Shutdown Jinteki is dead! Long live shutdown Jinteki!

Decklists
81

Being able to compute a Nash equilibrium in the first place requires a utility function, which is a pretty dubious proposition in practice (how many credits to each player is a random access worth at any given time? How about stealing an agenda? how do we compensate for the non-linear utility of credits for each player?). You can come up with some heuristics to get you close to an unexploitable strategy (or a minimax strategy, or maximal EV strategy vs. a given range of strategies, or whatever your goal is), but it’s not realistic to act like players will be playing equilibrium strategies (and even if they were computable/known, it’s arguable that they should not be playing those strategies, but instead trying to exploit their opponents deviation from equilibrium).

edit: This is a similar situation to poker: Nash equilibria obviously exist (and are even known in certain situations), but the real skill in poker is not finding/memorizing a fold-shove table or whatever, but in determining your opponent’s actual strategy (which is almost always never at equilibrium) and maximally exploiting it.

7 Likes
82

Actually no, Nisei lets you counter a random roller.

Nisei Division provides 2 sets of Yomi Layer 3 decisions.

The true psi game isn’t just betting 0-1-2 its also to bet randomly or bet from guessing.

If you know your opponent is going to bet randomly, you bet 0, gain 1c and maintain variance advantage of 66%.
Then they either continue being random and letting you press the advantage or try to snipe you with a 0 guess.
And then if you think they are digging for a pattern you can switch back to random bets and keep them tempo neutral with your ability.

The mind game layers go alot deeper than you’d think. And the results are pretty extreme.

In Torunaments I have had matches where I bounced people off of Caprices over 15 times in a row. And when I used a Nisei Kill deck to win an SC against Timmy Wong. I never missed a Cerebral Cast.

And on top of all of that never forget that even chancing a psi game against Nisei is a loosing proposition, on top of the 66% Loss rate a pure random bet on both sides produces an AVERAGE of +1 relative tempo for the Corp.
Think about that, ETF, Reina, and Kate max out at +1 ONCE A TURN.

3 Likes
83

Any thoughts about the archetype? While psi is highly controversial, I feel the discussion has been had already.

3 Likes
84

100% agree. I need to catch myself before I post things like that.

1 Like
85

Here is a list I have been molding for the release of Chronos Protocol. I know this is the PE thread, however the archetype is still the same, and I believe the ID to be (almost) interchangeable.

Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-mapping (Special)

Agenda (10)
3x Nisei MK II (Core Set)
2x Fetal AI (Trace Amount)
2x House of Knives (Honor and Profit)
1x Philotic Entanglement (Honor and Profit)
2x The Future Perfect (Honor and Profit)

Asset (7)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) •••
2x Shock! (True Colors)
2x Blacklist (Breaker Bay) ••

Upgrade (3)
1x Hokusai Grid (Humanity’s Shadow)
2x Marcus Batty (The Underway)

Operation (15)
2x Neural EMP (Core Set)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
3x Celebrity Gift (Opening Moves)
2x Restructure (Second Thoughts)
3x Power Shutdown (Mala Tempora) ••••• •
2x Subliminal Messaging (Fear and Loathing)

Barrier (4)
2x Wall of Static (Core Set)
2x Himitsu-Bako (Opening Moves)

Code Gate (5)
2x Enigma (Core Set)
2x Lotus Field (Upstalk)
1x Crick (Breaker Bay)

Sentry (5)
2x Ichi 1.0 (Core Set) ••••
1x Grim (Opening Moves)
2x Cortex Lock (The Valley)

15 influence spent (maximum 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Underway

Basic shell here is -2 Shock, -1 Hokusai, -2 Subliminal Messaging, -1 Crick.
Messaging will always be replaced by a form of economy, cards to think of for the slots are Melange and sundew. Shock can be dropped to add a second Hokusai, and singleton Caprice. Crick can become a Yagura. Will-o is also a notable consideration, and possibly the best choice for slamming breakers off the board. I will be testing it soon.

Sundew is interesting here, with yagura or Hokusai in the it’s server it can become a 2-4 credit and one click tax or 1-2 Net damage and 2 credits. If they don’t have they appropriate breaker and a hard etr ice is protecting it, they cancel the sundew and it essentially lowers them to a three click turn. Econ here is is still solid enough to manage w/o the dew chugging along.

Shocks are great, my knee-jerk reaction is to include them for pings from hand and the deck, as well as archive protection following PS. However if Crick is suspected to be protecting the discard pile, that can be discouraging enough that I feel that portion of reason for slotting shock is mitigated. I think there is plenty of targeted net damage to get by w/o the Shock though.

86

Well, the archetype is strong, but I think its going to Need the power of the Psi Cards and the tempo gain of Nisei to work correctly.

