Verdict on Celebrity Gift?

I’ve always been a huge advocate of the saying that knowledge is power in Netrunner, and that he who maximized that knowledge to his advantage would win. However, at first glace I couldn’t help but think Celebrity Gift may be the exception to the rule, and provide Jinteki with the final key to having a stable economy.

However, since updating my deck to include opening moves (the only other alterations to my deck being to drop Archived Memories and incorporate Himitsu-Bako and Jackson Howard), my Jinteki deck has performed worse on OCTGN, and I can’t figure out why. I don’t think it’s because of Celebrity Gift, however, I can’t think of why else this could be the case.

My reasoning for thinking it isn’t bad in Jinteki is that you can use it to mislead the runner, and force him into thinking you don’t have an agenda or trap, when you actually do, or that even if you have, say, one of each, you can still advance a card, and the corp won’t know which it is.

Has anyone else tested Celebrity Gift, and if so, what are your thoughts on it? My results could simply be due to Runner decks changing, or a small sample size (I played seven games, and lost four of them), but it’s atypical for my Jinteki deck to struggle to this extent.

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I think its the second best card in the set, after Jackson. I put both into my NBN deck and was very happy.

I think they combo together. Draw 2, Celebrity Gift, show things, discard stuff. Runner has no idea whats left in there. You probably discarded agendas and will Jackson them. But maybe what you did was discard things like Snares and got them back in R&D where you want them most.

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This card seems like a decent answer to recovering from an Account Siphon provided you aren’t busy trashing resources. Thoughts?

It seems strong. I won a game with my first OM test deck by using it when I was about to rush through my final agenda–even though it showed Noise I had agendas in hand, it let me rez enough ICE to keep him out of my remote and still score the agenda on the following turn :). As an untrashable two-click burst, at the right time it can mean the difference between life and death.

Note: testing outside of Jinteki.

I have been using 3 copies of Celebrity Gift in a fast advance TWIY deck and, combined with Jackson Howard, has performed admirably. It has let me rezz expensive stuff like SanSans and Tollbooths while showing the runner I have extra copies and thus discouraging him from trashing stuff.

Isn’t it kind of ironic to spend your influence in Jinteky economy, of all factions? XD

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im going to be sad if celebrity gift proves to better outside of jinteki :slight_smile:

i think it could be great in never advance. i show you at astro, snare, bernice, san san and jackson howard - gain the money and then install a thing. what are you going to do as the runner ? you have to check right ?

now if i can only find the room for zaibatsu. infiltration is back with a vengeance

It’s been great in my TWIY Rush deck; probably a similar build to Canales :).

Been amazing for me in both NBN and Jinteki.

Any updated lists to try out?

Here’s my take on a TWIY deck that has had Celebrity Gift and Jackson Howard (or both) save it’s bacon in every game:

Twee Little Giraffes (42 cards)

NBN: The World Is Yours*

Agenda (10)
3 AstroScript Pilot Program
3 Breaking News
1 Priority Requisition
3 Project Beale

Asset (3)
3 Jackson Howard

Upgrade (3)
3 SanSan City Grid

Operation (7)
3 Celebrity Gift
1 Closed Accounts
3 Hedge Fund

Barrier (2)
2 Wall of Static

Code Gate (8)
3 Chum
3 Pop-up Window
2 Tollbooth

Sentry (7)
2 Data Raven
3 Draco
2 Flare

ICE (2)
2 Chimera

Damn, I’m really happy with Celeb Gift in Jinteki…!!!

Will test a bit more before posting a list

After testing, I still have mixed feelings about CG, and have decided for now to not include it in my Jinteki deck.

I had been saying even before Opening Moves that Jinteki is economically viable against all but the best Account Siphoning decks. The only Jinteki decks I can see needing CG are those that import expensive OOF ice heavily, at the cost of killing power due to lack of deck space and influence.

Furthermore, CG is better than Hedge Fund by a mere two credits, at the cost of revealing the player’s hand. Of course, a side-by-side comparison shouldn’t be made in this case, as most Jinteki decks that run CG will be running both.

For my deck (which runs cheap options such as Snowflake, Himitsu, etc) 3x Hedge Fund, 2x Melange, 2x Jackson Howard is more than enough. Jinteki isn’t HB - it doesn’t need to maintain 15-25 credits, which is what my deck maintained running an additional 3x Celebrity Gift (it did, however, have consistency issues due to lack of space for more ice).

But when youdraw one its like drawing two hedgefundsstrong text

lol well, technicaly 1.4 Hedge Funds.

