Power Shutdown Jinteki

Deck Archetypes
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Hey all, getting back into ANR again. I played a few games with power shutdown jinteki last week and did really terrible.

Power shutdown was great, I played 2 shapers and got to blow up SMC twice - I think i might have been able to be more patient with it, and try to hit their clone chips later - still have to play more to see what the best moves would have been.

Still lost most of my games, I’m not sure what the best way to use some of this new ice is yet. Swordsman and Yagura namely.

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Yagura is the best ICE ever for turn 1 RnD. Especially good in an “only Code Gate in the deck” kind of situation - you’re paying 1-2 credits to gear-check decoders, because running through Yaguras naked, while tempting at first, is not a sustainable long-term plan.

Swordsman is pretty meh, I’d only run 1 of them, and probably only if I’m also running Chum (because that actually makes it somewhat taxing and out of Mimic range).

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In an only Code Gate in the deck kind of situation? Are you kidding me?
If you play only one code gate it should end the run and you should be able to play it on whatever server you want.

Also running through a Yagura repeatedly is bad but running through quandary repeatedly without a breaker is not possible.

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The most direct comparison is obviously Quandary (same rez cost, same str, same parasite vulnerability). Is it strictly better though? In my opinion, it really depends on what you value more:

  • one failed run at an arbitrary server
  • one net damage, a presumably unfruitful RnD run and a larger tax for all breakers but Yog

It’s an early-game ICE, for sure. In the early game, I’ll probably be wanting to primarily defend centrals, and I’ll be wanting a good cost:benefit ratio. Since it’s a central, the ICE being porous is less of a deal than it would be on a remote (and even more so since you’re presumably Jinteki). Yagura is actually very decent on any central, not just RnD - the scrying effect is not to be underestimated even outside of the context of an RnD run in progress.

Also, one small (but relevant, in my experience) note - Quandary doesn’t draw a parasite, while a Yagura sometimes does. This can very well be an added benefit if you’re playing other ICE you’d rather not have parasited (Tsurugi and Archer, most notably).

So far, the only time I even remotely wished Yagura were an ETR code gate was this one game where I got Eschered and all three of them got put on a remote (so the runner could only break the damage sub each time). But, you know, they totally pulled their weight before that and I still got a free super-scrying out of it every time the runner went for the remote (pulling good cards over mediocre ones with my mandatory draw), while they still taxed just as much as Quandaries would have… so I’m totally ok with that.

tl;dr: in Jinteki, if you only have 2 slots for code gates, you could do way worse than 2 Yaguras.

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Yeah in certain situations Yagura costs one credit more to break then Quandary.

I value the added flexibility to use Quandary as early remote ice to rush an agenda. But that’s probably because I have played HB for to long.

I have played a lot of NEXT Design and fell in love with NEXT Bronze. Until we get another NEXT ice Quandary is almost strictly better.

So I might overestimate it’s strength in Jinteki.

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Thanks, I re-cut the deck with a what should be a tighter ice package now. Will give it another go tonight and see if it’s worth developing.

Faerie and Sharpshooter are the worst for this deck, and they are seeing a lot of play everywhere. They do double duty against PS decks, and they are so good on their own that people don’t need to make cuts to their runner decks to meta against you.

I’m just spit-balling here, but it seems as if the runner has too much control over the outcome of a PS.

We control what ice-breakers they need to install with what we play and rez, but criminals are going to drop faeries naturally, shapers are going to drop clonechips and memory chips and all of this stuff turns off our shutdowns – The big problem is that we have up to 12 card slots dedicated to power shutdown!

In a shutdown jinteki deck:
~3 PS
~3 Jackson
~3 Subliminal
~3 Shock

In each individual card slot it can come down to the above cards only being better than others because of the shutdown synergy.

All of this is making it hard for me to place Powershutdown in decks that aren’t going for combo-kills.

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Jinteki Shutdown:

12 Agenda:
3 Clone Retirement
3 Braintrust
3 Fetal AI
2 NAPD Contract (If you dont like the conflict between bad pub and this, can play Nisei Mk II)
1 Veterans Program (Or whatever).