For background I took a similar Bluesun Grail Deck to the LA regionals and made top 8 with it, the core winstate of choking out runners with program destruction and blacklist is worthy of expansion but I think it needs more polish.

The key cards in just PE are:
Archer
Clone Retirement
Batty
Snare
and Blacklist

The grail is going to be too inconsitent at 2 of and way to fragile to parasucker outside of bluesun so we need to look for other cheap and powerful gearchecks

We can find those in Chum and Snowflake,
strong and cheap enough to not be worried about a parasite if it does manage to go down.

The other major thing the deck will need is a way to counter the rampaging Pankake Noise Problem in the Meta.
There are 3 key things he struggles to deal with,

  1. Sustained /NetBrain Damage (reliance on faust, removal of IHW, and reliance on recursion)
  2. Tag Punishment
  3. Recursion Blocking in the face of the above

Blacklist has us covered on 3 and Snares/Shocks can get us with part of 1
but how do you land tags in Jinteki without spending influence:

Enter Cerebral Casts

With it you will be able to pressure faust, threaten kill or make them worry about a resource sweep.

But what about other runners? ones that don’t use resources, and by extension use event econ or ramp large credit pools.

Traditionally the answer was importing Scorched Earth.

But in the current meta I think we have a better option,

Closed Accounts

Not only will it open a runner to massive pressure on Psi games but it will let blacklist choke out event decks, skuttle ramp decks with taxing archer strewn servers, and with the setup of the other cards be more resistant to stimhacking.

By running Nisei we can syngergize with all of our key parts and make Caprice EVEN STRONGER

I haven’t had time to draft a full list but the key cards are shaping up to be:
Archer
Blacklist
Cerebral Cast
Closed Accounts
Batty
Caprice
Chum
SnowFlake
Snare
Interns (to recure caprice, batty, and blacklist)
Maybe even Alial Repression to recure threats

And we may be on our way to a viable Archetype

3 Likes
87

I actually really agree with this,
the ability to Needle out key cards and then block them from recursion may be the best way to build a blacklist deck

88

I really like the look of this list, too. Totally going to build off this framework when Chronos Protocol comes out. I’ll probably cut back economy a bit (-Subliminals or a Restructure) for a least a couple more ICE. Playing Blacklist-Shutdown PE I’ve found I still struggle to get enough ETR ICE to lock the runner out everywhere, especially when recovering from early ICE destruction. You need two protected remotes (one for Blacklist, one for scoring) is the trickiest part.

Crick is a great include in this archetype, with or without the adding deterrence of Shock!. I’d up it to inclusion in the core set of cards.

That agenda suite is solid but I’d rather have all 3 Fetals & some Clone Retirement (mostly to turn on Archer) over Nisei MK II. MK II’s token doesn’t provide value when the runner’s locked out and I’d rather have agendas that get me closer to the endgame board state than ones that just help me win more once I’m already there.

89

[quote=“nmh, post:81, topic:3908”](and even if they were computable/known, it’s arguable that they should not be playing those strategies, but instead trying to exploit their opponents deviation from equilibrium).
[/quote]

Let’s use rock/paper/scissors, for example. The best rock/paper/scissors players are able to find patterns in how their opponents will choose. However, if your opponent has a better chance to exploit you than you have to exploit them you ought to use random, if you can.

In Netrunner, it’s absolutely true that you can’t practically assign utility to each possibility. However, you can use heuristics to make it difficult for your opponents to exploit you, and to lower the effect of their exploitation even if they can pinpoint the weakness of your utility assignment, which to me seems rather improbable.

Other people won’t be playing equilibrial strategies, so your best strategy would be to find out what they’re doing and exploit it, but you can’t always do that, especially when playing people better at psi than you are. My point is that for bad psi-game players, it’s better to get close to the equilibrium than to try to exploit your opponent and in the process leave yourself open to exploitation.

Re: Jinteki Shutdown. I think it’s obvious that the best way to build this archetype will be out of Chronos Protocol. I think Yagura, despite its vulnerability to Parasite, will be a great piece in this deck, as Parasite’s targets need to be rezzed and you can specifically target recursion (and should if you’re doing program destruction) with your net damage. Pup is great, as well as Komainu, since you can just overload the runner with parasitable ice and not enough parasites to go around. House of Knives is great, as it’s unavoidable, happens multiple times, and can combokill with Komainu. Hokusaid Grid could be good, but since it taxes money instead of breakers it goes somewhat against the focus of the deck. Shock would be good if you can fit it in because it doesn’t need money to be useful and can make HQ spikier, but you really need ETR ice to make sure they can’t just draw up and charge in, as well as economy to make everything work, so your slots will be extremely competitive. I’ll post my current build in a bit.

