Trash Pandas 1.5

Because like the name, this deck is vaguely asian garbage. Thankfully we’ve moved on a whole half version from Trash Pandas 1.0, nearly several games were played with it through Jinteki.net’s gauntlet of professional players on their lunch breaks to arrive where we are today at version 1.5.Which is what you get NRDB readers, because you don’t deserve the full 2.0 version of trash pandas.

This deck could be a master class on how to front-page netrunnerdb. Underpowered ID, humorous, overly-confident strategy writeup, and a critical mass of “fun” cards. But before we look at the deck…

Let’s examine the rich history of Space Camp IG decks on NRDB…

The deck we examine today stands on the shoulders of 19 other IG decks originating with a deck by Mendax last year. When interviewed Mendax credits the creation of the archetype to Elvortel whose latest designs are currently unpublished.

There is nothing really new in netrunner, we’re such a huge community that the shallow card pool is very quickly explored. As such, originality is a really over-valued attribute when it comes to deck design.

You can’t always be original, and that’s okay. But when your trashy panda deck is 4 cards different from Bwob’s Lunar Kudzu 2.1, you should at the very cite him with “derived from” credits in your post rather than perpetuating the farce that your deck is at all original for no reason other than to protect your fragile ego.

With that aside, on to the deck…

Industrial Genomics: Growing Solutions Agenda (9) 3x Braintrust 3x Medical Breakthrough 1x Philotic Entanglement 2x The Future Perfect

Asset (22) 2x Allele Repression 1x Genetics Pavilion 3x Jackson Howard ••• 3x Mental Health Clinic 2x PAD Campaign 3x Shock! 2x Snare! 3x Space Camp ••• 3x Turtlebacks

Upgrade (3) 1x Caprice Nisei 1x Cyberdex Virus Suite 1x Hokusai Grid

Operation (4) 2x An Offer You Can’t Refuse 2x Trick of Light Barrier (6) 3x Fire Wall ••••• • 3x Ice Wall •••

Code Gate (2) 2x Crick

Sentry (3) 2x Cortex Lock 1x Susanoo-No-Mikoto 15 influence spent (max 15) 20 agenda points (between 20 and 21) 49 cards (min 45) Cards up to The Universe of Tomorrow

Decklist published on http://netrunnerdb.com.

The deck seems to only be able to win through a critical error on your opponent’s part resulting in a flatline, or through a luck-based fast advance strategy.

There are two tricks of light, and only 6 agendas that can be scored with trick of light, I think the author expected to be able to use allele repression to replay trick of light, though that will be a full turn action for two cards because an advanced card will not stay on the table ever.

Both future perfects and the first medical breakthrough are dead-agenda draws, the rest need to be setup with advancement tokens on ICE or scored off the table if your opponent lets you. Clot and HQ runs completely ruin you, as you have almost no means of scoring without telegraphing when to run your hand, and only 7 pieces of ICE which can end the run.

I imagine every turn playing this deck is holding a hand of cool cards that aren’t good while advancing your ice walls 3 times, discarding 1 then passing each turn. It’s the slowest fast advance deck that anyone has ever seen.

52 credits worth of trashables guard your R&D, it sounds like a lot, but with only 15 cards in your deck being non-trashable non-agenda cards, you’ve functionally given each of your opponents a free medium at the start of the game. Worth noting is the fact that every Kate deck has 73 credits worth of operation economy before voicepads.

Each time I’ve looked at an IG deck, the archives punishment has been 3 shocks. Space Camp is only punishment if they have a face down card on the table, as boosting ICE is annoying, but not a hassle as you have ample time to remove it with parasite or just make a few extra credits to run. Having a few cards in hand to discard anytime the archives tax goes too high is a non-issue.

Really, it’s very relaxing to play against a Jinteki deck that has all of the helplessness of red without any of the ability to flatline you. Yes snare exists, and again, it’s only asking for a small amount of preparation from you to account for.

Thankfully for NRDB, what we lack in coherent strategy, we can make up for with a thin veneer of credibility and pluck!

Regarding improving this deck… If I was dead-set on punishing myself or forced to play IG for charity, I would start by going all-in on my strategy instead of dipping one foot tentatively in the kiddie pool full of sewage that is this deck.

Swap the Medical breakthroughs for NAPDS to double down on the credit pressure.

Since the deck lacks a way to pressure the runner with a pile of money, the asset economy isn’t baiting anyone to run and trash them, let’s lose the slow asset economy and replace it with operation economy. Having extra trash cost is only impactful if the runner needs to pay them.

-3 turtlebacks -2pad, -3 mental health clinic, Play things like celebrity gift, hedge fund, restructure and commercialization, sundew or ICE. If you still want some asset econ, just play the high value ones like PAD and Sundew, you’re already losing the game to astrolabe, don’t give them more hand size to hold all the cards they draw for free.

Playing a ronin or a junebug will give you better avenues to scoring… Jinteki has a lot of ICE to choose from, I’d suggest playing more, a komainu can instantly pay for itself in this metagame if you are good about it.

Trash Pandas 1.5 has a catchy nickname and a fun strategy writeup, (all you need to succeed on NRDB), I hope now you are all mentally prepared for the eminent disappointment you will feel shortly after taking this deck as written for a test drive.

Sincerely,

-The Fun Police