If you got hit with Information Sifting right before your combo went off is that an auto loss? How would you divide your hand in that case?
I think the general consensus is that you just divide your hand 50/50 with all the agendas and Jacksons in one pile and nothing in the other side and hope. That doesn’t always apply, like, if you have doubles of several pieces and you can combo very soon, and critically they don’t win off the accesses if you give them half then maybe you just split it and give them some, but generally it’s considered best to just risk it as losing agendas and Jacksons both accelerates their game and buries yours by forcing you to draw into more combo pieces all over again.
This is only assuming they hit you when you have the combo in hand but haven’t yet been able to shutdown or draw your whole deck. Earlier than that you might be fine as you might just not have drawn enough things they can steal to care yet.
If you have any cards in your deck available to you, what board states are impossible to win from?
Had a discussion with a CI player this weekend and he said that one of the worst things for him to see is a Clot and 3 SacCon. I swear I’ve seen that situation solved here, just with a ton of extra cash.
The only ways to prevent a CI combo, regardless of anything they might be holding, involve removing cards from the game with Slums or Archive Interface? (i.e., you can combo through Rumor Mill via Scarcity of Resources, but if they remove Jackson from the game it becomes impossible. How many Jacksons need to be removed before it’s literally impossible?)
Are there other situations that are impossible to combo from that don’t involve ‘well I only have X in hand…’ or ‘because I don’t have Y credits’? Aka, with your entire deck in hand and 200 credits, what can you not combo out of?
I’m pretty sure the answer is two. I think they can still do the full 7 AP combo with 2 Jacksons.
I’m gonna reply somewhat differently, as though the statement were: “You have infinite credits and every card you want in your hand but every card you don’t want in discard pile”. I’m also still including PS in these combos, assuming that all the cards you don’t need are still in deck.
Beating SacCon really depends on your deck. If you include the 1x cyberdex trial as well as the CVS its a lot easier than having to do it the hard way, however with a perfect hand you can purge 4 times before scoring, but leave yourself vulnerable to an additional clone chip:
BL 4 ****
BL 8 *****
SFMM (JH, JH, EC) 9 ****
SFMM(JH, CVS, PV) 10 ***
PS 11 **
AD (BL, BL, SFSS(EC)) 20 *****
AD (SFSS(EC), BL, BL) 29 ******** (8 clicks)
install GFI 29 ******* (7 clicks)
AD (SFSS(GFI), BL, BL) 38 ********** (10 clicks)
rez CVS, purge with CVS and manually x 3, 38 *
score EC, take clicks 38 ****
SFK x 3 on GFI+PV, 38 * (note: no answer to clone chip for clot here)
with clone chips as well as 3x sac con, you need cyberdex trial (CT) in the deck to win.
with cyberdex trial in the deck
BL 4 ****
BL 8 *****
sfmm (JH, JH, EC) 9 ****
Sfmm (JH, CVS, PV) 10 ***
PS 11 **
AD (CT, SFSS(EC), SFSS(EC)) 12 * (-1 saccon or you just score here)
AD (BL, BL, CT) 21 **** , rez CVS and manually purge, 24 *, score EC and take clicks 24 ****
install GFI 24 ***
AD (interns(CVS), SFSS(GFI), SFK(GFI/PV)) 25 **
SFK GFI+PV x2, rez CVS and score 28. (beats clone chip + 3x saccon)
Note: CI7 can’t combo a full 7 points in without the cyberdex trial, but there’s nothing saying that you HAVE to combo just because you’re a combo deck. You have reasonable gear-check ice and can often scare the runner away from running before they’re fully setup to stop you, allowing you to score early by ignoring clot altogether.
As far as removing Jackson’s from the game goes… Here’s a solution to only having 1x JH left:
BL x 2, 8 *****
SFMM(JH, EC, PV) 9 ****
PS 10 ***
AD (BL, SFSS(EC), SFSS(EC)) 15 ****
install GFI, adv twice 17 *, score EC and take clicks 17 ****
sfk(GFI+PV) x 3, 17 *
And if you’ve spent a turn scoring an EC the hard way (even just BL+BL+install+adv x 4), you can do it with no Jackson Howards.
take EC clicks ******
SFMM(GFI, PV, anything(CVS if needed?)) 1 *****
SFSS(GFI) ***
SFK(GFI+PV) x 3, score and win)
That said, despite finding these solutions, there are definitely combinations of hate that CI7 cannot combo through. For example the triple SacCon is completely busting out everything it possibly has to beat in the standard deck and still can’t beat a clone chip as well, let alone if you added a councilman or two first.
Can’t you use Archived Memories to return the CVS and re-purge with that for 3 credits + 2clicks instead of 3 clicks? Or use an Interns?
