I feel really late to the party on this ID (seemed boring in spoilers to me) but I played against a (frankly pretty bad) palana deck the other day and immediately wanted to try my own version. Jinteki with money! Who knew?
This is absolutely true, though if you’re running damage to encourage drawing then you do start to see a little anti-synergy, as if they start with 6 or more cards it’s a lot easier to choose not to draw up after a snare or tsurugi or some such.
[quote=“tzeentchling, post:301, topic:6920”]
Curious to see, how many credits are you averaging in your games with Palana?
[/quote]early days says I’m netting 10+ almost every game, and often way, way more. Very few runners even attempt to not draw every turn, and when they do it’s almost always the wrong play (draws and when you take them are too important to let the corp dictate when you do them most of the time).
So far I’m really liking the agroplex as well; having the runner draw sucks but I’m gonna keep playing it because I think with the right build the tempo boost for the corp can be bigger.
IMO this encapsulates why the ID is such an economic power house. Last night I saw 3 Palana decks and every single game they were invariably rich as fuck. Even if you have less control over how often it triggers, or if they can draw after running so you have 1 less credit to rez things with that turn, you will still be making money hand over fist. There are very few Runner decks that can get away with not drawing. You will run out of efficient income or run out of useful tools.
This is just plain wrong. Aggroplex is just free clicks, similar to Team Sponsorship but triggering every turn. It’s fine vs Faust, the difference between 7 and 8 cards isn’t big, and you can leverage the free clicks better than the runner. Most players are wising up to it and trashing it, but if someone lets it run, it can be a massacre.
I mean, Agroplex technically pays for itself (in Palana at least). Rez it for 1 at the end of the runner turn, start your turn, they draw a card you get a credit. So it’s really a 5-credit swing.
I’m still waiting for the day when it floods me with agendas I can’t score, but every time so far I’ve rezzed it I’ve appreciated it’s boost in speed. Downside might be thinning your deck faster than you wanted, but usually when you rez it you’re needing that draw anyway.
aggroplex is one of the most interesting cards i think we’ve seen in awhile. In general I think if you are a shaper or anarch you should trash aggroplex immediately. Shaper and anarch have sufficient draw engines that the extra card does less for you. When pre paid Kate was around it may have been debatable because she could use all the cards she drew and turn the extra draw into fistfuls of credits. criminal is tougher because criminal is gagging for good draw so if you get on top of the corp really fast it may be ok to leave the aggroplex because you estimate the game will be over soon and the extra card will give you the gas to finish.
The other reason you might leave it as criminal is if you are dusting off laramy Fisk. I’ve noticed when playing palana glacier the aggroplex draw can overwhelm my jacksons so Fisk plus seminar plus a ticking aggroplex may be too much draw.
If trashing aggroplex seems unimportant when it’s ticking Palana turns into a fusion of NEH and ETF. 2 credits and a card is a ~5 click Corp and that’s insane.
I mostly agree, but you really need to walk a fine line here as a criminal; you want to leave the option of siphon spamming them to death for a big turn or to knock over a tough caprice remote; if you let them get too rich this just becomes impossible.
I see a lot of people running the Nisei agenda suite (I think) to mimic the RP decks of old with the “nisei token and caprice on remote guaranteed score” but I’ve been having a lot of luck with a rushier suite, with medical breakthroughs/braintrusts/Philotic entanglement. I think the NA gameplan is really powerful, especially in a deck that doesn’t mind running snares, I find runners get tired of testing unadvanced cards in the remote really quick. breakthrough makes it a bit harder (than with braintrusts) to score your first 2 pointer, but the ability to close out from hand from 5 points for only 2 credits is kinda nutso as well.
Latest iteration of my more glacier oriented deck. It seems very strong in testing, definitely the strongest deck I’ve ever made. I’ve retooled the ice suite to better reflect the way the economy is structured, it feels much more fluid now in terms of being able to afford the right amount of ice at the right time, and it has a lot of facecheck and total tax. Still seems like there’s some flex space, lot of unspoiled Democrocay & Dogma Jinteki cards so maybe there will be some support to make up for when the plop hits the fan. I think it’s in a very strong spot currently, no terrible matchups I’ve found yet–I’ve found you can grind out almost any deck (though this may change as players get better at playing the matchup–pro tip: trash the agroplex ASAP).
I get that but the only hard etr you can rely on in the remote is enigma and rototurret which is of itself weak to parasite). A rich runner can run through this without a rig (taking net damage, paying traces, parasitising etr, clicking eli)
What are the final 3 agendas? Fetals for Snare 4-6? Fast Track should be good with Breakthrough, and you don’t mind sitting on it for a turn if your hand is sufficiently spiky.
