Protocole chausse-trappe

Diogene 3864

Mind game the runner into flatline.

Game plan.

  1. Put trap and agenda on the board.

  2. Give net damage to the player and trash the most advantageous card for the runner.

  3. Flatline the runner through either traps (Snare), Neural EMP (if you have more of them than the runner has cards) or Complete Image.

  4. If the runner is prudent, score you agendas and win.

The name of the deck mean something like "Foot trap protocol".

A part of this deck is the usual thing with Chronos Protocol : damage the runner with Neural EMP, look at the deck and try to kill the runner with Complete Image. Standard Procedure serve the same purpose : look at the deck and get creds, before trying to kill the runner. Salem Hospitality will let you get rid of more cards in the runner hand, to setup Complete Image. All of this is good, so I've kept it.

But instead of trying to stop the runner, this deck goes for mind game and ambushes. Here, every decision of the runner could cost cards. Snare! and Project Junebug are nice traps. Shi.Kyu does not trigger from R&D, but it does from Archives and everywhere else. The nice thing about Shi.Kyu is the cheap cost. Normally, the corp would aim to make the runner take Shi.Kyu as a negative agenda point, and it is the prefered way. But with Chronos, you only want to give 1 net damage, allowing you to look at the deck and select the card to trash.

Note that Project Junebug could be replaced with Psychic Field, since Psychic Field setup the runner to be killed by Neural EMP easily. But the advanceable Junebug can be mistaken for an agenda (especially late game, when the runner must run everything or risk losing the game).

For creds, there Mwanza City Grid, Pop-up Window, Celebrity Gift and Standard Procedure. Mwanza will give you plenty and protect R&D. Snare! is a nasty thing for runners. You can even pre-rez Mwanza to scare the runner. Standard Procedure will let you look at the hand of the runner and give you some creds at the same time. Pop-up Windows will cost the runner a cred and give you a cred. So that everytime the runner goes somewhere (especially HQ and R&D), you'll have some credits to fire the Snare! or pay for Shi.Kyu. Finally, Celebrity Gift will give you creds and reveal the traps in your hand. Pushing the tactic of "I dare you to try running".

Aside from the traps, Hokusai Grid will give an easy 1 net damage, thus triggering your ID. Preemptive Action will let you get ambushes back in R&D. Nother worse for a runner, after triggering 2 Snares, to see them come back in R&D when it is "protected" by Mwanza City Grid.

Aside from Pop-up Window, there is Engram Flush and Mganga. Engram is taxing and can let you see the runner hand, while being cheap to rez. Mganga is a garanteed 1 net damage, maybe even 2, again triggering your ID.

The deck run cheaply, so it is relatively resilient to Apocalypse. Agenda wise, Obotaka is always a good agenda, especially for a deck using Complete Image and Neural EMP. Fetal AI is a good ambush, since it does not require the runner to steal it to do damage, making it possible to kill the runner before the runner get the points. This part is important, because the runner will get the victory before being flatlined. Sting! is good also, but I prefer House of Knives, which allow me to give 1 net damage per run, further grinding down the runner and triggering Chronos ID. Global Food Initiative is there to have a bit less agendas and possibly force the runner to score 4 agendas to win, instead of 3, depending if they scored an Obotaka.

While the deck is cheap to run, it is a bit slower because there is no click compression through Rashida, fast advance tools through La Costa Grid.

A nice part about the deck is forcing the runner to play the corp gameplan. Since most of the runner rig will not do much : barrier and sentry breaker are useless. Being rich will not matter much. Bad pub will do nothing. Diversion of Funds (DoF) and Stargate are the strongest against this deck. DoF will deny you from triggering two Snare in a row, giving the runner free runs with impunity. Also, Complete Image is expensive. Stargate let the runner not interact with R&D. Hokusai Grid will help, but only once, until it is trashed. For Stargate, Genotyping could be used, instead of Preemptive Action, but I wanted to get more cards (ambushes) in R&D.

Note that Pop-up Window and Standard Procedure allow the deck to have Salem Hospitality without paying the influence.

This deck was made after playing multiple games with a nice Chronos deck made by Xandorius (https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/62592/fetch-quest-chronos-0-5). I liked Xandorius deck, but after getting acquainted with Chronos, I thought I could do Chronos with traps instead of big ices.

Cheers.

1 comments
5 Dec 2020 Dave976

This deck is so evil. I absolutely love playing it. Thank you for sharing.