I actually think you could do 1 Jack with a perfect hand and no adversity:
PS ••
Biotic Biotic ••••
SFMM Jack EC PV •••
AD SFSS SFSS Biotic ••••
Install GFI •••
Advance GFI twice •
Score EC •••
Triple Kaguya
e: Already answered, whoops.
Oh you’re right… I missed that. That essentially saves 3 clicks so you can also deal with clone chip (and even have a free slot in combo for something else, like recurring SFK)
BL 4 ****
BL 8 *****
SFMM (JH, JH, EC) 9 ****
SFMM(JH, CVS, PV) 10 ***
PS 11 **
AD (BL, BL, SFSS(EC)) 20 *****
AD (SFSS(EC), BL, BL) 29 ******** (8 clicks)
rez CVS, use 32 ******** (8 clicks)
interns(CVS), use 35 ******
AM CVS and install, use 38 ****
AM CVS and install, use 41 **, score EC and take clicks 41 *****
install GFI 41 ****
AD (SFSS(GFI), interns(CVS), anything) 42 ***
SFK x 3 on GFI+PV, 42, rez CVS and score 45
Glad we came to the exact same result though
Lol, yep. That’s basically where my loathing for the deck comes in. 
3x SacCon + Clot is such a narrow line of deckbuilding that almost exclusively is to try and make CI sad, and you can still combo through it…
(Although it does take an obscene amount of credits, that’s not a big deal when you aren’t paying money for ICE, and most of your deck draws+moneys you.)
Shards are quite good counters though (especially Eden). Leela + Councilman is pretty damn annoying in practice. Noise with any instant speed installs is also quite a good counter when it comes to a real game.
I believe Black File and Eden Shard are pretty much hard counters.
If only there was a card that destroyed Runner Resources of a specific subtype those two cards shared without needing a tag.
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Eden Shard isn’t a hard counter, as you can win in 2 Jackson Piles with enough redundancy to use the third if they pop Eden early. If you win without using Power Shutdown (via the Jacksonless method listed above) then the Black File just buys them 2 turns of accesses (And Eden Shard is similarly also dead here). That said, both cards are pretty good against CI7 in practice. If the Black File starts seeing common play then the deck may very well need to consider slotting foxfire, but its currently not ubiquitous enough to justify IMO.
Both are decent… if you can stick them on a Street Peddler. Otherwise, the Shards in general just make your piles less efficient. (See the previous discussion about Dan playing around Dien’s Hades-Peddler.) Usually you never deck yourself all the way with CI7 as you can use a Diagnostics as a crypto-Shutdown at 3 cards, so Black File played manually just buys a few turns. And as noted, CI can win with less than 3 Jacksons if required, so it doesn’t make decking a substantial threat either.
You’d have to pop Eden at some point after they AD’d before they Jackson’d the next pile… Which isn’t generally possible, though once they’ve used all Jacksons you can do it. In that case they just go off with only two Jacksons.
Black File… Going to assume you’re playing it with Lovegood or else only installing the turn you run. Again, similar to Eden Shard, requires that they get two Jacksons to win, then use the third to make sure they don’t deck while Black File runs down. (Though… You’d have to make sure not to leave the win in either R&D or Archives, so it does sound More Difficult, just not impossible.)
So… Yeah. The main problem with those two cards is that they aren’t good against anyone else. Deck slots are tight enough… Er. Also I feel like I’m derailing this topic. 
Not leaving the win in R&D shouldn’t be that hard. Not leaving the win in Archives is covered in combos through Hades Shard.
You could do it prior to them playing Kaguyas out of hand. But you’re right that it’s mostly pointless if the corp sees the Shard coming. Hence the need for Peddler.
Out of curiosity, does anyone have an idea of how complex a program would be required to solve whether or not a combo can fire with a given hand, credits, and cards in bin? In the most basic form it would solve the puzzle assuming no hate, but it could be expanded to solve against Leela, or against clot/double clot.
I’m an embedded sw developer, so while this seems like it’s possible I imagine it’s quite complex. I toyed around with simulating the mechanics, but wasn’t sure how to employ any sort of solving logic. Does anyone have an idea about how to go about implementing solving, or if it’s feasible? My first inclination was that it would be similar to maze solving as we’re trying to find a path, but it seems like adapting maze solving logic to this puzzle would be a very brute force method.
Slotting foxfire would also probably mean having an extra slot in your piles for Reuse to get enough money to win the trace on top of the combo AND possibly extra slots to fire Foxfire more than once to beat fall guys. Seems pretty unreasonable.
I think the correct plan is to win in 1 or 2 piles and dodge the extra 2 turns most likely. You lose to FIS though and it also seems like a runner holding onto double siphon can easily win in those 2 extra turns. Double/triple siphon turn 1 to make you discard most of your hand then legwork + run archives probably wins a very large percentage of the time.