The Janus Flatline v1.0

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llama66613 753

You might the think The Twins were meant for Weyland, since they are a green card, but sadly, it's not the case. They simply were not. The evidence is plain: The Twins only work if the Runner passes the ice, most Weyland ice end the run. The Twins are useful as a way of dealing horrible consequences to the runner, but except for Archer (which would only be usable with the Twins if they were able to break it a first time), most Weyland ice has relatively benign consequences. And finally, Weyland just doesn't have the support necessary to turn the Twins into a really killer combo.

No, Weyland and the Twins are just not to be. The Twins were made for one purpose, and one purpose only:

To flatline runners on Janus 1.0.

When I first had the idea, I found it amusing. Flatlining the runner on brain damage. A bit overkill, and hard to pull off. But then, in my mind, the puzzle pieces began to fall into place, and the concept consumed me. The Foundry would make sure you had the second Janus to pull into your hand. Plus, playing HB, it would be easy to mistake an unrezzed upgrade for Ash. And Vitruvius would allow you to force a third or even fourth encounter. And, god forbid, Sentinel Defense Program would double the damage you were doing, virtually guaranteeing a flatline.

Everything about The Twins and the Foundry made sense. So I started building the deck. You'd want plenty of economy to pull off the combo. False Lead would give you an additional two brain damage if used at the right time. Unfortunately both Priority Req and Accelerated Beta Test would have to go, since both would give advance warning about the Janus which is counter productive. Inazuma is incredibly nasty with Janus, the only stipulation being that you have to be careful with triggering your Foundry ability. Finally, Power Shutdown makes quick work of any pesky fairies your opponent might be using for protection.

To round out the deck, I put in the NEXT suite and some more solid HB ice, threw in a couple of the Fragment agendas, and of course made sure I had at least two Jackson Howards.

13 comments
27 Dec 2014 Softman25

Reminder that Sentinel Defense doesn't double the damage - it only adds 1 net on an instance of brain.

'Suffers at least 1 brain, deal 1 net'

Besides that, this looks really...really fun.

27 Dec 2014 llama66613

Oh, right, sorry. I meant doubles it for flatline purposes.

27 Dec 2014 llama66613

Although, I have to correct myself again, because it only helps with the immediate flatline, not the end-of-turn hand size flatline. Whatever. It does a lot of extra damage.

27 Dec 2014 Softman25

It does a lot of damage

Yeah, that. :P

27 Dec 2014 Pinkwarrior

@llama66613 I dunno i think The Twins can work in Weyland with something like Checkpoint it can be a kill combo or Wormhole and something nasty resed also you can happily look to out of faction ICE to help but its probably cheaper on the influence the other way round, theirs also other use's like forcing them through a tagging ice twice for you Scorched Earth or Traffic Accident.

I do like the deck though i think this is also viable The ID lends it's self to the whole process and i like the splash of Inazuma though i personally don't like Janus 1.0.

27 Dec 2014 Shulmey

Just remember to rez The Twins when you rez your killer ICE, because otherwise there's not another rez window until the runner approaches the next piece of ICE.

27 Dec 2014 steevo15

so if you have Project Vitruviusct counters, and your The Twins/Janus 1.0 combo up and active, could you just keep pulling Janus into your hand and using The Twins until the runner is either dead or you run out of counters?

28 Dec 2014 llama66613

@PinkWarrior, I don't actually think The Twins are bad in Weyland, just not ideal. But unfortunately since Checkpoint only does damage when the run is successful, you'll need Whirlpool or similar to pull it off.

