Greetings, so I´m a pretty new netrunner player who only owns a core set. But as a tournament is coming up, I plan to expand my collection. The format is 1 core set+ 1 deluxe expansion+ 1 datapack. I figured since Criminal is my favorite kind of runner, and Jinteki looks cool that I would buy the Honor and Profit deluxe expansion. But now I need to decide wich datapack to buy and I´m quite torn on which one. I looked up a few Jinteki PE kill decks and they looked fun to play(I like my runners flatlined), but as I can only buy 1 datapack its Trace Amount, for Fetal AI(which seems to be a staple in PE) and Trick of light, or it´s Future proof for Ronin(another staple in PE), Eli and Faerie. So what do you experienced folks think?
Also If you have any tips on other fun Jinteki(or Criminal) decks that I could build for the tourney, please share them!
if you can find a copy of future proof, pick it up - it’s the 2nd most popular data pack in the game (and if it weren’t for jackson howard, it would be a distant 1st place) and it’s packed with good cards, not the least of which are the ones you mention. Ronin is core for good PE decks, imo, as it means that runner cannot safely ignore advanced remotes (without ronin, the only things they could be are traps or one point agendas, so the runner is better off not risking it and focusing on RnD and HQ.). Fetal and ToL are nice for PE but imo less crucial. Not to mention eli is A#1 ice, and faerie is utterly crucial criminal tech.
a couple other considerations for the corp side:
double time might be worth considering just based on the strength of caprice nisei alone. even in unrestricted formats, this card wins games at every level of tournament play.
if you can find it in print, opening moves should also be on your short list just for jackson howard - there’s a reason this pack has been hard to find for almost (over?) a year now, and he’s it. where caprice wins games, howard stops you from losing games.
Last thing I’ll say, if you’re not too tied to those factions (it’s cool if you are; play what you like I say) it seems like weyland and anarch might be strong in this format. Order and Chaos gives anarchs a boatload of great cards, including solid draw and econ tools, as well as a top-class breaker and one of thier best IDs. while it doesn’t do nearly as much for weyland, I think scorch will be strong in this format as no one will be packing plascrete, and IHW will be hard to find/hold onto when the only other draw card in the game is diesel.
It’s a pretty tough choice. Personally I would value Fetal AI over Ronin in PE decks, since Fetal is almost like an extra Snare. Vamp is also really good in Crimnal decks that can pressure HQ because of Vamp. The one-two punch of Siphon/Vamp is really hard for a corp to come back from. Trick of Light is okay, though you won’t have many targets for fast-advance. I suppose it’s not a bad way to rescue failed traps.
However, Future Proof gives you a different kind of R&D pressure with R&D Interface, and Faerie is really good in Criminal (though less good if you don’t have Clone Chips from Creation & Control). Mr. Li might also be a decent include to help you find what you need in your Crim deck faster. Eli 1.0 is one of the most taxing piece of ICE out there, so it will come in handy for beyond just this tournament, too. And Ronin is still a good card that forces them to consider that an advanced card might be something you have to run on.
I suppose my vote, then, would be for Future Proof. It gives you the most versatility in the tournament and after the tournament, I think.
Weyland is actually the corp I played the most and like the most flavour wise. Building a better world is the ID I played most of when using only the core set. Most of the anarch runners looks pretty fun too. How about What Lies Ahead for the datapack? Projekt Atlas and Caduceus, Anarchs get Imp too. Titan transnational looks cool as well.
yeah, if you went that direction, that would be a solid pack. Imp is great, project atlas is weyland’s astro, and it would also open up plascrete (in case a lot of people have the “there won’t be much plascrete so I’ll bring weyland” idea). Double time would also be solid; caprice, NAPD (if you skip the BP in weyland), HIVE (so, so good with no lady in the mix), quandary, as well as queen’s gambit and lucky find for a pretty robust event economy for your runner.
In terms of ID’s, maxX is probably the “best” (though with only deja vu for recursion, this could get scary) but eddie or val are both solid picks. Noise is always good, but you won’t be able to assemble the suite that makes him so boss today (only one copy of aesops makes me want to barf). For Weyland Core seems best, but Titan would be solid – only if you’re going with what lies ahead and have project atlas.