Red Shift v1.2 (T8 Adelaide Regional)

ODie 725

Theory of the 'tech

My thinking for Jinteki Biotech is that you need to have two game viable plans that make the selection of the identity flip side open to two choices. I think that trying to be viable with all three flip sides would pull the design into a "jack of all trades, master of none" problem space, being too diverse and lacking coherency.

Ideally you would have a modular approach, being able to swap out cards from one module, say The Greenhouse, for another that works with The Tank. Then you can "prime" your meta by playing three variants: Greenhouse/Brewery, Brewery/Tank, and Tank/Greenhouse, to maximise the uncertainty in the Runner's mind as to what your deck can do and thus respecting the identity effect.

I've not worked out how to utilise The Tank well at the moment. My thinking here is leaning towards using Power Shutdown and Reuse to trash cards for beneficial effects and then use Jackson Howard in a proactive fashion to defend Agendas, then in the late game use the flip to reset R&D with the traps and economy cards.

Because the flip ability consumes an entire turn's worth of , Biotic Labor strikes me as a critical inclusion. Being able to utilise the ability and still have available is important, but the influence cost of four limits the ability to play three of these; I think two is probably the right number, though ideally this would be in a 45-49 card deck to improve chances of drawing into them.

The other aspect of this identity is that using the ability has to be highly impactful. Unless we ever see a card that allows Biotech to flip back over, the effect is a once-off, after which point the identity is blank. If this is not such a decisive move as to win the game, then the ability is wasted. So unless you're doing something like: Greenhousing a never-advanced second Nisei MK II or a Ronin, or flatlining the Runner with The Brewery, you're wasting the ability because the Runner no longer has to respect the effect.

Props for the build should go to both @SlySquid and @Ber, although many of the ideas in here were independently developed and more confirmed by the decks from both the above excellent designers.

The Deck

This build is focussed on working with both The Greenhouse and The Brewery flips. I've not perfected it, by any estimation, so it could well benefit from trimming down to 49 cards.

Agenda

Ten Agenda in 54 cards is a moderate density, but ideally this would go down to nine cards, twenty points in a 49 card build. I think that three Medical Breakthrough is absolutely necessary if you're using them at all - the possibility of scoring out of hand a 2/2 to win the game from five points is too strong. Philotic Entanglement is a great card to have lurking on the table for a never-advanced win option if the Runner is not checking unadvanced remote servers. I think three Nisei MK II's is right as well, thus we end up with the suite above.

Notably there are no Jackson Howards in the current build, and this didn't hurt me in the tournament at all. Sometimes you'll get a flood, but Jinteki is usually fine with this because HQ is often a dangerous place to run.

Assets

As this build exploits Mushin No Shin, assets include Cerebral Overwriter as a possible source of brain damage that can turn on a Biotic / Brewery flip / Neural EMP kill, as well as Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers which could masquerade as a Cerebral and threaten a flatline of the "obvious" Cerebral trap fails. Project Junebug plays into this role but doesn't cost influence. Junebug is cursed for me though and never hits, but that's probably just me ;-)

We're also going the Valley Grid route here and a surprise rez of Chairman Hiro might drop the Runner's hand size to zero, opening up a flip or Neural flatlining victory. Edge of World also plays into this strategy of reducing hand size and the Runner must respect the possibility of three net damage coupled with a reduction of hand size by three in a Valley Grid server: instant flatline with a hand size of -1. This opens up never advance options in that server, once they've seem the Edge of World, or flip scoring Nisei MK II if you run The Greenhouse.

Pure resilience and impermanence guided the choice of Private Contracts for economy. Lightly defended you should be able to net the full 11 profit, while building the server up to become your scoring remote.

Shi.Kyū is probably the weakest card here, although it has the potential to be a Snare! that bites twice if you are able to judge how much damage the Runner is prepared to take each time they access it.

Upgrades

Naturally Caprice Nisei finds a home in just about any Jinteki build. We love her, and you hate her, and you need to be nicer to our clones. Also here we are utilising Valley Grid to threaten hand size reduction for breaking our ICE, and form there a potential flatline. Hand size of 2 becomes vulnerable to a Ronin, or Biotic / Neural EMP / Brewery flip.

Crisium Grid was purely anti-Eater/Keyhole tech, however it has done good work cancelling out Account Siphons, multi-access run events, and is an all around decent include.

A pure jank include is the singular Self-destruct, intended to defend Chairman Hiro when the Runner musters the credits or Imp to trash him. I've achieved flatline victories by Self-destructing a server of one ICE, Hiro, The Valley for a trace^3 to dump the Runner's hand and next turn flatlining with a Brewery flip.

Operations

Biotic Labor I've touched on above. I rate Medical Research Fundraiser over Celebrity Gift in this design because there are so many one-of tricks that you prefer not to reveal to the Runner, even at the cost of accelerating their set-up. MRF also seems to play well into trap-type decks, encouraging the Runner to actually run. Snare! would be a decent means of punishing this, but Edge of World faking as a never advance can also punish.

The balance between 3x Mushin No Shin and 2x Neural EMP is dicey; sometimes I would like 3x Neurals instead, so YMMV.

ICE

Much of the ice in this bild is selected to pair well with The Valley, being binary and encouraging them to break it, subjecting themselves to the hand size reduction effect.

The barrier suite is thin, mainly because I was pairing this with a Quetzal deck and so was denigrating barriers. Some of the sentry suite could be traded into low or 0 influence barriers such as Wall of Static. I chose not to run Wall of Thorns because of the possible anti-synergy with The Valley, where the Runner can choose to take the 2 net damage and avoid The Valley's effect. Might be worth experimenting with, though. Ashigaru is an excellent tax on Shaper Lady counters, which can be important, and is just below D4v1d range.

