Indigestible Blue Explosions v4

frost-duty 2784

This is an altered version of my universally blue explosions deck specifically designed to be used in a meta with lots of eater and anarch.

The main changes are in the ICE composition and the addition of two crisium grids. The grids are there for obvious reasons. I have removed the datapikes and replaced them with fire walls - these cost only 1 credit more to play, but each taxes eater 4 credits per break.

The idea is to tax eater out the game. The new anarch builds have some economy, but I don't think it's enough to deal with the obstacles this deck gives them. Specifically I would aim to OAI a curtain wall behind a firewall, meaning that knifed will have serious problems getting through to the curtain.

[Description from previous version] Piloting this deck I recently achieved a 6-0 result at the London dark sphere store championship attended by 62 people. Unfortunately my poor runner performance meant that I just missed the cut! However, I am supremely happy with this deck as all six games resulted in flatlines.

The deck has an extremely high kill potential, as it is packing both scorched earth and punitive counterstrike. In practice this means that the corp almost always has a viable flatline threat. The deck is capable of mercilessly punishing any mistakes the runner makes.

The agenda composition synergise is well with blue Sun and is extremely potent in a deck with this much meat damage - a single scored cleaners can often render a plascrete carapace irrelevant, as the scorched combo now does 10 meat damage. I have yet to lose a game after scoring two copies of the cleaners. As always a priority requisition is strong with blue sons innate ability, and after order and chaos I will be replacing the Eden fragment with a high risk investment.

The low agenda density reduces the risk of early one steals, and often means that you know not to protect either HQ or RnD depending on the composition of your hand. Agenda flood is almost non-existent.

Shattered remains has been a truly potent counter to plascrete, and I have achieved several kills when one is with two plascretes have run one of these installed in a server, only to lose them both and then get scorched. I have even install an advanced one naked in a new server, and often find that one as well run not expecting this outcome.

The ghost grant is a and often completely unexpected include which can catch runners out if they run on the third click, leading to the obvious kill. If they do not run on the third click, they spend a loss of money getting into a server and are unable to recover, as they spend the next two clicks simply removing the tags. This can put you in the position to land a scorch kill if they have spent lots of money.

The research station is an unusual choice, and a personal favourite of mine. When you are packing so much meat damage it is difficult to maintain enough cards in hand. Research station frequently allows me to maintain a double scorch as well as three punitive counterstrike in hand, meaning that regardless of what actions the runner takes they are in a bad situation. It also reduces the chance of having agendas pulled from HQ, and if the runner pays to trash them this can be highly risky, as the six credits required can lead to a scorch death. I have found these to be an invaluable inclusion to the deck and the increased hand side put a great deal of pressure on the runner.

The operations and economy package are self-explanatory to any Blue Sun player; I have found that this deck regularly ends up with 20 to 30 credits, and have landed multiple triple punitive victories. It is fairly easy to keep the runner poor when they have to run through large servers to steal an agenda, and then you simply return a curtain wall and go for the kill with the triple punitive.

The inclusion of both punitive and scorch has also led to several victories based on SEA, scorch, punitive kill combos.

The ice composition is also fairly explanatory, with some early game and the game ice. The datapikes have performed incredibly strongly early game against many different opponents, as one as do not expect to lose credits, and the ability to bring them back to handle makes them highly cost efficient. I replaced wall of static with Bastian, simply to be a greater tax on corroder, as 3 to break gets quite painful quite quickly. Also, this means a single Bastion will render a security testing/desperado run irrelevant.

Taurus provides yet another way to deal with plascrete.

The surprise Janus has become a favourite of mine, although it will not often turn up it is very easy to catch the runner out with a high strength sentry out of a wayland deck. Landing one or two brain damage is often enough to secure a kill victory, as the runner simply cannot play with such a reduced hand size.

13 comments
5 Feb 2015 Vanadium

I like the changes. I'd still love to find some way to deal with I've Had Worse but I tried Snoop last night and it never hit (couldn't afford to guarantee to beat them on a trace). But they weren't my best games ever (Eater kept hitting my OAIs), so it wasn't a great test. Love the deck style though, and will probably be running my own version (just some minor ice changes, maybe even Government Takeover) in store champs coming up.

5 Feb 2015 frost-duty

I wouldn't run Government Takeover myself, I think it's too much of a liability.

I have a plan for I've Had Worse. 6 point punitives are an instant kill. I'm thinking it might be a good idea if - when no agendas have yet been scored by the runner and you can put a jackson in your scoring server. You just dump 6 points into archives and let them steal it. Once they grab the 6 they have until the end of the turn to live since almost all these decks neglect plascrete.