17 Ice:
3 Quandary
1 Yagura

2 Wraparound
1 Himitsu Bako
1 Wall of Static
2 Bastion

2 Rototurret
2 Neural Katana
2 Grim
1 Archer

12 Operation:
3 Power Shutdown
3 Hedge Fund
3 Celebrity Gift
3 Subliminal Messaging

8 Other:
3 Shock!
3 Jackson Howard
2 Caprice Nisei (Maybe should be 3?)

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The answer is actually pretty simple - if shutdown gets turned off by faeries and sharpshooters, play a deck that would really mind your opponent having them. If he’s trashing them to shutdown, he’s not trashing them to their intended use.

Edit: Alex’s list isn’t too shabby, though Sam’s Madness store championship list is a much more refined take on the concept, in my opinion.

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I’m not tweaking a deck to beat my friends, unless otherwise stated, around here, discussing tournament viability is implied unless otherwise stated.

That being said, “play a different deck” seems to be the direction that my testing with shutdown has been leading me towards.

Maybe after this next set of Jinteki agendas rolls out, the corp won’t have to work so hard to make such huge scoring windows, and can leverage their agenda points better with meaningful scores.

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Imo, my deck is a much more refined version of that deck.

Specifically, the Priority Requisitions are insanely bad, and agendas that are painful/hard for the runner to take are awesome (Fetal/NAPD).

Not having Rototurrets in the deck feels like a big mistake, I’d take 2 Roto over the second Archer.

Sundew felt weak in it, and didnt work well.

That deck is basically what this deck looked like when I started, and then after playing it a lot I made the changes that resulted in this version. To be fair, that deck was pre-Future Proof, so it didnt have NAPD or Caprice, and had to play other agendas and Troubleshooter instead.

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It might very well be a question of playstyle preferences:

  • for instance, I much prefer playing to 3 agendas (Clone Retirement doesn’t count :P) in a deck that revolves around creating scoring windows, and the free rezzes are very useful (I play a slightly different ICE suite when compared to Sam’s original list)
  • Sundews have been nothing but pure value, sometimes baiting people into game-deciding Archers and such. Even if that doesn’t happen, they can bait Shutdown-enabling runs, or when left alone, manufacture insane amounts of money
  • Rototurret didn’t work well for me, as it’s yet another sentry that gets owned by Mimic (and every other sentry breaker ever, including a naked Dagger)
  • The taxing agendas are nice, but the theme doesn’t really feel supported by the ICE package (with the exception of 1 archer and 2 bastion, and arguably Grim) - at the very least, shouldn’t the Katanas be Tsurugis?
  • Getting Archer, Grim and Roto to connect without Troubleshooter, Chum and similar is presumably rather tricky as well
  • Niseis instead of Braintrusts - has to stay on the table for one turn just the same, but actually does a massively useful thing when scored

3 Caprice is probably too much, as you’d have to cut a Subliminal or a piece of ice to fit her in - 2 seems from play experience as well.

In general, your list reads like it wants to play more a war of attrition, which is not the feel I got from playing with Sam’s list. Not sure I’d call it a separate archetype, but they’re probably different enough to warrant not calling them versions of each other.

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Well, its hard to know how to respond when literally everything you say is the exact opposite of my experience from testing.

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I’m trying to find out where those differences in playstyle that make those changes good lie, so opposite experience is exactly what I’m interested in. I’ll ask specific questions, then:

  • Why were PriReqs insanely bad? Was it about one getting stolen and that leading to losses before you could really get going? Hard to score? Something else altogether?
  • What about Sundew felt weak? That it needed a separate, defended server? Was it too easily negated by the runner? Usually trashed from RnD? Not giving you any money at all?
  • How do you usually use Rototurret? Do you only rez when it can actually trash something, or do you use it for taxing as well? Where do you usually find yourself placing it?
  • With half your ICE at Str 0, did you get a chance to play against Parasite-centric builds? Atman at 0?
  • Why Wraparound? Is it primarily a defense against first-turn Crypsis powered siphoning? Are there other factors leading to them being a good use of influence?
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FWIW I tested a similar deck when Power Shutdown first came out and my refined version looks much like Alexfrog’s. Priority Req, Sundew, Project Nisei, etc. were all mediocre to nonfunctional in my environment. I suspect this deck is much stronger than it once was, but we will see.

