So this is the nonsense I took to UK Nationals this year. In 7 rounds of Swiss, it lost one, ID'd one and won 5 (all kills), taking me (along with my Geist deck) to 15th place and a place in the Top 16!

The finals didn't go so well, starting with a Runner loss, followed by a Runner timed win. When I finally got to play this again, it was against Dave Hoyland, with the nemesis of this form of deck: Keyhole. Which he saw turn 1 due to an Inject, along with a Retrieval Run and an I've Had Worse.

He quickly took me out and my Nationals journey was over.

Anyway, the deck.

As you may have guessed, this is a kill deck! (Did the 22 Jinteki cards with the phrase "net damage" present tip you off?) But rather than the more commonly successful Jinteki kill styles of 1000 cuts or draw lock, this is all about the one shot kill.

The aim is to build up a board state where you can kill the runner on your turn the moment they make a mistake.

That mistake may be "running the wrong server". It may be "running at all". It may even be "not running".

Some specific card choices:

Agenda

Chronos Project - mostly here in case of Geist repeated free draws with multiple runs of Spy Cameras. Saw neither that deck (not counting mine!) or this card for scoring on the day.

False Lead - Critically important. Score one and you're 40% of the way to winning. Score two and you're 80% there.

(I don't know what happens if you score 3).

Improved Protein Source - I wanted to give myself more flexibility for scoring out against well-defended runners, and a 4-3 is great for that. Money doesn't really matter either since runner's don't need to spend cash on this deck. In practice, first time I saw it was when Dave Hoyland looked at it in disbelief in the top 16 game on his first Keyhole run.

Philotic Entanglement - an agenda you can fast advance, or Mushin/False Lead/score, for instant damage based on the fact I'm dripping 1-pointers everywhere? Sign me up.

Assets

Bio-Ethics Association is great for this deck. Most important though: do not rez them until the kill! They'll get trashed and you've gained nothing. They should fire once only (twice in some False Lead based edge cases). But once is all they need.

Psychic Field is great for runners aggressively attacking your remotes. Even better if you Mushin one. With a False Lead scored, it's often a win in itself.

Ronin - getting one of these on the table is the key for most kills. Ready at 4 counters is ideal, but 3 can do if you're not expecting to use the ID as well.

Snare! is for aggressive central runners and aggressive remote runners and is always the best card.

Operations

Biotic Labor - obviously lets you use the ID and another thing. Also, fast advance a key agenda, or get an extra click for another operation. Always important, and the reason I haven't made this a 54 card Museum deck: I don't want my Biotic Labors harder to find.

Cerebral Static - good to counter Employee Strike, and against Geist (or Exile!). I didn't play any Geist, or Employee Strikes.

Mushin No Shin - economy, speed, tricks - everything you could want!

Neural EMP - spare damage for a click, sure.

Salem's Hospitality - Why hello I've Had Worse. This is the only reason it's in here (and the the Marked Accounts are only really here to meet the Alliance requirement for this) but it won me a game on the day, so completely worth it. To be fair, if you have an idea what's in their hand you can use it for a replacement Neural EMP that works if they haven't run, and it may even be more effective if they've got multiple copies of the card. However, I try and avoid guesswork like that if I can avoid it.

Targeted Marketing - Useful against Siphon, fun against many other decks, bonus current, and makes up the Alliance requirement. Nice card, but I don't think I saw it all day.

ICE

Turns out occasionally you want ICE. After months of playing this, I'm happy that this is the right amount for this deck. Did almost all of its work face-down - in fact, I'm not wholly convinced I actually rezzed a piece of ICE during the day.

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So yes, this is a silly jank deck that I've been playing and adapting for far too long - and did surprisingly well with in a big competition. I can offer some tips on how to play it if anyone cares, but I'm not imagining that many people are going to pick this up and play it for themselves. There are some key obvious weaknesses (Keyhole most of all) and my placing was at least in part down to luck in my pairings. I'll be posting a detailed breakdown of my games at some point in the near future if that's what you're after.

Is it the new meta? Absolutely not. Am I glad I took it to Nationals, rather than the same old same old NBN decks?

Yup.