Modifying decks with a limited cardpool

Netrunner General
1

Hey guys, haven’t posted here in checks watch two years, got on a kick again and figured I’d ask a question. I’ve been using the teaching decks BigBoy posted a long while back just for casual games (mostly against people who weren’t super into competitive netrunner). I saw he’d made a Jinteki deck in the same spirit, but I haven’t kept up with the cardpool since two packs into Flashpoint; so I was wondering how best to edit it. For context:

Agenda Agenda (10)

3x Braintrust
2x Fetal AI
2x Global Food Initiative :unicorn: ●●
2x House of Knives
1x Philotic Entanglement

Asset Asset (6)

3x Jackson Howard ●●●
3x Snare!

Upgrade Upgrade (4)

2x Ben Musashi
2x Hokusai Grid

Operation Operation (14)

1x Biotic Labor ●●●●
3x Celebrity Gift
3x Hedge Fund
3x IPO
2x Neural EMP
2x Sweeps Week ●●●●

Barrier Barrier (5)

2x Eli 1.0 ●●
3x Kakugo

Code Gate Code Gate (4)

2x DNA Tracker
2x Enigma

Sentry Sentry (6)

3x Komainu
3x Pup

My changes were: +3 Himitsu-Bako, +2 Restructure, +1 Interns, +1 Tsurugi, +2 Lockdown +2 Marcus Batty
−2 DNA Tracker, −3 Kakugo, −2 Ben Musashi, −3 IPO, −1 Eli 1.0
It worked all right but a) still needs some money especially if i’d been under pressure earlier- MRF might work but that free money always seems to come back to bite you b) Lockdown is ehh but I think it needs a code gate that doesn’t die to yog (and preferably not into program trashing too hard, it might be a little too feelbad with all the net damage) c) I have an unhealthy love of psigames but Batty might be not good for the format d) Sweeps Week feels countersynergistic, maybe swap with beanstalk? e) Scorched might be an option if it’s not too strong, especially with prisec.

Thanks!

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You have essentially three challenges: Removing Kakugo (and DNA Tracker), Removing Ben Musashi, and Removing IPO.

Let’s cover the simplest: Removing IPO. This means you need another answer for Money in the deck, and Restructure is good, but I’d definitely bring it to 3x. (Probably in favor of the Interns you added) One of Jinteki’s weaknesses for the longest time was economy. It’s why RP + Sundew was able to get off the ground: It fixed Jinteki’s economy issues in one easy card. (Celebrity Gift didn’t hurt, either.) Sweeps Week isn’t countersynergistic; You’re generally forcing the runner to hold cards in their hand, so Sweeps is at least a Beanstalk, usually a Hedge Fund. If we run out of influence elsewhere, we can look at replacing them with Beanstalks, though.

Next, Ben Musashi. This one’s a bit harder. The point of Ben was to force the Runner to go even slower than PE’s natural ID power does, along with some amount of faking. Prisec can work here, and Hokusai Grid as well (bring in the third one). If we find some influence, you can try Red Herrings as well.

Now, the ice. Kakugo’s the big standout here, because it enabled this sort of ‘slow squeeze’ PE to exist, where you can win simply by having Kakugo on your important servers and the Runner out of cards. It’s repeatable, reliable net damage. I’m not sure you can replace Kakugo, it’s much more than an End the Run ice. You’re correct that you don’t want to aim for program trashing, preferring net damage instead. The problem is that I don’t think you have a good way to make them lose a card on each Successful run without Kakugo. The most similar would be Data Raven, but that costs them money+time, not cards. You can try Data Mine, it’s almost guaranteed, but it isn’t repeatable. Definitely go up to the full 3x Neural, though. (One thing to watch for is that this could encourage holding them all to try and just kill the runner, which isn’t the point here, and if people start doing that a lot, you’ll want to take one of them out.)

DNA Tracker was the big punishment if the runner starts running without a Code Gate and a Sentry breaker. Lockdown doesn’t really replace that. Crick and Merlin are the only ice that are Code Gates and relatively punishing… Unless you have Fairchild 2.0 or 3.0? 2.0 should’ve been in second Flashpoint pack… Use that if you can, that’ll satisfy. (The point isn’t so much that you want to be Yog-proof, it’s that you want to hurt them if they run without a Decoder. DNA Tracker happened to do both, so it’s great, but we don’t have access to it.) Tollbooth and Archangel would also fit here, but their effect isn’t quite as strong.

For your changes, the only thing I really disagree with is the removal of Eli. Leave that card in, this is a Tax The Runner Till They Stop Moving sort of deck, and Eli’s phenomenal for that.
I agree that Marcus might not fit here (Original deck has 0 psi games, partially because I think TBB doesn’t care for them, and partially because they aren’t one of the Basic Strategies the set of decks was focused on improving.)

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