1 Like
90

I’m hesitant to go the archer+clone retirement route. The agenda suite coming in at 10 feels correct and slots are super tight for any more low point agendas. I preffer HoK here considering the ID synergy. I’ll probably try it at some point without the clone retirements, because sacrificing a 1 or 0 token HoK isn’t bad if it enables a power plays.

91

Any thoughts on An Offer you Can’t Refuse? Seems a decent card to enable Archer plays, but you would have to cut two cards to make room.

92

Fair enough, you’re right sacking a HoK often isn’t that tough of a decision. They’re not much more difficult to score than CR either if you shell game them out (have a turn that’s 3x install: Jackson, Shock, HoK).

93

Realistically, clone retirements are in the deck right now because the ID is PE. If the ID changes, one of the first things to do is take the retirements out.

94

Clone Retirement isn’t in my Shutdown PE deck because it works with the ID, it’s there because it synergizes with the two most important ice in the deck (Archer & Grim, by being really easy to score & removing BP). I’d rather ditch Philotic than Clone Retirements.

95

I suspect that HoK will fit in that role better out of Chronos than CR will.

3 Likes
96

I dont suspect it, i dont think its even a contest. HoK is going to be insane out of CP, you need to be check most remotes for it as well which will turn on other traps if you decide to slot them. When HoK is empty, it can be fed to archer, which means archer is only active in the late game, but by that point you should be close or at lockout anyway, and archer seals the game. Archer is the CP scorch if you will. Dont think you need more than 1.

I changed the name of the thread as there has been some good discussion about this archetype out of different jinteki ID’s and i think it would be good to encourage more experimentation like that.

Here’s the CP draft we crafted in the untested deck thread, i think this is as close as you will get it without actually testing. Although, I would be very tempted to sub in some of the newer cards like crick, or aleele repression to maneuver shocks into HQ.

Chronos Shutdown 4th draft
Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-mapping4 (The Universe of Tomorrow)

Agenda (10)
3x Fetal AI (Trace Amount)
3x House of Knives (Honor and Profit)
1x Philotic Entanglement (Honor and Profit)
3x The Future Perfect (Honor and Profit)

Asset (9)
1x Aggressive Secretary (Core Set) ••
2x Blacklist (Breaker Bay) ••
1x Executive Boot Camp (All That Remains) •
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) •••
2x Shock! (True Colors)

Upgrade (2)
2x Hokusai Grid (Humanity’s Shadow)

Operation (13)
3x Celebrity Gift (Opening Moves)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Neural EMP (Core Set)
2x Power Shutdown (Mala Tempora) ••••
2x Restructure (Second Thoughts)
1x Subliminal Messaging (Fear and Loathing)

Barrier (5)
2x Eli 1.0 (Future Proof) ••
2x Himitsu-Bako (Opening Moves)
1x Wraparound (Fear and Loathing) •

Code Gate (5)
1x Enigma (Core Set)
2x Lotus Field (Upstalk)
2x Yagura (Fear and Loathing)

Sentry (5)
2x Cortex Lock (The Valley)
1x Grim (Opening Moves)
1x Swordsman (Second Thoughts)
1x Tsurugi (True Colors)

15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Universe of Tomorrow

98

Is sacrificing archer for aggsec and eli’s worth it here?

I mean to play CP like a rush deck. Unlike Supermodernism, the scorch threat is absent, however with Ice like archer/ichi/cortex/grim becomes a huge tempo hit to the runner. Throw in batty, PS, and neural and you can pretty reliably keep breakers and recurrsion off the board. A perfect lockout will be rare yes, but with (or without) Blacklist this style can stall the opponent for one or several turns.

99

The more I look at this too, the more I think we will eventually see 2 viable variations

Nisei and CP

similar to how we had viable PE and Nisei Cambridge Shell Games.

(To reiterate and cut off concerns, I have personally seen and or piloted both variations of Nisei take/to take tournaments this year so the ID is viable)

CP can focus on pin-point attacks on fragile runner game plans with Hokosai, EMP, and HoK,
and Nisei will be able to focus on a raw tempo and board break game with Archer, Batty, Casts, and Closed Accounts.

so I think they may wind up being a meta call

CP will be more viable against a low to mid recursion meta with fragile and event heavy runners(IE Criminals and Pre-Paid Shaper)
and Nisei will probably be stable against a ramp board, counter tempo, and recursion dependant meta (IE Haley, Pankake Fausts, Headlock Reina)

1 Like
100

I like the sound of this, but I’ve always struggled with the amount of money required to run this many tricks. Nisei may alleviate some of it though.

101

I think that type of Nisei deviates from the really straight forward game plan here. How does Nisei provide a dependable form of economy in this deck? How many psi games do ya shoot for in the game-plan? Where will the slots for Casts and more psi games be coming from? I feel like it will be an entirely different beast.