On the code gate side Franklin is an obvious inclusion when so any of your pieces can be trashed an you'd like them back. It also makes farming the Archives for Datasucker tokens highly uneconomical. The synergy of Gyri Labyrinth with The Valley was part of the inspiration for this design. Could it perform outside of Jinteki Biotech? Open question possibly worth exploring., especially in something like Nisei Division: The Next Generation when the Runner starts busting out breakers against all your single subroutine Psi ice. Lotus Field demands from the Runner a decoder, and again is binary once Yog.0 + Net-ready Eyes are down.

Sentries suffer a lot in the current environment (circa Chrome City) when Stealth Andy wrecks your Jinteki house and is unfortunately popular. Cortex Lock can get early flatlines but quickly loses teeth. It belongs on central servers only, not in a scoring/kill remote. Guard replaced a Gemini that wasn't performing. Neural Katana is something that they want to Mimic through, but not if The Valley is rezzed; it's an old classic I enjoyed pulling from the box.

Susanoo-No-Mikoto might be a vaible alternative to the Shinobi if you're unwilling to take on the bad publicity, or find that Runner's consistently have more credits. The option for a single-rez flatline against low-credit Anarch and Stealth Shaper builds swung me to keep it.

Swordsman is again anti-Eater tech. I prefer Tsurugi for the centrals taxing the runner or threatening a flatline. It doesn't play well with The Valley because taking one net damage subroutine doesn't hurt them enough. If you can get the credit advantage there's a possible instant flatline with Shinobi.

Chimera is included as cheap binary ICE, a possible rush enabler, and later can serve as a defence against the Cutlery suite.

The Strategy

I prefer to try and build a single remote after a light defence of the key centrals. Covering Archives can happen later in the play, once needed and you draw into the Crick. Building a scoring remote while clearing a Private Contacts is acceptable, but sometimes if you're looking to rush a Nisei MK II you want those in a secondary remote. This is probably best determined by the choice of flip that you start with, whether you're going for the scoring win or the flatline victory.

Valley Grid usually lives on the remote, alongside and if you can get it, the Self-destruct. Mushin your Ambush cards to determine if they're going to run at such tings. This informs future (perfect) play - do you need a scoring remote or do you have the option of cheeky open remote scores?

Having Valley Grid in your remote turns the scoring server into a kill server as well; Caprice can force the Runner to have to re-run the server and if there are three (binary) ice on the server then their hand size (HS) will be reduced to negative from the usual 5, resulting in a flatline (see discussion on @Ber's Six-Point Exploding Heart Technique for details).

If the Runner cannot muster the credits for trashing Chairman Hiro, a surprise rez of him after they drop to 2HS will very likely guarantee a Brewery flatline next turn. Equally, firing a Self-destruct from the Hiro server with one ice and another sacrificial upgrade could put you in a good place to deliver three critical net damage and open up a Brewery / Biotic + Neural EMP + Brewery flatline next turn.

As with Butcher Shop builds, deliver the small points of damage first to maximise your chances of dodging the I've Had Worse before delivering damage past the remaining cards in hand to achieve the flatline. Don't waste valuable kill-shots when they happen: good players give Jinteki very few (sometimes no) chance to achieve the flatline, so letting one go by is a game losing situation if that's your victory line.

Enough has been written by others about using The Greenhouse in conjunction with Nisei MK II to rush out what I consider to be the most powerful Agenda in the game. Rather than repeat it, here's a discussion on Biotech Rush from Sneakdoor Melbourne (not my article) to refer to instead.

Other than that, explore the myriad options herein; there's plenty of combo pieces that can be disrupted by the Runner in the course of play, but hopefully plenty more to utilise anyway.

Finally here's the deck in action in the second round double elimination at the Adelaide Regionals last month: Adelaide Netrunner - 2015 Regionals - Top 8 Cut (R2) - Damian v Stephen.

7 comments
15 Jul 2015 Dydra

Too long of description for me to read, but looking at the decklist looks very flexible - what this IDs decks should be. I'm really curious if the 54 cards are needed with this ID, like they are with Genomics ...

15 Jul 2015 Chuftbot

Love love LOVE this. Fantastic balance between Greenhouse and Brewery without sacrificing either. The Self-destruct just makes me grin ear to ear. Great deck, enjoyed watching it in action.

16 Jul 2015 SlayerCNV

13 ices, in 54 cards, without snares and shocks makes my heart hurt

16 Jul 2015 SlayerCNV

ah no 15 ices, my heart hurts less.

16 Jul 2015 ODie

@Dydra I agree that it could stand to drop down to 49; unlike Industrial Genomics, Biotech shouldn't have to be that fat. What to trim, though, is a hard choice that I could not find time to quite tune down and test, given my lead up to Regionals (horror week, TBH).

One issue with Biotech combo decks like this is that many of the pieces can be removed with the Runner just trashing them from R&D, say, and so I tried to counter this by having an excess of pieces that could assemble into an assortment of combinations. Not wanting to lose four of them led to the slightly bloated deck, adding the Philotic Entanglement as one more option for getting a flatline (albeit a narrow one).

16 Jul 2015 ODie

@Chuftbot, thanks for that, glad you enjoyed it. Would that I'd gone further in the top 8 so that there would be more to enjoy ;-)

16 Jul 2015 ODie

@SlayerCNV, yes, it's a bit thin. Talking to my opponent on the video last night, we remarked that there should probably be some sort of access punishment like Snare! in the build. When I get done pfaffing about with my current Nisei Division build and come back to this, I'll look into revising the build to include at least two, and look into getting The Tank to work as a module.