I JUST bought this game, but in my experience CCG/LCG mill strategies tend to be iffy, and rely on a lot of things. That doesn't mean runners shouldn't attack the deck. Trashed cards are lost options, usually.

 One of the other concerns with milling, is the potential for the Corp later to recycle from Archives to R&D. So like a select 5 cards from Archives with a Shuffle R&D option, or place them in any order on top of the R&D stack. Smaller deck size means the return of your premium nightmares.

Or of in game mulligans. Option that says to shuffle your current hand into R&D and then redraw the same number of cards into your grip (HQ).

Or the option for the Corp to benefit from milling themselves, with the option for if the R&D is at 5 cards or less shuffle in all unrevealed cards in Archives.

There really are numerous options to negate the "Top Decking" win condition.

Myabe there will be eventually, but as of right now, none of those options exist.

 After skimming through the rules and looking at the corp cards, I don't see much reason for the runner to even attempt a victory via decking. Now, milling to get agendas into Archives….

Exactly.  The only milling ability right now is Noise's special ability.  And that fits perfectly with his deck design: kill ICE and force the corp to spread it thin.

bhosp said:

 In classic NR, the Corp had AI Chief Financial Officer, an 5/2 agenda that, when scored, gave you the permanent ability to shuffle HQ & Archives into R&D and draw 5 cards. So decking the Corporation wasn't really meant to be a strategy even back then.

Noise isn't about decking the Corp, it's about trashing enough of R&D that you can win the game in one run on Archives.

ffaristocrat said:

I can definitely see how decking the corp is impractical, as it would be likely somebody wins by points before the decking gets accomplished.

I just thought of an interesting, thematic card idea though for Anarchs that would play into the deck destruction a little more: A virus program that is installed on a non-ICE card in a remote server that reads "If the host card would be scored, instead it is forfeit. If the host card is rezzed, trash <insert card name>." Would give Anarchs a way to prevent the Corp from scoring an agenda that's buried too deep behind ICE for the runner to reach.

Saturnine said:

Unfortunately, that would be a very broken card, especially if it's a virus. Part of the whole reason the runner is required to break through the Corp's build-up is because there is no attached cost for them to steal an agenda. If the runner has the ability to partially circumnavigate the Corp's defenses by dropping a neuter card on any potential agendas, then you give the runner a clear incentive to just sit around and do nothing but stall the game out. That's no fun whatsoever.

If it were to involve making runs, and building up virus counters on the card to a certain high amount, then maybe it would be ok. At least the runner would have to be proactive to make the card work, and the strategy could potentially be thwarted by the Corp if they shore up their defenses in whatever necessary ways.

TheRealLeo said:

Very fair points. Requiring it to somehow collect virus tokens would be in line with how the other viruses work -- I like it. Anyhow, I'm not expecting them to put out a card like this, because of its potential to shift the game's dynamics into undesirable directions (though there might be ways to balance it as you suggest), but I thought thematically it would fit well with the Anarch flavor.

bhosp said:

Liquidating.

I came down to about 8-10 cards as corp, but I see that as a result of a poor build.

Old thread is old.

I did actually accomplish this though.  Corp had draw lots of cards and was sitting on a well-defended mitt of agendas.  We had each scored one or two agendas.  I milled him out with virus plays and Imp trashes.  Ta-da!

Noise decks seem to be quite good at decking or winning through archived agendas.  I literally lost to a noise deck that just did that.  I got unlucky and couldnt draw a single agenda to score and he was able to go through my deck discarding around 15 cards total from it and the turn I was about to win I had nothing to draw.

As others have pointed out, the decking win condition is there more to avoid stalemates and to force the Corp to play than it is about opening up a consistently effective strategy for the Runner (as opposed to flatlining the Runner, which is clearly a viable strategy).  Basically, a tie goes to the Runner, so the Corp has to actively make things happen.

It does sometimes come up as an issue with Noise decks, as others have also pointed out.  One of the better strategies versus Noise is stacking big ice on Archives.  But that can also lead to a Runner victory, as Noise doesn't need to break into Archives to win - he just needs to mill enough cards that the Corp never draws enough Agendas for a win and the decking condition kicks in.

As such, I don't think Corps need to actively think about preventing a milling win - but they do need to think about what they'll do about Noise.  Icing up Archives is straightforward enough, but alongside that they should have some option for digging down into Archives - even if it's just a copy or two of Archived Memories.