Reservoir Board v2 [1st after Swiss, 2nd after Cut)

anr_marsellus 1336

The list went 5-0 in Swiss and 1-1 in the top cut at the Den Haag (NED) Store Championships. It won against Kit (points), Jesminder (points), Noise (kill), Whizzard (kill), Whizzard (kill) and Whizzard (points) and lost against that last mentioned Whizzard once when it had a terrible draw and the Whizz some lucky fingers. Needless to say all the Whizzards were Dumbleforks.

You don't need defensive Upgrades. You don't even need Code Gates. Some smart player (please help me in the comments with the reference): Whenw as the last time ICE subtypes mattered in the current Faust-Meta?

You have to assume to play at least 2/3rds orange decks that are based on Faust and D4v1d. First thing, you can rush VERY nicely in the very early game with Hive and Spiderweb. Favourite: Install Hive, Install Oaktown advance. If you are lucky, you can even repeat that. 4-0 in front after four turns against those decks is no rarity. And then comes the time where your Blue Sun ability shines and Janus becomes THE ZOMG BEST. It is not (primarily) about landing the brain damage. Over the course of this tournament I dealt 4 damage - all to the same player that I eventually lost against. Janus does more. It CHANGES the way the runner plays. Once you OAI one or he sees one on an access, as soon as you are above the magic 15 credit threshold, the runner hesitates. Everything can be a Janus. Or a double Janus. What's more, an unrezzed Janus is quite safe against Forked because the runner usually uses all of his clicks to minimise the negative effects of Janus. THAT is a terrible Day Job. All the while, if Janus hits the runner, killing becomes so much easier. But that is obvious. But brain damage also decreases Faust's power level. Faust is not a good breaker against this deck - as apart from the singleton Meru Mati all ICE is multi-sub and/or high strength. D4v1d sure does some work - but only some. If all ICE is D4v1d-able, hardly any ICE is, as D4v1d is a finite resource and making him use a D4v1d often creates scoring windows.

Orange decks really struggle against this - while the other ones don't really have an easy task either. W represent! On a side note: In the Top Cut were two Janus Blue Suns, the chances of that happening with Jank are slim.

Thi deck scores, this deck kills and this deck makes Faust cry like he deserves.

15 comments
28 Feb 2016 vor_lord

-1 for putting "shop" in the title. Otherwise, I like it

28 Feb 2016 evilgaz

+3 for a full complement of Janus.

Like your style, I shall try this and report back to the Fatherland.

28 Feb 2016 anr_marsellus

@vor_lord :D :D The "SHOP" is just for trolling . It makes no grammatical sense whatsoever. I was also thinking of putting a "coats" alternatively :-P

28 Feb 2016 anr_marsellus

@evilgaz The Fatherland welcomes your decision :D

1 Mar 2016 skydivingninja

I played Janus in a Blue Sun Scorch deck for regionals and LOVED it against Faust at the time. I might need to revisit this gameplan pretty soon.

1 Mar 2016 ANRguybrush

Very interesting. I'm gonna try this.

1 Mar 2016 crfluency

well done Marsellus! I will try this maybe even in an SC ... one question though, with 3 Janus 2CW 2Orion, are the ice a little bit over-cost ?

1 Mar 2016 anr_marsellus

@crfluency There are games (but very rarely) where you indeed struggle to find your OAI or Hedge/Restructure/Launch Campaigns and indeed cannot rez the big 7 in the early game. Mostly, however, you are able to amass a ton of money and therefore able to rez them when it matters. Spiderweb, Hive and Assassin do an amazing early game job. My most favourite opening is Install Hive or Spiderweb along with Oaktown and advance it. Today's Anarchs hardly have an answer to that so early in the game and even if they should be able to get behind a Hive with Faust, that is 6(!!!) cards - or 15% of their deck for two points. This sets them back in their development a lot, such that you can score agendas with ease shortly after. It is also a standard play to sacrifice an Oaktown Renovation in order to create a scoring window for IAA Atlas. Once you get 2 tokens on it, the kill is on 90+% of the time.

2 Mar 2016 evilgaz

I have made a modifcation - in fact many - currently I think you need CVS in there as otherwise Datasuckers can become an issue (certainly 2x DS). Additionally I've gone for one less Janus to make sure I have 3 Jackos and a Snare!. I'd like to find a way to get the second (or even third!) Snare! in there, but there isn't really the influence.

Weyland needs another decent face-check punishing piece of ICE, preferably a code gate, but anything would do! Orion isn't that hard to get through (especially if nothing else is rezzed) and large cost. Something else useful in-faction might allow a cut down on Janus?

The games I lose, I tend to be on 6 points, so I'm curious about either including a cheeky Hostile, or maybe a second Public Support to help with that end game.

2 Mar 2016 anr_marsellus

I absoluteley agree with the necessary inclusion of at least one CVS. I made the swap for Lizzie Mills (as I currently only encounter very few Valencia, and even then OAI and Bootcamp may allow for sufficient Blackmail prevention).

A Code Gate that could possibly do some work is Wormhole, but I am not entirely sure about that. Given that you mentioned "many" modifications, mind listing them, @evilgaz ? :) W represent

2 Mar 2016 evilgaz

@anr_marsellus I also swapped out a barrier for an engima, having the odd code gate helps in non-Faust match ups. I like Wormhole but it's expensive for one sub in a D4-dominated meta.

I'm still in testing. If things go well at the weekend I'll post my list. If not, you'll hear no more about it. ;)

3 Mar 2016 rojazu

3-cost ETR ice helps to make a turn 1 OAI stick, I suggest Enigma, Wall of Static or Rainbow

4 Mar 2016 crfluency

with 3 Janus, I bet you have tested twins too. Was it still underpowered ?

17 Apr 2016 thebriarfox

There has to be a better option than Corporate War...?

6 Jun 2016 OuterCrow

Corporate Sales Team, definitely! But it wasn't released when this was posted.