[Jinteki RP] Perfecting Perfection: The Best Deck Ever

Deck Archetypes
366

If that’s what you were bringing, I’m glad you won’t be here:)

367

What does that put you at?
3 Crick
2 Pup
1 Interns

369

Is ITT “In This Thread”?. Sorry, Idk that one.

I played exclusively grail up until the SSCI, including 3 store champs. The grail does not match up particularly well with Kate that parasites galahads, and it’s not especially strong vs good anarch builds either. Imp/Wanton/Parasite/Hactivist are all annoying for grail.(need to maintain grails in hand to keep them powerful). Not everyone plays these of course, but Parasite is basically in all great runner decks right now.

The Kate matchup is still winnable, as almost all matchups are. You are still playing RP :slight_smile:

Grail is at its best in a meta where criminals are a decent chunk of matchups, or against aggressive runners that don’t have access to mid-run breakers. They usually can’t remove your grail or discard grails from your hand. Also when players need all 3 breaker types against you before they can even face check, Grail buys you quite a bit of time. I found Grail to be extremely strong against Stealth Andy & Leela. They also have trouble with excalibur remote plays, which the other decks have less trouble with, cause parasite. Celeb Gift show grail turn 1 is so strong at getting criminal to just not run against you.

I also had good success with Grail vs eater decks, just because of the amount of subs.

The addition of crick has(imo) really improved the stealth andy matchup for regular ice.(Needing at least 1 stealth credit regardless of server is great) and I already felt like regular ice is just very strong. Tollbooth is a good card…

If you do play Grail, I think Blacklist is a strong support card that can slow down the runner, creating scoring windows, and slightly improves kate/maxX matchup. MaxX in particular is really hard, instant parasites are super annoying. Fitting in one shouldn’t be too difficult, two would be hard though with the 9 grail influence.

If everyone plays yog - net ready eyes, the grail suite starts to look even worse, since running through merlins for free is a huge problem. Merlin is your best ice against parasite decks.

So I think that wraps up my thoughts. Grail is really really powerful, when your opponent doesn’t interact with them. When they are doing things to interact, it is better to just have the ice that are good enough on their own without needing to have all the grail support. Bad draws with grail are really awkward, where i feel I have more wiggle room with real ice.

If you do play Grail, fit in Crick and be sure to play at least 1x interns. Being able to recur grail is really important so that you can maintain 2 grails in hand.

Breaker Bay Grail, Rough Draft - 48 cards- you can play the 9th agenda and cut the fragment, or fit in another card you want in here. Not sure if 2 interns, 2 crick, or 3 crick, 1 interns, or whatever. 3-2 seems like too many to me personally. But you want these cards in your deck. Getting grails back is really really strong(the main way you lose is people get rid of all your grails). . I’d slot 1 Tsurugi or Bako and go from there. You want more ice than regular RP decks just cause two usually stick to your hand at all times. At first glance there isn’t enough early etr ice, so you could get siphoned out or something if your not careful. Eden Fragment is an option, just for the free install for grails off of crick, but I don’t know how often you would actually use that ability :P.

Jinteki Replicating Perfection

15 influence spent (max 15) •••••••••••••••
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
48 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Breaker Bay
Agenda Agenda (8)

1x Hades Fragment
1x NAPD Contract
3x Nisei MK II
3x The Future Perfect
Asset Asset (10)

1x Blacklist •
3x Jackson Howard •••
3x Mental Health Clinic
3x Sundew
Upgrade Upgrade (4)

1x Ash 2X3ZB9CY ••
3x Caprice Nisei
Operation Operation (7)

3x Celebrity Gift
3x Hedge Fund
1x Interns
Barrier Barrier (4)

3x Galahad •••
1x Himitsu-Bako
Code Gate Code Gate (8)

3x Crick
2x Lotus Field
3x Merlin •••
Sentry Sentry (6)

3x Lancelot •••
3x Pup
Other Other (1)

1x Excalibur

I originally copied my grail deck from Cerberus, Idk if he is still playing grails or not.

5 Likes
370

If you’re playing grail, accompany it with 2 Crick, 2 interns, and a copy of Lag Time, after NRE comes out.

2 Likes
371

‘I originally copied my grail deck from Cerberus, Idk if he is still playing grails or not.’

I took Grail to a Regional a few weeks ago and it didn’t perform well, but then I played a field of Anarch (5/7) and had made some changes which were bad calls. I finished 5th but that was all Leela.
Not sure its as good as it was, but definitely still playable.

