No Ice Challenge - Naked Jinteki

A league I play in has a list of achievements you can earn by completing challenges. One of those challenges is to play a deck with no ice. This is my shot at that challenge. Jinteki: Personal Evolution discourages runners by it's very nature. It hurts to score, let alone encounter a trap. Even so, without any ice to discourage the runner you have to play very smart just to give yourself an opportunity to win.

There are a couple of ways to get points on the board. The simplest is to score Clone Retirement out of hand. The rest are a bit more tricky. If you've managed to get yourself in a solid money position, you might be able to sneak SanSan City Grid onto the board. It's expensive, but scoring agendas out of hand is a lot safer than leaving them in a naked remote for the runner to snoop around.

Mushin No Shin works very well with Plan B. It does require some hand setup. You'll want any of the three advance agendas in hand, plus Mushin and No Shin and Plan B. Use Mushin to get Plan B advanced enough to score out of hand, then wait for the runner to make their choice. If they choose to run, free score for you.

Hostile Infrastructure is woefully expensive, but when rezzed (especially in multiples) does a whole lot of good for you. The runner has to make some really tough choices. Advanced Plan B's go from costing the single damage from the scored agenda to a best case scenario of 5 (House of Knives, 3x Hostile Infrastructure, and an agenda score). Choosing not to trash the advanced cards leaves you another opportunity to score out of hand with Trick of Light. Trashing the SanSans is not just expensive in credits but in cards too.

The Fetal AI are just traps. You'll have a terrible time trying to score these, so don't think about them as agendas, think of them like a Snare. They are useless in Archives, and so should be your first priority target when recycling archives with Jackson Howard.

The Board is probably the weirdest card in the deck. It's a one-of, so chances of finding it are pretty slim. It's also a liability in that it is adding agenda points to your deck that you can't score. On the other hand, if you do happen to get it installed it gives the runner something else to deal with. It can be protected with a Self-destruct. Of course, if trashing it is going to give the runner the win, it is a moot point. I haven't been able to get it into play in any matches so far, so it would probably be the first card I pitch in favor of something more effective, perhaps some alternative form of damage.