That said, I did not find Rototurret very effective-- too many people grab early sentry breakers against Jinteki for it to be particularly meaningful.

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my test expirience:

Positive:
Priority Requisition
Brain trusts over any other 2/4 agenda
2 Archers
Katana over Tsuguri
Snare! - additional rnd defense + random damage into breakers
wraparound

Negative:
Rototturret
No 5/3 agenda

Undefined:
Wall of thornes - pretty intresting in this deck, but need more economy
Sundew - very dificult to evaluate this. Sometimes it wins a game, sometimes not. If you use this you should consider swaping quandary for enigma.

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Priority Req: Having it get stolen is “a thing”, especially once they figure out that you arent playing all-in-trying-to-kill-you Jinteki, and are actually trying to score agendas in scoring windows. Its much harder to score PriReq than it is to score 3 difficulty agendas, or NAPD/Fetal which come with build in agendas.

When I Celebrity Gift and have to reveal a PriReq, that is a terrible thing. When I reveal NAPD or Fetal, the runner isnt all that excited to try and get it.

When they run R&D or HQ and they find the PriReq, you get ruined. When they find an NAPD/Fetal, it might open up a scoring window now that they are poor/low on cards for a bit!

Finally, more agendas = more damage to the runner.

The only benefit of PriReq is that it saves you deck space,

Sundew was okay, but it did need an additional defended server, for a deck that is low ice and needs to both ice centrals and an agenda remote. Other economy options are very strong. I’m playing Jinteki PE, not RP. If I was RP I would play it for sure, but I’m not.

How I use Rototurret:
EVERYONE plays Faeries. Lots of Faeries. I use the Rototurret to force them to lose the Faerie. This clears the way for Grim and Archer to kill a Corroder/Yog.
Essentially, rezzing a Grim/Archer and having it get Faerie’d is not great. They find a way to shutdown the Grim/Archer and you are in a bad spot. But rezzing a Rototurret and having it get Faerie’d? Fine, its not that expensive.

I’ve considered cutting Neural Katanas, or moving down to 1, becuase of Mimic. I want to be in a situation where if they play Mimic, I’m just like: Fine, it beats my Rotos. It doesnt help against Grim or Archer or anything else! Power Shutdown is very good at killing Datasuckers, so Mimic is actually pretty bad against my big sentries.

Wraparound: Wraparound is the ultimate ‘force a Corroder’ ice, and this deck is good at killing Corroder. It deals damage, possibly killing corroder from the hand. It plays Power Shutdown to kill Corroder, it plays program destroyers to kill Corroder.
You play Wraparound because if you manage to kill a corroder, then its the best ice ever.

Yes, there are a lot of 0 str ice, but thats mostly because I just swapped Yaguras in for Enigmas. It didnt use to be that way. (And Wraparound doesnt actually count as 0. Without a Corroder its str 7, with a Corroder, its strength no lnger matters).
parasite isnt especially great vs Yagura, it costs more than the Yagura. Parasite is good against Rototurret, (but only at instant speed). I havent seen an Atman in months. But if you DO see Atman decks, replace Neural Katanas with Swordsman?

Snare: Snares were good, mostly in that they make the runner lose random things they might need, which can help you get a crippling program trash/shutdown that eliminates their last breaker of a type. I cut them for Caprice, because I had to cut something, and they are kindof expensive. Its possible that Snare really needs to be in there and something else should go. Shock I find better than Snare in this. After a Shutdown, they run archvies, only to suffer damage. :smile:

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Subliminal PE (49 cards)

Jinteki: Personal Evolution

Agenda (11)
3 Braintrust
3 Clone Retirement
2 Fetal AI
2 Nisei MK II
1 Priority Requisition

Asset (6)
3 Jackson Howard
3 Shock!

