This is a deck that I tried building some time ago and it was surprisingly effective at the time. Notably it included the most janky of combos- snare, encryption protocol and Isabel McGuire. Don’t want to pay to trash that snare you just hit? Oh well, back to my HQ it goes…

Fair warning: the deck caused one of my housemates to ragequit multiple times. It’s pretty frustrating to play against sometimes, so if you’re looking for a deck to have some fun games against your boyfriend or teach someone the delights of netrunner, this is probably not what you want. If you’d like to make your local league opponents develop a nervous tic, go right ahead.

The basic principle of the deck is to blank as much of the runner’s deck as possible and optimize your own to play a smooth, fast game that forces the runner to use their basic, inefficient tools. With your deck keyed to trade very well in these scenarios and theirs keyed to deal with more traditional corp play, you should be able to build a lead and capitalise on it.

HB is generally considered to be the premier ice building faction and almost all HB decks depend on heavy ice taxes to protect themselves. I tried to turn that on its head with this deck, instead leveraging the demoralising power of HB’s exceptional suite of assets and the momentum that ETF can provide when you are consistently installing every turn.

Where Jinteki shell games tend to revolve around using net damage and click control to put a limit on the amount of cards the runner can access. This deck instead primarily relies on accelerating your installs and building your own tempo, without aggressively limiting the runner’s options, though there’s a few cards which do that.

Identity: Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future

Cards: 49 / 45

Agenda points: 20 / 20

Influence: 15 / 15

Agenda (11)

3x Accelerated Beta Test

2x Gila Hands Arcology

3x Project Vitruvius

3x NAPD Contract

Asset (21)

3x Adonis Campaign

2x Alix T4LB07

3x Encryption Protocol

3x Eve Campaign

1x Isabel McGuire

3x Jackson Howard ●●●

1x Levy University

2x PAD Campaign

3x Snare ●●●●●●

Ice (5)

2x Heimdall 1.0

3x Heimdall 2.0

Operation (9)

3x Biotic Labor

2x Diversified Portfolio

1x Reclamation Order

3x Shipment from Mirrormorph

Upgrade (3)

3x Hokusai Grid ●●●●●●

Decklist from Little Chiba

An advantage of skipping out on most of the ice game is that you bank money fast. This means you can biotic agendas easily, and what ice you do have can be pretty significant. For this reason I’m running two Heimdall 1.0 and three Heimdall 2.0 as my only ice- they can singlehandedly make a server frustrating to get into and, while vulnerable to being shutdown, that’s not as much of an issue here as elsewhere given the sheer amount of money you can generate.

Adonis Campaign, Eve Campaign, Pad Campaign and Jackson Howard provide the economic core of the deck, with ETF’s credit you break even on adonis or pad if you rez them, and eve only costs you 2 to the runner’s 5. Installing these basics on a Hokusai Grid only makes them more of a positive trade for you- I found with this deck’s initial version that runners often had very little cash, so they had to choose to leave either Hokusai or whatever was on it standing, a big win either way. A secondary set of economic tools are Alix T4LB07 and Shipment from Mirrormorph. Neither are fantastic on their own, but together they let you run a turn where you install and rez Alix, shipment three cards and then use Alix, for three installs and 5 net credits in one turn.

To frustrate the runner, Snare! and Encryption Protocol provide some unexpected annoyance and force them to be careful about just running everything all the time. One Levy University and one Isabel McGuire are toolbox cards that let you pull a lot of unexpected plays. Levy can pull out a double heimdall server if you’re flooded with money and want a more secure way of finishing the game. Isabel can click your almost-finished campaigns back to hand as well as the aforementioned snares the runner has been foolish enough not to trash.

Biotic Labour and a hard-to-read agenda suite of Accelerated Beta Test, Project Vitruvius and Gila Hands Arcology provide dual ways of scoring out- bluffing on the ground and Biotic to clear the hand if the runner is spending all their time checking your remotes. NAPD Contract can be scored with a bit of both, in a pinch, or be placed behind a Heimdall to tax hard.

Finally, since you’re going to be running through your deck fast and probably seeing sets of all three of a card here and there, a Reclamation Order lets you get them back and, as the final indignity, once the runner has given up and let you cover the table in servers, Diversified Portfolio shows them that every choice they make is a bad one. Since these cards are somewhat situational, playing multiples that can clog up your hand is not the best idea. Despite their power, I’m keeping the count low.

How to play the deck

The most important thing to learn playing this deck is reading your opponent and controlling your own tells. You are going to put down unprotected agendas every game, so making sure that accelerated beta test looks like just another $(#$& encryption protocols is pretty important. That kind of bluff is important, but you can also do the five-card-install turn (mirrormorph and two more) and use your snares to create windows of fear. Sometimes this does necessitate balls of steel.

Keep drawing through your deck and installing at least one, preferably two cards per turn under normal circumstances. Put heimdalls down as you get them. First priority is R&D because a lock can really mess you up, though if you suspect siphon recursion, protecting HQ can be pretty important too once you start banking lots of credits- if you’re low you can just rez a bunch of the random cards you’ve installed to blank the siphon.

Use Hokusai grid to force painful choices. Install it naked in a remote first, and if the runner doesn’t trash it, put campaigns or jacksons on it.

Try to keep the runner running and spending. You don’t want to give them time to get their economy rolling. Once the runner is down to only a credit or two, consider putting out an agenda (particularly Gila Hands or NAPD contracts) to mess with their recovery plan. Often times if you’re going to put out 3 for 2’s on the board, two in a turn is better than one. The runner will hit one of them, assume they’ve called your bluff and let you score the other in peace. These trades are actually a good idea in this deck, since with the rate you go through your deck and the economic advantage you should have you can often finish off a game that’s 4/4 in a couple of turns with biotics.

The first few turns are the most critical, often enough. Ideally you want an unwary runner to think you have a bad draw with little ice and you’re making the best of it, encouraging them to run you early rather than setting up their own economy. The temptation to trash things will hopefully set them back a little and I’ve rarely lost a game from that position- this deck snowballs very, very hard.

Be brave, be evil, have fun.