@steevo15 That's exactly correct. >:)

29 Dec 2014 meta4

Hey, I saw this deck list a few days ago and I thought it was really cool (which is rare, because I think most new deck archetypes suck). I played an HB flatline deck a while ago that relied on install-double advance to scare the runner, and snares+neural EMP to finish the runner off once they get some brain damage. It was fun to play and it performed better than you would expect, but it was never really top tier. This deck list sparked my interest enough to try a hybrid between this and the deck I used to play. I've played about 10 games with it now, and I must say that it performs quite well. Here is the decklist I've been playing plus some feedback that I have:

Agenda (10)

3x Project Vitruvius 3x Accelerated Beta Test 3x NAPD Contract 1x Efficiency Committee

Asset (8)

3x Adonis Campaign 3x Jackson Howard 2x Melange Mining Corp.

Upgrade (7)

3x The Twins 2x Ash 2X3ZB9CY 2x Crisium Grid

Operation (8)

3x Hedge Fund 3x Archived Memories 2x Neural EMP

Ice (16)

3x NEXT Silver 3x Heimdall 2.0 3x NEXT Bronze 3x Fenris 3x Janus 1.0 1x Mother Goddess

The twins+Janus combo is usually quite visible. As soon as the runner sees the Twins they know what's coming, and it's hard to keep it hidden in the early game. However, for now most runners probably don't know about this combo, so that's a good surprise factor. In the future, that surprise factor will diminish once runners catch on that this is a good combo, and they will be wary of running a server against The Foundry with an upgrade and an unrezzed ice when you have 17+ creds. With that being said, once the runner knows what you're up to you are going to have a hard time landing a kill (they simply won't run your defended server). For this reason, I think you need a better backup plan than what you have here. The way I solved this problem was to run 3 ABT, 3 Jackson, 3 Heimdall 2.0 and 3 Ash to give you a very solid Agenda victory condition. Heimdall is great in conjunction with the Twins for protecting an agenda-scoring server, and it gives a greater density of high strength ice for triggering ABT's. If you hit even one Heimdall or Janus then that's pretty amazing. This setup gives you two great win conditions: Agenda win and flatline. Sure, if the runner sees a rezzed huge ice they'll prepare for it, but having to go through Heimdall/Janus 2 maybe 3 times to get your agenda is still a very tall order.

To round out the Agendas I'm playing 3x NAPD instead of Shards because I don't think you'll be scoring the shards very often, and NAPD is better in that case. I took out the Eves because I don't think you'll be protecting them, and there are better uses for the card slots. For Ice, I took out the Inazumas because they're pretty situational, and instead I added 3 Fenris to nail a face-checking runner with an early Brain Damage. Plus, Fenris can eat up a Faerie, which paves the way for Janus, and if they use a Faerie you can use the Twins to hit them with a brain damage anyways. Since this forces the runner to use up their Faeries, I took out the Power Shutdowns. Instead, I added 2 Crisium Grids to help protect against Siphon and Shutdown (I'm a huge fan of Crisium Grid) and 2 Neural EMP to finish off the runner once they take 4 Brain Damage (3 Brain Damage if you have a Vitruvius counter). To round everything off, I added 3 Archived Memories to recur your important upgrades and assets, make it easier to kill with Neural EMP, and to recur Heimdall and Janus for additional shenanigans with the Twins.

29 Dec 2014 meta4

Oh, one more thing, I took out the 3 Sentinel Defense Programs because they really only get you a kill if you deal 3+ Brain damage in one go, but with the Neural EMP's that I added you're probably going to kill them anyways if you deal 3+ Brain Damage, especially if you dealt one earlier with Fenris.

29 Dec 2014 Bananifier

You could also play a couple of Howlers to get your bioroid ICE back from archive. Just a thought!

30 Dec 2014 Vanadium

Regarding Project Vitruvius, you would have to fetch the Janus from Archives as they encounter the installed Janus, right? Thus, there's no way to force someone to hit a single Janus 3 times, because you can't Vitruvius to fetch the Janus you just trashed as part of the Twins, right?

30 Dec 2014 llama66613

@Myth Nope, it works. There's a payed ability window during the encounter (the one in which the runner uses icebreakers). The Twins triggers when they pass the ice.