Upgrade (3)
3 Caprice Nisei

Operation (12)
3 Celebrity Gift
3 Hedge Fund
3 Power Shutdown
3 Subliminal Messaging

Barrier (4)
3 Himitsu-Bako
1 Wall of Thorns

Code Gate (5)
2 Quandary
1 Tollbooth
2 Yagura

Sentry (8)
2 Archer
3 Grim
2 Neural Katana
1 Swordsman

This is what I’ve been playing. It’s pretty close to Alex’s list without any collaboration. The key differences:

2 Archer, 3 Grim, 0 Roto: The idea that roto can nab a faerie is good, but this deck doesn’t tax money particularly well. Often, I’m sure you can get a faerie with a roto, but you could also get it with a Katana or a Grim. At its core, this is a datasucker hate deck, so maximizing the ICE that demands sucker has been good for me. Even when someone isn’t totally locked out and has a sucker, you can get them with these ICE if you have 2 in a row on a remote and they’re wary of archives because of shock.

3 Bako, 0 Wrap, 1 Tollbooth: Wraparound is good for sure, but I thought that swordsman was a good enough trick vs Atmans and knight breaks wraparound anyway, (but not swordsman). Knight is maybe even more popular than atman right now, (though you can just trash it by trashing the ICE it’s on so it’s maybe not as big of an issue). Tollbooth is the best ICE at stopping R&D lock, and vs sucker criminal, having 6 ICE that demand datasucker makes it very realistic to completely lock them out. It’s also possible to just score behind tollbooth early because it’s such a pain to get through. Bako also kills knights on the spot which is sweet, and it can move around. It’s also cheap.

Other than that, we seem to be mostly on the same page. I like Nisei over NAPD because it’s so absurd with Caprice, (and bad pub and you suck at taxing credits). PriReq because deck space.

Overall, I think this deck is really, really good if you can surprise someone, but if they know what you’re up to, the criminal matchup is still close and the shaper matchup can be pretty bad. That being said, I think it’s still the most competitive Jinteki deck pre- H&P.

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Agreed, its the first Jinteki deck I’ve ever felt was not a complete pile of crap!

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I tried out a version of this deck in a tournament (went 4-0) and agree that it’s pretty strong.
Cut a Subliminal, Neurala Katana, Caprice and Himitsu-Bako to have 3 Snare! and swap the Priority Req for the third Fetal AI and a Profiteering.

I like Fetal / Snare! in this deck, any chance to catch a breaker in the hand is good and helps your core gameplan.

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Priority Req: 3 might not be right, I have lost some games to drawing 2-3 PriReqs early and giving up 6 points on hq runs, but not running 3 pointers is a mistake. the point of your deck is to make vulnerable windows, PriReq and nisei are the two best when you score them (compared to the other jinteki agendas, which are blank points). I could definitely see an agenda suite of 2 PriReq, 3 Nisei, 3 Braintrust, 3 CR working (or drop a 2 pointer for a fetal if you want people to respect fetal)

Roto Vs katana: katana is punishing on turn 1, and costs no influence, both of which are big pulls for me. they both eat fairies and get owned by mimic, but i feel like roto doesn’t give enough of an advantage to spend influence on, since influence is super tight in the archetype. Early katana hits can just randomly win you the game sometimes

Codegates: your deck is designed to kill/neuter datasucker, you probably want a codegate or two out of yog range. even if it’s just a chum + enigma, sometimes that is enough

wraparound: bako does most of the same things, outside of being worse vs atman and crypsis/better vs knight. barriers are a bit of a weak point though, since wall of thorns is a bit too expensive. personally i like 2-3 bakos and some mix of 1ofs (WoS, Bastion, WoT, paper wall)

Sundew: was testing it out after seeing it in goziks list, it’s either amazing or worthless. If I had to make a list for regionals i’d probably just run two restructures over them, but they work well with punishing ice and can bait runs for shutdown