Midnight Psychic Sneak-Attack

Overview

This deck is designed to, at your opponent’s first glance, look like a traditional Replicating Perfection deck. You start laying out Sundews and Pad Campaigns, and it looks like a very traditional RP vertical set-up. The ice is not too expensive, and will just go in front of HQ, R&D, and Archives to keep the runner taxed as they try to keep your remotes economy from getting too crazy. Heck, if they do not seem to be running your remotes, you can even start scoring unprotected agendas until they realize what you are doing.

But then you draw your Scorched Earth. Excellent. Eventually, they will get down to three or fewer cards in hand. Maybe they will hit Komainu or Tsurugi (or an Inazuma!) too close to the end of their turn. Maybe they will pull a Snare! from R&D. Maybe they will hit your Psychic Field you put in an unprotected remote (or they exposed it). Or maybe they just won't be thinking this deck is trying to kill them (this happens a lot) and just not draw up at the end of a turn. But whatever the reason, it will eventually happen. Then you drop the Cerebral Cast and they look at you funny. And they now get to choose: brain damage or tag. Either way, you win. If they take the tag, they die as you happily show them the Scorched Earth in your hand, the one they just moments ago foolishly assumed you were not packing. If they take the brain damage (this has never actually happened to me when I was playing someone who is playing this deck for the first time), then the chances of them getting down to three cards at the end of your turn increases, and when it happens, you pull this same move again.

Now, the deck is slightly more complicated than that, but that is generally how it works. Let’s look at a few aspects of the deck to better understand some of the finer points.

Agendas

All of the Agenda’s in the deck are selected to be able to be put in a remote one turn, looking like a Sundew or Pad Campaign or whatever else, and the next turn advanced and scored (or just scored out of hand in the case of Clone Retirement). If they do not appear to be running your Remote Servers, start playing Agendas in unprotected remote servers as described above. This gives you an advantage in points and forces the runner to speed up their game as they get worried, and it forces them to run more and set-up less, so they will have less creds and be less prepared.

Economy

Pad Campaign, Sundew, and Hedge Fund do a pretty good job of taking care of your economic needs, especially if you can get them out early game. And as discussed above, this helps keep your cover as a “peaceful” Jinteki deck (ha!).

Ice

The ice is designed to just protect your Central Servers a bit, but more to tax your opponent if they want to get to your remote servers. None of this Ice can just be encountered and allowed to fire off, without forcing some damage on the runner (which we don’t mind at all). The one exception to this is the single Himitsu-Bako. What is he doing there? Well, keep him in hand. He is your little secret. Later in the game when every credit matters, it is amazing how useful it is to lay him down in a new remote, put an agenda behind it, and let the runner realize too late that they need a barrier breaker out. It requires some timing, but it is amazing how well it works.

Cerebral and Scorch

As explained in the summary above, you use this to tag and bag. If needed, you should use Jackson to recover used Cerebral Casts, but this is actually rarely ever needed. It is also good to remember that Neural EMPs can be used to increase your kill range by one point. And also, in the unlikely event that they do decide to take the Brain Damage, DO NOT GIVE AWAY THAT YOU WERE HOPING THEY WOULD TAKE THE TAG! This requires some bluffing/acting. It is hard to keep cool, but if you can’t then this deck is probably not for you.

Neural EMP

A classic. And better when no one thinks it is in your deck. When someone hits the Psychic Field or a Komainu, you can effectively use these to finish them off before anything even gets going. In all of the competitive play I have done with this deck, no one is ever worried about a kill from RP (a.k.a. White Tree). Use this to your advantage.

Snare!

Snare is always good. But as Weyland players know all too well, the tag is just as dangerous as the damage. Once you start laying down remotes and they are not running them right away (usually waiting for you to Rez them first), then you start playing Agendas. Well, once they see this, they simply can’t keep allowing you to score Agendas. That is when you lay down the Snare!, and chances are, they will run it and take that tag. And with low cards, they may choose to draw cards rather than remover the tag. Or if they remove the tag but don’t draw back up to a full hand, it allows you to Cerebral and Scorch. It’s great!

False Leads

This is one of the few things that may tip off an opponent, but I think it is worth it. They may assume you have it in the deck to allow you to score an agenda, not for a kill. But if they take a tag from a Snare! (or give themselves a tag from an Account Syphon) or let their hand size drop to 1 or 0, use it and finish them off with the Scorch or Neural EMP. This is a powerful card in the right build, and this is that build. That one extra click they have to make before running remotes is PERFECT for this card.

Psychic Field

Well, there are a few reason for this seemingly out-of-place card. First, it can get your opponent down to 0 cards in hand, ripe for a Neural EMP. That is obvious. But also, Expose abilities are more and more common in runner decks, and this hits them right when they thought they were being careful, trigger off of an expose as well as an access. And it adds some variety and a bit of uncertainty in the runner’s mind. It might not be for everyone, but I have had great success with it in this deck.