cards.

I’m fairly certain IG wants 3x Reuse, 3x Interns as a starting point, and likely wants to have agendas in archives instead of HQ while it’s building a scoring remote.

You also almost certainly want Ronin/Reversed accounts, which you can advance copies of in the open to force the runner to spend 10+ credits on to avoid being killed.

Siphon shouldn’t be a big issue after the early game because you will be hitting lots of drip econ, but Opus/Vamp will be an issue, and Hades Fragment will be an issue, just because it will turn everything face up.

Shock and Shikyu are mandatory as well, obviously.

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dedicted response team obv

Agreed. Reuse is perfect. Panic Button to combo? Reversed Accounts is great. Really need traps in here.

Mushin is a no brainer.

This card is something this ID really wants and makes it much more playable:

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Panic button is a must, but the influence is high for a deck that wants a lot of 1 inf cards already. I’m thinking a copy or two of Executive bootcamp to tutor for Panic Button, jackson, and/or Mushin targets is probably the way to go.

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Bootcamp… great call.

I feel this coming together. No damage in here, right? Econ war is the goal, amiright?

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It’s strange, though. I feel like it should play a little something like RP, but you still need to leverage the econ advantage into scored points. I guess the best way to do that is a strong remote with an untrashable Ash, but with all these moving parts mentioned, along with economy cards and ice enough for 4 servers, how are you going to fit everything in a deck?

I do think Anonymous Tip will be excellent for this ID, along with Jacky H (obviously).

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I’m not sure that Ronin isn’t still worthwhile combined with the shocks in archives, and the mandatory trashing if you ever get two in play, but econ denial is likely the main strategy. Security Testing is still going to be annoying, but getting some tag mechanisms in here is almost impossible.

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Could use that money for a mega kill, either utilizing CT/Shinobi, or Sussuanonoajonooanoao/un-ICE’d Archives/Ronin.

Caprice should be on Archives.

From what I can recall, Ash might be pointless for defending Archives, since apparently you flip cards (in Archives only) before accessing… though Security Testing doesn’t, but it’s a replacement, so I’m not sure.

I’m wondering about Hostile Infrastructure. Mostly depends on who does the trashing with Parasite – if it’s the runner, as I assume, then that gives you a way to keep out taxing/dangerous ice and more or less prevent them from ever doing anything about it. Komainu either gets bypassed, Shutdown, or paid through.

I don’t think Panic Button works well. Requires a run on HQ to get it firing. I do think that Mental Health Clinic or Sundew would work better than Marked Accounts, though – they’re in-faction and very effective if the trash cost is high enough. (Also, MHC makes Komainu more powerful tax.)

3 Jackson, 3 Tip, 1 Root (recur with interns), 3 Space Camp (when available, use to advance Ronins), 3 Reuse? Should cut something for Bootcamp, maybe. Or Architect, damn. Maybe Crick’ll be able to fill that role, when we get it, some?

I think taxing credits and cards is the way to go. Make them pay through the roof to trash things and hurt them for the privilege. Then pull what you need back out of archives and get right back to it.

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Was thinking the same. And with Crick installed in Archives it becomes very taxing. If runner doesn’t break Crick corp just installs Caprice again from archives with Crick subroutine and rez her if runner manages to trash her sometime. But corp needs 2 ICE in archives to do this where Crick is the outermost because otherwise corp doesn’t have a rez window for Caprice.

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I’d actually prefer running power shutdown over reuse. Reuse’s timing is tricky and it practically requires an overdrawn hand. It’s not that ideal case is rare (5 card holdover, mandatory draw, jackson or anonymous tip 1st click, and reuse), but rather I really dislike the 3 click inflexible commitment.

Power shutdown, by contrast, lets your pick your poison precisely, only needs one click to work, and also might snipe something useful. On the other hand, Reuse lets you choose which cards you trash, while power shutdown is a crapshoot whether you mill something crucial. Also, influence.

I want to make a sentry-heavy program destruction variant (with Power Shutdown), with Grim in the mix, along with Architect and the usual Jinteki sentry ice.

As far as traps go, Reversed Accounts might be the all-star here since if it goes off the runner gets further behind. I would include Ronin (maybe?) and Psychic Field and not much else. Runner decks with finite, bursty econ are going to have trouble keeping up with the assets. I also wanna include IT department. With one influence I think it’s worth it.

Hostile Infrastructure is the dream but still too costly for my taste (though it’d make your Snares more delicious). I’d rather run a flurry of cheap assets (IT dept. Mental Health Clinics, PAD, Ronin, Psychic Field, Reversed Accounts, maybe Dedicated Response Team) with larger ice, than cheaper ice in exchange for bigger assets.

Basically I’m in favor of running Snares instead of Shocks, and heavily icing Archives to store agendas instead of relying on Shocks to dissuade runs on it. I can back out of the bluff with Jackson.

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Agreed, Power Shutdown and Reversed accounts look very strong with this ID.

Subliminal Messaging, Marked accounts, Pad Campaign, and Mental Health Clinic all look like viable economic options. I’m guessing the plan would be to leverage drip economy to score out of a ash/nisei remote eventually?

While probably too combo centric and influence heavy for competitive play, a fun deck would be to run midseasons and dedicated response team. You could put a data raven on archives, forcing the runner to pick up a tag or trash the DRT at a huge trash cost. Blending the DRT with Psychic Fields could be interesting.

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Influence is gonna be tight and while this ID is uniquely positioned to deviate from Jinteki’s normal bag o tricks, it really can’t afford to import too much

Executive for asset tutoring along with Interns would let you splash assets much more sparingly, I guess. Still wary of big effect assets like The Root, Eliza’s & IT dept.

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Don’t forget Shoot the Moon! :smile:

Stoked to see so many replies in here. Boot Camp is perfect! and only 1 influence. As already mentioned, deck space is going to be the biggest challenge to deck-building with IG, IMO. What do people think about my speculation that IG wants to run more than 49 cards? The only real downside is the dilution of influence density, and if your imported cards are crucial this could be an issue.

We haven’t spoken about agendas yet. What does an agenda spread for IG look like?

How about ICE?

Another question, that @spags somewhat addressed: is flatline the best route for IG? While Snare and Shock both immediately came to mind when I saw this ID, I didn’t put them on my list because I’m not sure yet. I think PE would still do flatline easier, although untrashable Ronin’s is a cool concept. 2 Mushin’d Ronins with a defended Archive in IG is a pretty quick flatline unless the Runner is packing prevention/extra hand size. But will we find room for these flatline cards? After all, if you’re not going to win a significant number of games via flatline, I don’t think Snare is worth a slot. Shock, maybe; it is click compression in the worst case scenario.

I think it would have been safe for FFG to give IG more than 15 influence. It is the only ID printed so far that is potentially a blank card. The ability doesn’t seem powerful enough to justify that. 17 or even (gasp) 20 influence would be interesting to think about. As mentioned, I think IG wants to import many cards, and time might show 15 to be too low to make it a serious ID.

1 Like