Tropical Blood

With the release of TAI and the rotation of Flashpoint and D&D, I wanted to see how much of Arctic Blood could be salvaged.

Rotating cards

• Hard-Hitting News: Key card for the deck as it was the only source of tags which is part of the fork. The deck needs a replacement multi tag solution. This was also a good tool to makes sure the net damage on Bladderwort triggers.
• BOOM!: One card win condition once the runner takes many tags. However this deck pressures cards in hand well and as seen in later iterations, End of the Line can serve the same purpose.
• NASX: Another Bladderwort net damage enabler and trash allowing to fetch key 1 cost cards such as Urban Renewal and Wall to Wall. The deck probably needs a replacement 2 cost trashable. Together with the loss of HHN, Bladderwort is looking a lot worse.

New cards

• Oppo Research: This is the HHN replacement. The disadvantage is that the runner has to trash or steal to trigger it, it is underwhelming before threat 3 and credit expensive to use at full power. But the runner credit total does not matter.
• Angelique Garza Correa: The deck loves dealing damage so this looks amazing here. Both modes are desirable, either to protect key assets or to enable kills after Urban Renewal triggers.
• Pivot: Consulting Visit combined with Fast Track. This looks like a good consistency tool.
• Phoneutria: Go low with cards in hand or take a tag? This is amazing for this deck.
• Cybersand Harvester: The deck is low on ice so this looks difficult to trigger but paid ability trashes are useful.

Without Hard-Hitting News, runners check remotes more so Azef Protocol is a lot worse. Oppo Research, Angelique Garza Correa and Pivot are all threat 3 so going all 3 pointers helps them.

Key changes

Tagging the runner is more difficult

It was easy to tag the runner with a combination of HHN and Economic Warfare. Because of the trash/steal and threat 3 requirement, Oppo Research looks insufficient. Overseer Matrix is a good complement to the tagging package. We can tutor it with Ob and provides protection for key assets throughout the game. Furthermore runners are not punished anymore for making exploratory runs. This makes both Economic Warfare and Azef Protocol worse. The former gets stuck in hand more often as you struggle to combine it with Oppo Research and hiding Azef Protocol among other installs is riskier.

Tagging does not rely on credit differential

HHN cares about the difference in credits between Corp and Runner. Oppo Research and Overseer Matrix cares only about Corp credits. Economic Warfare becomes even worse and gets cut. Keeping the Bladderwort damage active is counterproductive to the tag plan now so it also gets cut, replaced with Reaper Function. As the deck now needs plenty of credits, Regolith Mining License is added, providing a more bursty alternative to NASX.

Several cards reach full potential at threat 3

Oppo Research, Pivot and Angelique all reach their full potential at threat 3. The deck building change to help that is to cut Azef Protocol for Send a Message. Any agenda point gain now takes the game to threat 3. There is also a play style change: you should try to score an agenda to reach threat 3 as fast as possible. SDS Drone Deployment or City Works Project are the favoured agendas for scoring as they extract a toll on the runner. Without heap breakers, SDS actually costs something.

Potential changes

The deck probably wants to cut a Reaper Function for a couple of Mavirus. The current meta is full of Aumakua and the ice is very soft to it. Furthermore it is a paid ability tutor for Ob.

I tried Cybersand Harvester and was unimpressed.

I haven't put too much thought on the ice suite. Border Control, Afshar, Formicary and Phoneutria are all great and should stay. Akhet is fine but could probably any other 3 cost barrier such as Sandstone, Masvingo or Maskirovka.

Fin

I had fun experimenting with this deck and I'm looking forward to where other folks will take this archetype. Shout out to Snare Bears for providing a nurturing environment for brewing competitive decks, maninthemoon for pioneering this archetype and jan tuno for relentless refining.