I want to start a discussion on the two styles of Tennin deck that I see being viable. We’ve probably all heard of the FA deck that took Chicago regionals- the key is to ice up central servers and turtle while you build up counters, then use trick of light to score agendas out of hand. Finally, you use archived memories and reclamation order to recur the trick of lights and do it again, until you score 7 points. Here’s an example of this style Tennin deck: Tennin Lightning (Chicago Regionals 2014) · NetrunnerDB
This deck is pure FA- it runs as many 3/2’s (and medical breakthrough, a virtual 3/2) as possible.
On the other hand, you can run Tennin as a kind of red coats taxing deck. The idea here is that you make it as expensive as possible to run on centrals, and then you build a remote server that’s moderately expensive as well. Then you install into the remote, sometimes bluffing with caprice or an asset. If they can’t run, you get to advance and then score a 4/2 in one turn. Rather than running a blank 3/2 like braintrust, you get to run and potentially score Nisei MkII’s and NAPD contracts. I’ve been playing this deck a lot lately, and came in 14th with it at a local 41 person regional (my corp lost 2 games, both to top 8 finishers) . Here’s my list:
Identity: Jinteki: Tennin Institute: The Secrets Within
Agenda (11)
2x Clone Retirement
3x Medical Breakthrough
3x NAPD Contract
3x Nisei MKII
Asset (3)
3x Jackson Howard ●●●
Ice (19)
1x Archer ●●
2x Bastion
3x Eli 1.0 ●●●
2x Enigma
3x Ice Wall ●●●
2x Inazuma
2x Komainu
1x Neural Katana
1x Pup
1x Rototurret ●
1x Tollbooth ●●
Operation (13)
3x Celebrity Gift
1x Fast Track
3x Hedge Fund
3x Medical Research Fundraiser
3x Trick Of Light
Upgrade (3)
3x Caprice Nisei
So that should give you the general idea. I generally try to score around 4 points from my remote, and then fast advance the last 3 through some combination of trick of light on medical breakthrough and scoring clone retirement’s out of hand. I don’t think the build is fully optimized yet. I keep messing with the ice mix, and I’d love to find room for some snares or shocks to keep the runner honest. Running clone retirement with NAPD contract is a bit of an issue - if the runner steals one and gives you bad pub, it gets hard to score the NAPD’s.
Now, I’d welcome thoughts on my particular deck, but I’m also interested in the more general issue of which of these two builds people think is superior. The FA version has the advantage of needing to protect fewer servers, and exposing agenda’s less often in remotes. But they are stuck running a sub-par set of agenda’s, whereas the taxing version can take full advantage of the 2 best 4/2’s in the game- Neisei and NAPD. What do people think?