A Thousand Leaves (11-1, 1st and 3rd and 1st)

jan tuno 3902

I and @Paillu were very excited about Jinsei's deck for April's AMT, and as we looked at it we immediately started thinking of potential ways to improve it. We both love to murder people and have some experience playing similar decks already, so we combined my love of weird ice splashes and eir love of Regenesis and came up with this.

We brought this deck at the Turin GNK in April, at nbkelly's online NZ Circuit Opener, and at the CO in Padova, ending up 1st, 3rd and 1st respectively. The deck is hard to play, and we definitely haven't touched its skill ceiling yet, but from the results it seems to be quite good. A lot of bad draws are not hard to dismantle with perfect play, but it seems to be very hard to play correctly against it because of how well it obfuscates things and creates hard problems to solve.

The main changes from Jinsei's version are:

  • 2x Regenesis: False Lead is good but only works in specific situations, I kind of liked it better when Apoc was a real threat in the meta. Regenesis can be thrown onto the board as you spam and give you random points while removing Obokatas from the game.
  • 2x Hansei Review: the bigger ice in this build calls for more economy. This has obvious synergies with Regenesis and can also happen to give Hybrid Release an additional clickless install.
  • The ice suite has been largely reworked. Archer is often unexpected and can win you the game on the spot, Data Loop is very good at protecting your Obokatas in centrals (usually the cards that will lose you the game), and is an extra gear check; Anemone can do a really good Data Loop impression, will sometimes give you a surprise Regenesis window and just has a valuable effect for its cost. We don't like Aiki as much because it can get pretty bad if you don't have a Prana installed, making it easier rather than harder for the Runner to steal your 3 pointer; Mausolus is good but other influence spends are also very valid.
  • We had to cut the Mavirus out of space considerations although Botulus is really a problem card, and one of Anarch's main tools to beat you.

The 2 copies of Regenesis and the changes to the ice suite make scoring out into a viable win condition here, running parallel to the kill plan. Regenesis can give you sudden points at a time where the knot is getting too tight for the Runner to go around and check stuff, and both Data Loop and Anemone make scoring Obokata behind ice more viable, especially after the Runner has spent a lot of tempo on busting your asset. Once you have done this, the threat of you being able to score out with Hybrid Release becomes very real, which is another opportunity for the Runner to hastily trip on something.

This deck ended up good enough to go undefeated at multiple tournaments, but it definitely has matchups that you should worry about and learn to play well. Adam can easily run away with the game with an early Obokata steal, Zahya just draws too much, and Esa can be kinda scary when played right (play Marrow early and skip most of xir other tools, then sabo once an Obokata is secured). Against good players, the swinginess that comes from this being a combo deck that has to draw the pieces in the right order feels like a real risk.

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