The Soulkiller Deck

At the height of the 4th Corporate War, while Arasaka and Militech duke it out in the shattered urban wilderness that was once Night City, a rogue cell of underground Netrunners prepares for World Domination. The Brainiacs, demented, psychotic wire-headed net junkies arm their decks, plug in their ‘trodes, and jack into the Net.....

The Soulkillr Deck is mostly thematic, however it posesses the ability to inflict a quick and brutal victory, as well as a more traditional grafted win via 100 Ops Points. Two of the main ideas behind the deck are the use of three new terms that are introduced with Chrome & Kilobytes - Virtual, AI, and of course Soulkiller. We got the first indication of this new concept in 2020 with the introduction of Alt, and to a lesser degree the legendary Netrunner himself, Rache Bartmoss.

Virtual:
Virtual Runners have no physical characteristics, so they cannot be, or join a team, they have no SR, LR or Def (if anyone checks what it is, the answer comes back 0, but if the question "is it 0?" is asked the answer is no). If an effect would cause them to join a skirmish they do not join it.

AI:
AI cards may be placed in either deck during deck construction and have no Empathy statistic. If the game asks for a number the card will answer zero regardless of modifiers, but ignore any effects of having 0 Empathy such as Cyber-psychosis.

The first ineresting idea is the ability to put AI cards into either deck. This allows for an interesting idea - put only Locations and a handfull of Operations in your Runs deck and put all of your Runners in your Gear deck. The advantage with this is that you know that every card you draw from the Gear deck is a high value card, and that you only draw from your Runs when you need money, via Locations. It also allows you to draw enough cards from your Runs deck in your opening turn, chain them into play, and then switch to only drawing from your Gear deck. Each time your opponent takes a Location via a Hit, you can replace it with a simple single card draw from Runs. There is no drawing expensive Runners that sit in your hand for several turns, or high value Operations you can't run because you don't have enough SR to complete it. The exception might be to include a couple of Techies in your Runs deck to enable the recycling of the key Soulkiller program.

Now without your opponent playing Netrunners, a lot of people might think that this strategy will stall, after all surely the idea behind this is to turn your opponents Netrunners into Virtual Runners from which your Alt or Alt2 can grow in Power. Yes and no. You can turn all of your own Netrunners into Virtual characters as well, as long as you only need them for their Power, their physical characteristics are irrelevant to you. This means you can fill your Gear deck with Netrunner Power boosts, then perhaps play a couple of Operations that only have an E-Sec component (and use those techies to do the actual leg work).

Broadcast Liberation makes the most sense. At 20 Ops Points to simply lower it's 30 E-Sec to zero should be a cake walk for this deck, as should a couple of Breaking the Data Fortress and a well placed Arms Race. Remember if you need a specific card, the Cyber Oracle will allow you to search your Runs deck as and when you need it. The last Operation to consider is World Domination. While this might still be in the realms of the novelty deck idea, if constructed right, the Brainiac Sponsored deck can complete this Operation better than any other.

Hector is certainly the best Netrunner in Chrome & Kilobytes, and anyone who brings one into play is just asking for him to be a target. that's why using Soulkiller on him makes sense, as now he retains his Power stat but cannot be targetted or affected by cards that would pull him into a Skirmish, like Wake Up! Time to Die for example. An Assassin will still get him, but you're increasing his odds of hanging around, and trust me you will need him. A Hector with a Zetatech MultiHack, a Stim Patch and a Short Circuit in play, can take out the Broadcast Liberation by himself. In fact he can take out all your Ops by himself except the World Domination, and that's only if you choose to use it.

Your best bet with a Soulkiller deck is the quick Ops win, which means making use of your Cyber Oracle's to go and get the Ops as and when you need them. The disadvantage with lots of Locations and few Operations is having to troll through countless Locations before you get something you need. At least you can put all your Locations into play as you draw them, unlike drawing multiple copies of Equipment or Cyber. Couple of the Oracles then with IF At First You Don't succeed to recycle them.

While in this instance the Brainiac Sponsor is useful, Zetatech would also make an excellent Sponsor as it will enable you to do one of two things, either force your opponent to discard cards from the top of his decks, or allow you to move through your decks quicker by trashing cards. This is a great strategy to use for your Gear deck but might cause issues with the Runs, especially if you accidently burn an Operation, which at present is the only card in the game that cannot be recovered easily.

In a nutshell the strategy with this deck is simple. Chain a few Locations into play then start drawing from your Gear deck, using Oracles to pull those Operations and If At First's to recycle them, all the while turing the Netrunners into Virtual characters to use on said Operations.