…you don’t run Edge of World, do you…? No, thought not…
Ok, I’m curious. What is your agenda spread? I’m running 2x GFI 3x Medical Breakthrough 3x Braintrust and unknown left over points. Besides Snare! Any other traps? Do you run Mushin?
Sorry, should have clarified it seems! I am generally not using both Breakthrough and Braintrust; just one or the other as my 2-pointer slots to complement the best 3 point agendas in the game (instead of the RP standard of Nisei Mk2s)
1x GFI and 3x TFP (substituting out TFPs for more GFI as influence allows) are no-brainers I think for any jinteki build that doesn’t center around FA or damage. The cardslots, the reduction in agenda density, the difficulty of stealing - these are some of the best agendas in the game, and caprice +annoying ICE will generally will allow you to score one at some point in the game. the main question in my mind, then, is where do your other 4 points come from?
Right now I like 3x medical breakthrough 1x philotic (being able to topdeck the win with the third breakthrough is a bit of an edge case, but it does put the runner under pressure in a way that you can usually take advantage of), but I was having good luck with braintrusts as well - very easy to bluff or rush out right from the get-go. A couple times now my last 2 turns have consisted of {AAA score 3 pointer from scoring remote}{runner turn}{AAA score braintrust that has been sitting facedown in a throwaway server for the last 6 or so turns}
I think with the resurgence of Film Critic in Hayley and Kate at the moment, TFP is not nearly as effective as it used to be. A lot of Noise around as well, taxing from archives (although that isn’t as much of an issue in Palana). As such, I’ve gone 2 GFI, 3 Nisei, 3 Sales team and 1 philotic. May as well force the 4 agenda game.
I’m looking at it as, with agroplex running, a ridiculous amount of money, I can rush out these agendas behind a cheap etr ice with a Caprice and Batty. If I get flooded, I have the money to send runners through Assassin’s and Ichi’s to legwork. If they’re willing to do that, good for them. With all the draw and Caprice, you usually have an early Nisei counter to help battle this anyway.
100% agree about GFI vs. TFP. Whenever my build (mine is in a heavy state of flux; there’s a lot of things to experiment with right now) has the influence, I’m running as many as I can.
That said, IDK where all the film critics are coming from (is it a response to Palana Decks?) given that NAPD is no longer auto-include, midseasons is no longer the only multi-tag threat (or really that popular) and it seems like nobody plays Jintkei right now (again, maybe palana will change that?) except for IG, which is not really a serious tournament threat due to play time.
(edit because I hit the “post” button on accident)
I think your suite is a solid way to go; Nisei tokens are crazy powerful and if you feel you can win most of your psi games I think they’ll serve you really well. Sales team felt win-more to me (I’m usually already stupid rich) but is definitely a super strong tempo boost, especially if you can push one out quick. Personally I think I just prefer to have the find-the-snare never-advance game (which can be really strong against faust players; it’s one thing to get into a server, it’s another to get in and have 3 cards left) open to me, rather than having more powerful agendas that have to be completely telegraphed.
Yeah, lack of etr seems like a liability at first sight, but in reality marcus and caprice fill in the gap and I haven’t noticed it as an issue in game. Caprice means they can run through and pay in blood, but still only succeed 1/3 times. The threat of Marcus means they risk death 2/3 times if they let komainu fire, and can often lose their rig if they’re not careful and faceplant ichi + marcus without enough clicks/breakers/clone chip. The sentries also synergize well together in taxing/bleeding runners hard especially when their precise order/combination is hidden–the threat of assassin(s?) after komainu can be enough to get a jack out, or the threat of komainu (or just any simple etr) after ichi faceplant can get a jackout. This is something I actually found as a benefit of not playing never advance–the runner rarely checks the remotes till they have to, which means when they do run it’s all getting facechecked and they have to deal with potential threats later in the server which they don’t know whether they are prickly porous or some form of etr.
In the end sometimes you don’t mind them stealing an agenda if they have to pay with a massive loss in board position. On centrals this philosophy applies really well (them burning their board position for centrals access–often single access–is definitely a win), but even on remote (especially with caprice) you’re often OK with them losing their hand+more for an agenda (or just a chance at one). Late game Project Nisei glues together the tax + caprice + marcus threat to create a hard lock on remote even with no ETR at all on it.
Also, a corollary on this is that caprice usually lives on remote, while marcus is often used for central defense–but extras of each are used to supplement the other side when needed. Worth noting that firing Marcus a lot is awesome, I’ve strongly considered running Recruiting Trip in order to get a 4th copy of Marcus (compromised by upping interns to 2)–I can’t imagine running only 2 copies of MB he’s so useful especially in multiples.
tldr; ETR are a crutch. Just rely on Psi shenanigans together with the threat of efficient death and destruction.