As for my updated Jinteki list (which I’ve been working on and have kept under wraps for a month), it’s currently:

[URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/decks/rMYqpKWRKrKvfDNyE]Jinteki[/URL] (49 cards)

[URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/jinteki-core]Jinteki: Personal Evolution[/URL]

Agenda (10)
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/corporate-war-future-proof]Corporate War[/URL]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/false-lead-a-study-in-static]False Lead[/URL]
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/fetal-ai-trace-amount]Fetal AI[/URL]
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/nisei-mk-ii-core]Nisei MK II[/URL]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/priority-requisition-core]Priority Requisition[/URL]

Asset (11)
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/cerebral-overwriter-creation-and-control]Cerebral Overwriter[/URL] [color=#8221AE]••••[/color]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/jackson-howard-opening-moves]Jackson Howard[/URL] [color=#e0911d]••[/color]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/melange-mining-corp-core]Melange Mining Corp[/URL]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/ronin-future-proof]Ronin[/URL]
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/snare-core]Snare![/URL]

Operation (8)
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/celebrity-gift-opening-moves]Celebrity Gift[/URL]
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/hedge-fund-core]Hedge Fund[/URL]
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/neural-emp-core]Neural EMP[/URL]

Barrier (6)
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/himitsu-bako-opening-moves]Himitsu-Bako[/URL]
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/snowflake-what-lies-ahead]Snowflake[/URL]

Code Gate (5)
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/chum-core]Chum[/URL]
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/tollbooth-core]Tollbooth[/URL] [color=#e0911d]••[/color]
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/viper-cyber-exodus]Viper[/URL] [color=#8221AE]•[/color]

Sentry (6)
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/archer-core]Archer[/URL] [color=#5e887b]••••[/color]
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/caduceus-what-lies-ahead]Caduceus[/URL] [color=#5e887b]••[/color]
3 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/neural-katana-core]Neural Katana[/URL]

ICE (3)
1 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/chimera-cyber-exodus]Chimera[/URL]
2 [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/card/whirlpool-humanitys-shadow]Whirlpool[/URL]

I have two iterations of this deck, one having two Celebrity Gifts, and the other offering a couple Trick of Lights. I still have some testing to do, but this deck performs very well.

1.4? That’s an odd number to just pull out of your ass. Let me play some mathrunner to see how you arrive at that value:

draw hedge, play hedge, draw hedge, play hedge credits/clicks = 8/4 = 2

draw CG, play CG, credits/clicks = 7/3 = 2.34 (aka melange mining corp)

so mathematically it’s better than drawing 2 hedge funds, not sure where you get 1.4 from since the value of 1 celebrity gift is 7 credits, that make it provide the same number of credits as 1.75 hedge funds.

it’s pretty reasonable to cut out hedge funds in decks that play 3 celebrity gifts along with jackson. The quality of CG increases the value of your draws, and jackson gives you gas to play more aggressively.

I’d have to math it out, but packing in at least 2 beanstalks to decks with just cg would help mitigate the problem of having cg in your opening hand. I think for a Jinteki deck that will probably spend the influence on beanstalk, a good package would be 2 cg, 1 hedgefund, and 3 beanstalks - maybe even 3cg 2 beanstalk 1 hedgefund since some runners might not be willing to risk face checking your ice turn 1

I think these double events are pretty insane when they can create free cardslots in your deck for you, you can go from 3 hedgefunds and 3 beanstalks (21 credits) to 3 celebrity gifts (21 credits) freeing up 3 card slots for more 1pt agendas or whatever all for the drawback of showing the runner some cards (which you can even turn into an advantage in some cases).

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Too sloshed atm to figure out which of us is correct, but my reasoning was:

CG: two clicks net 7 creds
HF: 4 creds, click for 1c

So a 7:5 ratio, or 1 & 2/5ths, hence 1.4

Edit: I’m not sure why you don’t simply compare them side-by-side as a 1v1 comparison. Calculating for two HFs seems to me a gauche comparison.

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because any idiot can pick up the cards and look at them

I’m whirlpool-curious :). How are you employing it / what has it done well for you / etc? I see a lot of Crypsis tossed out as an emergency breaker vs. Jinteki.

Whirlpool solves some problems with running traps in general.

The problem is, you want to rez your ice before a trap so a runner doesn’t get spooked and realize you want him to access. However, if your ice stops the runner, he won’t access and he’ll realize it’s probably a trap if you don’t score it the next turn.

On the other hand, if the ice is rezzed, an intelligent runner can tell if it’s a trap or agenda with a decent success rate. If the ice is breakable, he’ll assume it’s a trap, and if not, he’ll assume it’s an agenda. This makes sense: why would you put a trap in a server he can’t get into, and why would you put your agenda in a server he can get through? For this reason, it’s often advisable you randomize your decision of whether to trap or agenda, but it will still backfire from time to time.

This is where Whirlpool comes in. It allows you to make a new server and put a trap behind and rez Whirlpool forcing them into it, or you can simply not rez Whirlpool if there’s an agenda there and rez the other ice. Additionally, Whirlpool works well behind a Chum as a guaranteed 3 net damage in addition to forcing the runner into the trap. For this reason, I always advise running Whirlpool instead of Data Mine in the vast majority of Jinteki decks.

So to answer your question on Whirlpool’s use more succinctly, after you have a rezzed server the runner’s run on a couple times, make a new, unrezzed one. The runner often thinks you’re attempting a more secure server. Place a Whirlpool on the outermost layer, putting the server at 3 or 4 total ice. Now play and double-advance a trap or agenda and Rez accordingly. The nice thing about porous ice (such as Katana or Chum) is that you can Rez them after activating Whirlpool and the runner can’t simply neglect to break, ending the run.