RP Snare

With the MWL changes pushing the meta, perhaps RP's time is nigh again. I've made a lot of card choices to skew it spikier.

-Snare!, Cortex Lock, Komainu, Fetal AI, and Assassin can punish the runner that overextends or rushes. In addition to the haymaker 3 net damage, Snare!’s tag gives me a tiny, but real chance to interact with Resources. Resource economy seems to be difficult for this deck to deal with.

-Operation economy and a relative lack of trashables (compared to other Jinteki archetypes, NBN NEARPAD/Turtle Team descendants, and new Gagarin builds which have been floating around) allow me to remain relatively resilient to heavy R&D pressure. Sundew, Caprice, and Jackson tend to be must-trash cards outside of a late game R&D lock situation, forcing the runner to filter my deck for more operation economy or ICE.

-Ashigaru, Spiderweb, Wraparound, Tollbooth, Komainu, Susanoo, Assassin and Swordsman represent real threats to Atman or Faust builds that lean too heavily on early AI pressure to break into remotes or Siphon/Vamp HQ.

-Snare!, Cyberdex, and high strength, taxing ICE help to ward off heavy Medium digs.

-RP’s weakness to Parasite is ablated somewhat by these same high strength ICE.

-With Film Critic being slotted almost as often as Clot, I pivoted away from The Future Perfect in favor of faster scores from Braintrust and thinner agenda density from Global Food Initiative. TFP continues to be a strong agenda, but I prefer the surprise of Braintrust to the effect of TFP at this moment. It allows the deck to push agendas a little faster than slower runners like, and RP’s ability means the runner often can’t run their economy on turns they also apply pressure to the scoring remote.

-I’ve noticed that without consistent, proactive tagging you quickly rely on Caprice and Nisei MK II tokens to close out the game in matches against Resource-heavy runners.

-Nexus Kate presents a tough problem, but I win games where I’m fast enough to push out a Nisei MK II before the whole Nexus package is online. I flounder when I can’t move agendas smoothly from R&D into a remote anchored by Caprice and/or protected by a strong mix of ICE. In games where Kate hopes to establish an R&D lock using Nexus to generate consistent successful runs on R&D, I find she’ll often trash Jackson on sight. Interns turns this against Kate and allows me to take the reins again if R&D holds out. I can then Jackson through the lock and try to close the game out. Snare! plays a role here as well, spiking the runner in R&D or hanging out in HQ and punishing opportunity Legworks after Jackson draws.