Lost to this in a SC once. The surprise factor is really what kills you imo. Ran into a 22 net damage merlin (6 dmg first encounter, 8 the second, 8 the third) with my darwin at STR 3 and just died .
The guy I was playing against ran literally only merlins as grail for the kill.
He used Eliza’s Toybox to rez heavy duty stuff like archer / wotan / tollbooth, and kept his flatlining secret.
It’s a super interesting / fun deck, but when I faced him in elim I just said “nope” and milled him with gravedigger .
On a side note, does Vitrivius work with Twins? Can I trash a copy of the ice (that I’ve just fetched with Foundry) and immediately pull it back with Vitrivius so that I can use it again? SEEMS GOOD.
Yes, but you have to pull it back during the “encounter” paid ability window of the second encounter - i.e. after the opportunity to reveal it for Grail support.
Actually, in the name of no mercy, if you have the 3 merlins (1 on the table, two in hand) and Vitrivius tokens, you could play it out like this:
Encounter #1:
Rez Merlin, Rez Twins, 3 Subs for 6 Net Damage.
Sacrifice a Merlin from hand to force another encounter
Encounter #2:
Reveal your 3rd Merlin, +1 sub for +2 Net damage. (4 Subs, 8 Net Damage)
Use Vitrivius token to bring back the 2nd Merlin (the one that was trashed to force the encounter).
Sacrifice a Merlin from hand to force another encounter.
Repeat #2 until runner is dead or you run out of Vitrivius tokens.
I actually brought a Foundry Twins deck to my local store champs. Didn’t do all that well (think it went 3-3) but then again O&C was released about 4 days before the store champs so there wasn’t much time to practice. In any case it was meant to be a fun deck for me to try my dream of brain damaging a runner to death. Ironically I failed in that objective as runners knew not to run the remote server of death which ended in me just quickly scoring for the AP win.
The inclusion of Mandatory Upgrades also gives you an idea that it really isn’t that refined a deck. The Bioroid Efficiency Research was there to help build up early game defences without costing too much credits and as a stopgap measure when broke. Some of you might also have noticed that the only way to tag is through Ichi 1.0 so Scorched Earth seems superfluous but I figured if anyone ever went tagme (which is becoming increasing rare), that would be a nasty surprise. Only Merlin for Grail cause that’s the one I want for flatlining the opponent and them seeing one Grail ice is usually enough for the Runner to tone down their aggression till more of their breaker suite is out.
But the idea of the deck was to use operation economy to burst up to the level where I can threaten to rez Merlin/Janus & Twins. Medical Fundraiser Research is great as Restructure 4 & 5 in achieving that but requires careful considering of the timing.
Page 20, Column 2, Paragraph(s) 9, Core Rule Book wrote:
If the Runner takes more damage than the number of cards in his grip, or if he has a maximum hand size of less than zero at the end of his turn, then he is flatlined and the Corporation wins the game.
emphasis mine. Gyri basically gives temporary brain damage counters without doing the actual damage part(i.e., forcing a random discard) and it can definitely flatline you, same as Chairman Hiro.
Not that’s it’s a very good way to flatline someone…
I mean, I won’t say for sure that it’s bad, but it really kind of is. it’s certainly only even remotely decent in the very early game (even little ole’ zu.13 breaks each one for just 2). Also, I think most people are expecting Merlin (and grail in general) out of foundry, so code gate may be higher on that list than it would be against other corps.
Generally I’ve found that in these decks twins is only a surprise once. it seems a shame to waste that on an ICE that needs all three copies to stick to do anything lasting.
Another way to make this clearer is that whenever the runner would have to discard cards and can’t, they are flatlined, but with negative hand size, you would have to discard down to -1 cards.
I ran a Foundry/Twins/Komainu with the influence you specified. When the runner doesn’t know what to expect, I got cheap kills. Parasite is a big weakness, and a smart runner will let the subs fire the first time (and lose their hand) so that they can afford to break it the second time. That, of course, is when you don’t fire The Twins…
The challenge is to make a deck that can win when the runner knows what you’re doing. The Twins can provide a big threat that you can score behind. I never felt I got all the pieces together. @bayushi_david identified the weak early game – you need quite a bit of money to make your Twins threatening, and in Foundry you’re looking mostly at asset economy (I also tried Shell Corp, which was inconsistently successful). I was running NEXT to be able to at least force gear checks early (and Foundry synergizes ok) but it just felt weak and prone to bad starts. Eater made me very sad, as I either had NEXT ice (low strength) or big stuff (which I couldn’t afford for a while).
I don’t think komainu’s the way to go here- it’s a massive influence sink and it’s only ever going to get you surprise lucky kills.
with the influence freed up, the grail suite is definitely the way to go here. Strong early game and decent mid/late, great synergy with foundry, and early merlin+twins can be just as deadly as komainu if they can’t break it.
From my own testing with this archetype I think it’s a mistake not to run 2-3 Janus. even for the ridiculously high rez cost, Running into janus+twins is damn near guaranteed 5 brain damage -Therer are ways to beat/break it, but most of them require a pile of cash, 1 or more clone chips installed, and the right programs in your trash.
Going the Gyri route would need brain damage I think. Not that you don’t have those in HB
Janus => Janus then later Gyri => Gyri => gg
Or Cerebral. Or Fenrir, etc etc. You need to land 2 of them.
I like Chum because of its 1 inf and its relativly stupid combo alone with the Twins…
Komainu is lovely but not in HB I guess. 2 of them cost 8 inf, but I’m not sure they are to be in this kind of deck.
Yeah I tried it last night as well, and got about the same results.
In thinking about the Twins, I think the best way to use them is actually to help score agendas by forcing the Runner to encounter really tough/taxing ETR ice twice, not necessarily using Twins for a kill condition. Though that is certainly a legitimate option.
In thinking about the Twins, I think the best way to use them is actually to help score agendas by forcing the Runner to encounter really tough/taxing ETR ice twice, not necessarily using Twins for a kill condition.
This.
I’m going to try again soon (league season has a bonus for getting 3 wins with each identify from the Lunar cycle). I’ll be going much more for using it to score, not kill. I tried to do both, but spent my influence the wrong way. With only 12, it’s painful.
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