Rinri: Tired of Playing Anarchs?

RubbishyUsername 442

Hey kids, want to NOT play a cookie-cutter, 54-card, shuffle-till-your-hands-ache, sprawl-across-three-tables, Levy-in-every-deck? Well tough. In this meta, there's only two decks: Anarch with Faust, and asset spam. Or are there? One thing I've always enjoyed about Yomi lists is that it doesn't matter what your opponent is doing, they have to play the mind games. Some people have complained about that, but let me put it this way: you are guaranteed a base amount of fun; the thrills from a shell game, or from running an advanced card.

"It doesn't matter how "broken" the cards your opponent has shuffled up are, because they are no longer playing their game."

Yomi decks are all about being in your opponent's headspace, so rather than tell you why we're running the cards we are running, let's look at the cards our opponent is running:

  • Levy AR Lab Access: First things first, making your opponent run out of cards hasn't been a successful tactic for a while, but it's especially true given how popular this card is today. Rather than fight it with Chronos Project, we are going 100% for the kill.

  • Political Operative: FFG clearly printed this card for with one counter in mind: Caprice Nisei. Wait, that link's not right. Why's it - oh no. Yeah, that's right, the timing on Political Operative allows you to trash Ronin after the rez but before the fire. Talk about a tempo swing. Advancing based mind games just don't work any more, especially against criminals. The solution, like Damon always wanted you to do, is go sideways. Bio-Ethics Association has been getting a lot of bad press from Industrial Genomics: Growing Solutions, but here we only care if it fires once: on the turn of the kill. This card is half a Chairman Hiro, it works in multiples, and unlike the Executive it'll help you kill even if they only have a couple cards in hand. If you haven't worked it out yet, we're playing The Brewery in this deck, since it's like having 2 Neural EMP all of the time in a deck that doesn't use clicks to do damage. If the runner refuses to run, you can kill with your ID, Hiro, and two of Bio-Ethics Association from 4 credits.

  • Wyldside: Normally this card is terrible news for Jinteki, since it gives the runner enough draw to survive a Project Junebug and/or Snare! and still have enough clicks left over to escape the tag. But this deck can kill from a full hand anyway. Cerebral Cast is perfect for this even when you don't have Scorched Earth: take a brain or lose their draw. The latter is far better for them: landing a brain damage will often win you the game.

I'm gonna let you in on a secret. I love designing ice packages, but especially for Yomi decks. Not every piece of ice here is good, but every piece is terrifying for exactly one card out there. Let's count it down:

  • Faust and Eater hate Wraparound and Komainu. One can be solved by D4v1d, an icebreaker possibly as ubiquitous now as all the AI companions he's paired with, and the other by good old fashioned Parasite. But speaking of which:

  • D4v1d: Nothing makes this card sadder than a strength 4 sentry. Enter Cortex Lock and Ichi 1.0. I'm playing Ichi 1.0 over Eli 1.0 because it has to be clicked through, and that means they can't draw up which means that they die.

  • I've Had Worse: No one wants to break a Lockdown. And then they lose their I've Had Worse to House of Knives and that's just... the worst. YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa new addition I've made to this deck is Genetics Pavilion. This should enable that kill you wanted as long as you can secure an additional point of damage/hand size reduction through a single I've Had Worse. Testing needed.

  • Chameleon: If you aren't an Anarch, then you are probably running Chameleon, Atman, and D4v1d as your rig. Quicksand is the only barrier that they need all three to break. Now that what I call a gear check.

  • Cyber-Cypher: Some people are under the illusion that they can still play Kate McCaffrey and the ol' AtmanLadyCypherZuleD4v1dSuckerParasite rig. Make them realise that they really kind of overpaid on the Decoder front with Yagura. It'll demoralise them. Then rez and fire Kitsune anyway.

  • Refractor: I hear that some kids are running blue now. I don't know what their rig looks like without an AI breaker in it, but I'd probably put my money on Refractor and Switchblade. The surprise solution? Well it's the only card that needs explaining left; it's Harvester. Firstly, these guys are the ones least likely to be running Levy AR Lab Access, so you're more likely to deck them. They also have far fewer unnecessary cards because so much of their deck is filled with stealth cards, which means the discards are harder and the net damage done afterwards is so much juicier. These guys aren't big on recursion either. And even after they get a breaker out, 1 stealth credit and 2 real ones to break a 1 strength codegate? yikes.

Is there anything else I need to mention? Pretend that it's the glory days and you can run Ronin by Mushin No Shining a Philotic Entanglement. Don't be afraid to feed the Astrolabe: you'll get more creds from Sweeps Week.

3 comments
17 Apr 2016 lolpaca

How's the economy? Only 6 'real' money cards doesn't seem like a lot, even if your ice is cheap.

17 Apr 2016 RubbishyUsername

Not as bad as you'd think. Since I don't really need to advance cards without Mushin No Shin because I don't need to threaten scoring out or Ronins, I can spend clicks that I would spend advancing on clicking for creds. I'd maybe like 7 money cards, but there's no other good operation economy for this type of deck.

21 May 2016 MrHuds0n

Surprised this has only two comments. I piloted this deck to a fifth (ex aequo with a NEH) place in Silesian Regionals and I am really glad such a janky deck did so well. Kudos for this list, the deck won 4 games and lost just one.