I was wondering about RP flat line, I know that @Spags has experience with it. Is it viable? Good for the surprise factor?

4 Likes
372

I beg to differ. Too many times I have nothing in Archives in the early game and Crick is blank - which means it is pretty bad for both R&D and Archives protection (I have, however, won games off of discarding due to handsize and Cricking back the card). Too many times I want to protect a Sundew, which you can’t really do with Crick. Stuff like that.

I think 2 Crick is right, but I do agree that Crick is a very, very good card - I just don’t want it ALL the time, so after testing with 3x Crick for 20+ games, I decided it just wasn’t working out.

373

I think you have two routes: net or scorch damage. This is my deck from last Gencon. Granted, I was counting on a Crim heavy field, and them running into/through Komainus at some point. Some I just decked. Would def. change it up now. Susan mainly tossed people into empty Archives to eat Shocks. Won one game that way, and almost another.

374

Does anyone else find that Cortex Lock actually flatlines a surprising amount of the time? Especially from Kate/Andromeda players who install Astrolabe/Desperado early.

I thought it would be a nice speedbump that could kill off some cards - sorta like a Tsurugi, except way cheaper, un-Mimic-able and, of course, worse in the end game. Maybe hit them for 2-3 once early and stop them from running - but it really does hit for 4-5 plenty of times.

1 Like
375

I think with Blacklist in the mix, going heavy on net damage definitely needs looking at again whether it’s for flatline or just disruption. Back when Komainu was still a 3x and Wall of Thorns was kind of playable I always found room for a Fetal and a couple of Snares and got some good kills in, but I think it’s a lot tougher now with insta-parasite everywhere and Lady trashing WoT so badly.

No. Even playing it out of Weyland I’ve not managed to get a flatline yet. Surely you’ve not managed to get the same person more than once with it, it’s so trivial to play around. I’m not even sure Cortex Lock should get slots in RP, it loses value so quickly.

376

The issue to me with Damage RP is that I’ve Had Worse means that sometimes the damage doesn’t slow runners down. Obviously it still has flatline potential but part of the appeal of Damage RP before was the tempo hits that the damage gave you.

I still like Cortex Lock as a 2 of, it did work for me at the Manchester Regionals, even flatlining someone who was good enough to play around it in the top 8. He had to start running to stop me from pulling ahead quickly. While it does lose value as the game goes on it does its work in the early game, which is when you want to get Sundew going.

5 Likes
377

I would agree that IHW and the rise of Shaper have hurt the damage build. Looking back on the last time I ran this, I was on the right track with EBC. I also had Hostile Infrastructure, to cause trouble, and was also playing around with Kitsune/Snare, until Eater hit.

Here’s an update.

Replicating Pain

Jinteki: Replicating Perfection (Trace Amount)

Agenda (9)

Asset (16)

Upgrade (3)

Operation (3)

Barrier (4)

Code Gate (6)

Sentry (7)

Other (1)

15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Breaker Bay

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

2 Likes
378

FWIW, in my last tourney, people faceplanted Cortex early and still accessed. They also run through Pups and took damage. That mentality, combined with those ICE’s low rez cost, should lead to some early Snare/Fetal kills, IMHO.

379

Not so much adding anything to the discussion, but just wanted to say iv always thought of disruption > flatline for something like RP, and its really interesting to read all the pro takes on that.

Cortex lock goes blank really quickly its true, but iv not found it early enough when its a 1 off, so iv been sticking with 2.

Is komainu really dead in a meta with so many parasites? How about now we have blacklist? Kom seems like an amazing disruption card.

1 Like
380

And then people ask why I run Archives Interface.

2 Likes
381

IHW and the prevalence of decks with Parasite made Komainu a hell of a lot worse. Modern RP is much more interested in ending the run than anything else

1 Like
382

I find most runners are learning to play around cortex lock really well (SMCs or just running through it if they don’t think you’re playing a Fetal), and it seems like it’s effectiveness will just get worse if NRE becomes popular. I’m not sure what other decent, influence-free, cheap-to-mid-priced, not-easy-parasitable ICE to throw in those two slots.

Once you have the staples – lotus fields, enigmas, wall of statics, pups, maybe a yagura, cricks – I’m not sure what would be more effective in those spots. Maybe a Bako? Inazuma doesn’t seem right…

383

Neural Katana. Lol, just kidding.

1 Like
384

I say this, then win a Regional with Grail RP hours later…

13 Likes
385

Well done! Strength of the player, and Leela. Way to spit in the haters’ eyes.

4 Likes
386

I think your list of requirements is a bit to strict. You can’t have it all.