Kelf's Garden Variations 1.2

I enjoy seeing your revisions as a fellow player trying to represent Nisei! I may give Tsurugi a try too.

I love Tsurugi in my Tennin deck. Ends the run, punishes facechecks (rarely) but most importantly it taxes for four against almost anything. Femme it? Mongoose? Mimic or Shrike? that'll be 4. Faust? 4 cards. It's just very reliable.

An Offer You Can't Refuse: so what you're telling me is that, score one 1-pointer and get a second for 4 credits, as long as I have Snare! and Scorched Earth in hand? Sooooo... 2 points for 7 credits some of the time? Remind me why I'm not running Braintrust? You are really, really relying on your opponent not giving you the point.

@RubbishyUsernameactually it has several uses beyond the Snare! + Scorch combo. There is so much I can do with the card. I don't expect them to give me a point, but forcing them to run a server, any server that has my very taxing Ice will open up scoring windows. All I need is the threat of running a server with Snare! in it and that card starts making Runners nervous. Besides, once I score Dedicated Neural Net almost all the Runners I have played stop running my HQ and my damage cards get lonely.
As to the cost, the deck makes money hand over fist but I have ditched the one card that might require loads of credits, SEA Source. Spending 4 credits isn't that big a deal.
I didn't put An Offer You Can't Refuse in there because it was an amazeballs combo piece, I put it in there to keep the runner guessing. I do not want my decks to be predictable. And, I get to test a card that no one uses because back of the napkin calculations that say it is "objectively terrible" but does not take into account the Yomi value it brings to the deck. Is it going to stay in the deck? Don't know yet, I want to see it play and how people react to it first.
One card I would love to play in this deck is Heritage Committee, that would make both HQ and R&D a threat.
I have a reputation of bringing Jank and weird cards that no one will play. Having my opponents ask to read the card I am playing is half the fun.

My apologies for not seeing this earlier! Really humbled by the fact you used my deck as your shell (and I love the name too!) I honestly love the fact that you put some of the cards that I ended up putting in the deck in my newer versions. Says a lot about the mindset of Nisei players. I would love to know your opinion and experience on the following though:

• How is the agenda suite working out for you? Are the 2 pointers still good enough to have lots of in the deck? How are the 4/2s working out in terms of turns taken to score them? Are those vulnerable or still worth scoring? I mean, I know Nisei MKIIs are amazing, it is just that I personally dropped them for 3/5s in order to score out faster and more securely.

• I love the Archived Memories inclusion, just as I said on my newest deck too, I am really thinking about playing it too. But regarding the upgrades, it seems like you'd rather kill them than score out. Why only x2 Caprice Nisei? I mean, it is the best upgrade in the game, it activates so much PSI (just cuz they might have to run again is reason enough alone).

• I like the Cerebral Cast, but since you are playing All-Seeing-I isn't it a bit more difficult and unsure if you'll land a tag? I dropped Cerebral Cast because of that reason but at the same time it was punching a hole in my hand. Even though I could just play it sometimes, it feels a bit "not enough" some times. Sure x1 Brain Damage is great, but you could just play Neural EMP for that and snipe a card in the same way. (Yes, it is brain damage, but it still does not damage them that much, even Faust players.)

• Regarding the "Offer" card, I love the logic behind it, but at the same time, you are relying quite a lot on the fact that you will have the right cards and as you yourself said in some way, it is too circumstantial for competitive play.

• Wraparound, Lotus Field, x2 Swordsman, Tsurugi. Why those? I get the Lotus Field (even though I am starting to not like it in my decks and am probably removing it) but the rest I don't really get. I feel Swordsman goes against the philosophy of Psi ICE, costing so much to rez and being so easy to break. Sure you poke Faust in the eye, but if they have a Mimic you basically wasted a slot in your deck for something that is only taxing the runner 2 credits. If they do NOT have Faust, you are still wasting a slot because you have a very weak Sentry in your deck. Why not play something that is taxing and still dangerous for Faust. Like Komainu? I mean, it costs more, but it is so good against everything. Tsurugi I can roll with, but I never really liked that piece of ICE, I just didn't. Wraparound I get, but if you are rolling with x2 Swordsman, I do not see why you need so much Faust protection.

Once again, awesome to see this!

@Kelfecilto answer some of your questions, I had taken some of your advice from Version 1.0 and incorporated them into Version 1.3.
NOTE: I have had zero time to continue experimenting with the deck because of various life events (sick pets, family crisis, and work load). I have been playing net decks when I have been able to get out and play for the past couple weeks. Your new deck may actually inspire me to try some more stuff again.

Short Answers:
Agendas: I found that 6x 3 AP and 2x 1 AP was a better configuration. As I was still testing Dedicated Neural Net that was my choice instead of Clone Retirement (which I think is a better card for competitive play).

Archived Memories & Caprice Nisei: I really, really like the versatility of AM. It just took double Scorch off the table for the most part and I didn't have the tools I need to threaten consistently enough. I wound up using them to bring back Upgrades so i could score out. I took your advice and went to 3 Caprice and 2 HG. I like your Batty choice better.

Cerebral Cast: This was an experiment to see if I could regain the influence spent on SEA Source. I figured if it didn't land I could AM it back to my HQ and try again. Mixed results. Nisei needs a good balance of consistency and variance and I felt like this card tipped the deck too far towards variance. I will say that Au Reviour Andy makes a mockery of SEA Source and will manhandle this deck, Batty would go a long way towards making that more painful. Maybe.

An Offer You Can't Refuse: Again, an experiment card. Didn't land well with DNN but it might have some legs with Archives loaded with Shock! giving you a potential 3rd 1 pointer.

ICE: I play in a super heavy Faust meta. 2x Swordsman was probably overkill. I went down to 1x in my 1.3 build, but I would get rid of it if I was playing Batty vs. Hokusai Grid. Tsurugi was another experiment, never factored in play. Was planning to replace Lotus Field with Mother Goddess for the hard stop ability with Upayoga.