Because We Can, So We Will

Jay-TS 99

So the origin of this deck was to use of Thomas Haas in a good way. To be fair, I think no runner would expect him to be played in a normal match up but it has plenty of uses in its own way. Especially when I put this monster deck together.... it seems to fit in perfectly. Everytime you put down a facedown card with advancement tokens, the runner will always question whether it is a brain damaging Cerebral Overwriter, or a normal Thomas Haas that is wasting the runner's time or a rare mystic Project Junebug that most often ends the runner's life. Of course, Mushin No Shin will double your fun!

Skills Required: Balls of Steel and Read the runner's mind LIKE A BOSS. NEVER FEAR to put down an agenda and Advance Advance.

There are plenty of runners that doesn't like to take risks early on. Taking 2 brain damage in the early stage is a very big risk for them later on. Normally I can score a 5-pointer in the third turn. The more agenda points you have, the higher the pressure the runner needs to run into your Cerebral Overwriter. Or if you have Punitive Counterstrike in your hand, you have a win-win situation. They will never expect a Weyland attack do they? Use Thomas Haas to increase the trap frequency. And if you are lucky, you can Mushin no Shin into those traps/agendas.

Turn 1: Play like HB. Do your normal stuff to gain enough money. Hopefully you get an economy asset such as Adonis Campaign or PAD Campaign with Hedge Fund and one ICE to protect your HQ. You have 8 agendas. Don't need to worry about R&D! Perfect turn would be: Hedge Fund, PAD Campaign, Tollbooth on HQ.

Turn 2: Read Minds Like a Boss. If you have agendas, don't be scared to just put it out in an unprotected server and advance it twice. NEVER ADVANCE IT ONCE. 2 Brain damage is always more threatening than 1. If you don't have money because you tried to stop a Account Siphon by rezzing your ICE then just carry on building up a good econ. Perfect turn would be: Mushin No Shin into Agenda/Thomas Haas/Mandatory Upgrades/Cerebral Overwriter and then Advance.

Turn 2+: Get enough money and protect your servers slowly to gain credits. If you have Mushin no Shin the last turn and the runner didn't run. Score that agenda but don't get cocky. ACT NORMAL :D. Sometimes if you know your runner is a timid little child, put a second agenda down and advance like it's a trap. When you have 5 or more Agenda points on the field, score them all at once :)

The rest of the game is all really depends on how brave the runner is... bait him/her with a few Cerebral Overwriter and Thomas Haas to see his mental flow. Control the game by scoring agendas and let him run into your traps and ICE. Protect your traps with ICE and when they run, do rez your ICE to fake it is an Agenda. Protect your Agenda with ICE and don't rez to fake it is a trap. You get the drill!

Conclusion - Know your runner - Know the deck style

I think this deck primarily depends on the runner. One needs to grasp the readiness of the runner's mind during their first turn. Try to figure out what the playstyle of the runner from the ID that they use, the cards that they install and figure out the deck style as soon as possible. This requires a lot of play experience and know the current trendy decks.

Hope you have plenty of fun! Not too sure if it's a Tier One deck, but if you can bluff your way like a boss, this deck is definitely quite frightening.

Individual Cards:

Mushin No Shin: Always have enough money to let the runner fear that it is a Cerebral Overwriter. Always Mushin No Shin and Advance to increase the risk for the runner. Would you want to run into a 4-Advanced Cerebral Overwriter? Or even a 8-Net damage Project Junebug.

Cerebral Overwriter: The main fear but also a blindspot of the deck, people do hate brain damages and they can nearly nothing about it. The fear of 2/4 Advanced Cerebral will always linger in their minds. However, people will only think this is the only trap in a normal HB Deck.

Thomas Haas: Keep advancing him and never use him until he is being run on or when you need the burst of money! People wouldn't want to run on a 6+ Advanced face down card and you haven't even scored it. If you have somehow tricked the runner in thinking the face down card it's a Cerebral but in actual fact it is a Mandatory Upgrades; Bravo to your sir!

Mandatory Upgrades: A very good card, who in the right mind would want to score this agenda in a normal deck? It takes too long right? Not if you bluff it with a Mushin No Shin and some face down cards already set on the field.

Punitive Counterstrike: You need at least 1 Punitive Counterstrike and 1 Archived Memories and enough money to pull it off. But I have flat-lined many runners because they never expected a Punitive out from HB.

Project Junebug: Running into a 4-adv Junebug will probably kill most players. Try to be discreet... no one expects you to run into this card!

2 comments
15 Apr 2015 bravemonkey

It looks like a fun deck, have you had many games with it yet? How successful is it? I've always liked Thomas Haas as a surprise economy / fake trap / waste the runner's run through nasty ice card.

A couple of suggestions would be to change out one or two Project Vitruvius for Project Ares - if you can get a lot of counters on it, it could really wreck a runner's day; especially if they're running Keyhole / Eater and ignore the remotes. My experience with it though is one or two counters are not worth triggering it depending on the Runner's board state.

The other would be GRNDL Refinery if you could find the influence room (maybe -1 Mushin, since it's so tight otherwise) instead of Pad Campaigns - GRNDL since it's another advanceable card like Thomas Haas. The idea to be not having any install without advance cards (save the Jackson).

Have you run into Singularity yet? That card and it late popularity in Eater decks would wreck face here, unfortunately.

I don't think a deck that requires so much bluffing will ever be tier 1 though - at tournaments by 4th round a lot of mistakes can be made just from tiredness and the likeliness of coming up against higher level unknown opponents. Cambridge style decks work since the advancement requirements and costs to rez are generally lower (generally). This is why I asked about your experience with it. In any case, it looks like a fun deck!

As an aside, I really appreciate you writing up the involved commentary for your deck (not that I'm anybody though) - most decks without commentary I will look at briefly before dismissing, I wish more people would add their thoughts behind the purpose of the deck and card choices. Kudos!

15 Apr 2015 SlayerCNV

took a similar one to italian national last year and i arrived 7th!