[Startup] Archives is a real server (82% WR)

HolyMackerel 1460

Regenesis is really cool, ok?

Here, we're trying to take full advantage of the whole "facedown in Archives" theme that has been released. And it is surprisingly decent.

Nanisivik Grid is phenomenal at defending centrals or the occasional scoring server, and is especially good at defending Archives. Restoring Humanity makes us buckets of money, enough to fuel our expensive ICE. And of course Regenesis is the star of the show. Scoring only two Regenesis in a game in order to win is not only feasible, but a pretty good strategy.

To support these shenanigans, we run a full suite of Anemone and Hansei Review alongside two Hafrún - being able to on demand trash cards into Archives is very good.

SanSan City Grid lets us FA Regenesis and the occasional Blood in the Water, plus it's very taxing to trash. The more time and resources runners spend on installed stuff, the fewer times they will check archives. And of course Snare! costs runners in tempo and cards, randomly kills them if they don't respect Red, and enables fast advance of Blood in the Water,

You will need to defend Archives a lot with this deck. Like, you will often double or even triple-ice Archives to deter runs, or support it with Nanisivik Grid. With only 2-3 facedowns, it is rare for runners to actually bother running through to check.

Worth mentioning is that this deck definitely gains a lot from the "rogue factor", in that people don't know how to play against it. Just posting it here may reduce my winrates in the future, but it's still too much fun not to talk about :)

9 comments
29 Dec 2022 Dr. Freshturtle

Took this for a spin and won 10-0. Very cool deck, key moment was using Nani to delete Carmen with a trashed Rototurret. I Wonder if it's worth including more trash program ice for this because having no Killer really repels runners vs Jinteki. Swapping out Tsarevna would probably be my first choice.

29 Dec 2022 Dr. Freshturtle

Also I exchanged one blood in the water for longevity serum, simply because it gives you a IAA 2 pointer on SanSan (and a very good score bonus ability), which is usually better than blood in the water.

29 Dec 2022 HolyMackerel

You make some excellent suggestions :)

I did consider swapping some influence around to try to fit Ansel 1.0 in, but 3 is a lot even though he's excellent with Nanisivik.

29 Dec 2022 Diogene

Did you try the poison route with Nightmare Archive?

Thanks for sharing!

30 Dec 2022 HolyMackerel

I did try Nightmare Archive, but it wasn't worth it compared to more SanSan.

If there was any in-faction poison besides Mavirus, I'd be all over it. Even Honeyfarm would be phenomenal.

2 Jan 2023 uvirith007

Having trouble winning with this one. Not sure if it's an issue of my being bad, not understanding the deck, getting really bad draw, or some combination thereof. Love the idea, and I think it sounds like it can work really well; I'm just not sure how.

3 Jan 2023 Colanderil

Thanks for sharing - this deck is blast to play! Do you think it's a viable Archetype in Standard? Switching out the SAMs against Obokota and adding Rashida (and maybe lowering the amount of ICE to open up the slot?) and switching up the ICE Suite (Endless EULA instead of Unsmiling Tsarevna?) would be my first ideas. Any thoughts on how to transition this deck to Standard?

7 Jan 2023 Vacilotto

Started playing around with this archetype and been facing some issues on balancing it, 3 Nanisivik Grid always seem too much for me and they're always unreliable. Decided to increase a little bit the power of the ICEs by adding 2 Brân 1.0 and it worked fine, noone expects a Bran on a J deck lol. Will try this list later.

9 Jan 2023 Simone Suka

How would you play this in standard?