Undead Samurai

Card draw simulator
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musingly 35

This deck needs a lot of work and has many blatant weaknesses, but it's really fun, and maybe even has some potential to be not the worst deck in the world. I have not played many games with it, but it's too weird to keep it a secret.

Score Hades Fragment, use Power Shutdown to dump everything in R&D into Archives, grab cards you need (some combination of Ronin, Mushin No Shin, and Reversed Accounts) using Hades Fragment and Reclamation Order, and then kill the runner with your Ronins, which might take a while if the runner has some sort of damage protection or a large maximum hand size.

Reversed Accounts and Snatch and Grab are here in case the runner has enough money in their credit pool or on Kati to threaten an Archives run, which would be game over for you.

Foxfire is here in case the runner has Eden Shard or Hades Shard, both of which make you sad, especially Hades Shard. It turns out it's also great for killing pesky Ghost Runners in stealth decks.

Archives needs a ton of ice. A ton. Are you listening? It needs to be kind of ridiculous. Runners can sometimes pull off quite amazing economical feats. You need to give yourself time to grab, install, advance, and spend that Reversed Accounts, if you see the runner accumulating wealth.

Here's an example of the state of the game on the last turn, though this example is pretty extreme because I was up against a fully loaded stealth deck. (Disregard the two faceup Jackson Howards. Only one was actually rezzed during the game.)

Speaking of ice, I'm not totally sure I'm using a good ice composition for this deck. For example, I have found that in the early game Ashigaru is too expensive and in the late game I tend to deplete my HQ too quickly for it to even be worth rezzing.

The most difficult time is before you've found and scored Hades Fragment. Until then, you have a very high risk of just losing; if the runner finds Hades Fragment before you do, you have to revert to the traditional route of scoring agenda and are probably doomed. Don't rush. This deck is all about attrition and patience.

To score the Hades Fragment, you want a scoring remote that will with high reliability keep the runner out for two turns. Levy University is here primarily to help you do that, and secondarily to help you build a good defense in front of Archives. Hive is included because it's pretty good for the scoring remote. Excalibur is for whichever central the runner is most likely to try to lock (hopefully that's not Archives).

If the runner manages to make a glorious run on Archives, you want Caprice Nisei installed there, of course, and you can use Jackson Howard as a last resort to at least delay their victory. Also worth remembering, if as a part of their desperate run they allow a Crick to fire, you can use it to install Caprice Nisei or Jackson Howard. If this run is just a last attempt before you kill them, Jackson Howard can be the difference between winning and losing.

10 comments
31 May 2015 17thknight

Subliminal messaging is a genius addition to Industrial Genomics. Am adding to my deck. Kudos.

31 May 2015 musingly

@17thknight, I'd actually say Subliminal Messaging doesn't especially compliment Industrial Genomics itself (if you've played it once, it's faceup), but it definitely works well with Power Shutdown.

31 May 2015 17thknight

Nay nay nay! It can return to your hand. Which lets you dump it upside down if the runner ever accesses archives and flips all your lovely upside down cards. In fact, three of them could come back. Then you could play normally, ignoring them, and let them dump into archives when your hand is overstuffed, without having to dump anything else.

1 Jun 2015 musingly

Ah, right. Of course, if I had been thinking that way, I might have been including more. :)

1 Jun 2015 Stonar

Why do you even bother with Foxfire? It's only helpful before you do your big trick, because the second you mill your entire deck, someone slapping down a Hades Shard will just instantly lose you the game. And considering how many ice you need to put on Archives before you do your trick, who's going to try to get in there to slap down their Hades for free?

(Also note a certain up and coming criminal will make this deck very sad.)

1 Jun 2015 musingly

@Stonar, the idea is that if you suspect that they have Hades Shard, you leave a couple extra cards in R&D when you Power Shutdown, and go ahead and queue up Foxfire. It means that overall you are less efficient, but it doesn't mean you instantly lose.

If I am still playing around with this deck once Fisk is available, I might add Cerebral Static.

1 Jun 2015 musingly

@Stonar, I first commented thinking you were talking about Eden Shard (comment now hidden, if that's confusing). Eden Shard is not so bad. Hades Shard is obviously much worse for this deck. I don't have a great solution for that in mind. Foxfire only helps if I see Eden Shard early, as you said. I still like Foxfire since it snipes Ghost Runners; fully online stealth runners tend to be able to get into anything without much effort.

One thing I've considered is Docklands Crackdown, so that it's too expensive for the runner to install anything, and it takes so long for the runner to accumulate wealth that I can just use Reversed Accounts to prevent the install. An obvious problem with this is stuff like Personal Workshop (only the install cost of the first card installed each turn is increased), which might still not be unmanageable, but really sucks.

As for Fisk, I think Cerebral Static should take care of him pretty easily, unless Fisk decks will tend to pack currents just to counter Cerebral Static.

1 Jun 2015 musingly

Oh, and obviously Docklands Crackdown is really slow to get going. It probably wouldn't work anyway.

1 Jun 2015 musingly

I wish I could edit. I said Eden Shard in a place I meant to say Hades Shard.

1 Jun 2015 musingly

The effects of Hades Shard could be somewhat accounted for with some evil combination of Red Herrings (stacked?), Strongbox (stacked?), and/or Heinlein Grid. I'd have to pay influence, but I could just lose some ice for it.

It still means everything gets turned faceup, which, well, sucks. However, I think with enough ice in front of Archives, maybe it's possible to slowly cycle through Reversed Accounts and Reclamation Orders and such to start flipping cards in Archives while keeping the runner too poor to get in.

I'm really grasping at straws here, though. Even if it works, it doesn't sound any fun, which defeats the purpose of me making this deck. I'd rather just take the loss. Lucky you for slotting Hades Shard. :)