Otherwise, you hit them with you can, if you don't get the kill you use Jackson to recur and try again. You can get at least 2 killshots out of this deck without any recursion at all, and i would jackson back the combo pieces given that you generally don't need him for agendas.

5 Feb 2015 frost-duty

The thing about I've Had Worse is that there is no 'way' to deal with. There is nothing the CORP can do. This card is part of the game now and will cause flatline builds problems. You just have to hit them knowing that it's likely to be there if you are against anarch, and play with that expectation.

The overriding question in my mind right now is how many checkpoints to have in the deck, as this is a ground counter to IHW, since it pops it early for no real benefit to the runner. However, I also don't want to give away lots of bad pub...

5 Feb 2015 Vanadium

I realize the risk in Government Takeover but I got a kill by installing it on turn 2, feigning to protect it, but letting them steal it, then hitting them for a 6 damage kill on turn 3. I figure if it's stolen as the 3rd agenda, it didn't matter which agenda it was, and as a first, 6 damage is game over. Only on the 2nd agenda score is it a problem. I'm still debating whether it's a good idea or not. I'm sure you're right and I shouldn't do it....but I want to! :) 6 agendas!

On a different note, where do see placing Checkpoint? On R&D to discourage accessing? On HQ to protect agendas? Or a scoring remote to make sure they're committed to accessing?

Finally, strategy-wise, do you think it's possible, once you get a punitive and a small credit lead, to just Jackson a bunch and dump a lot of cards into archives? Enough to have somewhere between 2 and 5 agendas in there. Then if they run it, you pop Jackson, recover all but 2 agendas, and then hit them punitive? Your turns would be nothing but jackson and gaining money, essentially.

5 Feb 2015 frost-duty

Many times I have had punitive wins by killing as they stole the second agenda... I just don't want to give it up!!

You are right of course, sometimes it will be a useful tool, I may well try it for a while, but I think I won't want to shoot myself in the foot.

Checkpoint... good question! I see it as best used on the scoring server, as there are times they will just have to take the damage AND you may have a 3 pointer in there with a bunch of punitives... However, against crims and shapers there is a solid argument for putting it over HQ and RnD respectively. Personally I think in most cases the remote, but there will of course be exceptions. I need more playtesting before coming to a decision.

As for the last question, check my message above! I think that is a perfectly reasonable plan in the right circumstances. There are plenty of ways to feed the runner 6 points to the punitive them, it's all about timing.

5 Feb 2015 siahofmars

Awesome I like the changes... I have literally played the shit out of this deck and against the new anarchs mainly. I have been winning at about an 85% consistent basis with great players as well. The one problem I will say with playing against bad pub decks that are running the new protestors card. U find your hand size diminish fast. U can't hold onto your tools . in this situation that arose one game I couldn't hold onto everything my hand size became 3 so I literally ditched 2 agendas in my hand into archives with no Jackson on the board with 3 punatives in hand lol.... So the guy ran archives and then said access... And his face went... Well... Shit.... He scored em and I gave him 18 meat damage on my turn lol... If in doubt ditch the agendas and have punatives ready. I find more kills happen from punatives than scorch . but I have also found having 1 punative 1 seasource 1 scorch when they steal 2 agendas works great as well... Loving this deck I have 2 checkpoints in mine. And its great unless they are running bad pub decks it makes u not wanna rezz them haha. I have noticed when I rez checkpoint the runners never take the meat damage so it acts more like an end the run really... Anyways the iteration I'm playing is working great but I did take one of the Taurus's out and a shattered remains. So I don't have as much plascreet killing power. I'm gonna give this version a whirl with 2 Janus. I had a funny instance happen with an aggro runner one game where first turn I installed curtain wall oaied it and then gained a credit. Next turn took curtain back into hand then installed Janus HQ. And then curtain wall on r and d again. He clicked to install something then 2 click ran hq and I rezzed Janus and his jaw dropped... He clicked through 2 and then took two brain damage. And said well that's good game and shook my hand. Lol

6 Feb 2015 siahofmars

im gonna play this deck but instead of the data pike what do u think about a changeling? its something that can protect either your tarus or janus's from being forked and any of your barriers from being knifed. so like at the time depending on what u have out u can install changeling in front of them to protect either/or depending on having an advancement token on it or not. thoughts. the other ice i was thinking was a gaurd to be able to get a quick score in and not get crim jumped or a rainbow for more eater tax and low rez cost? whatcha think?

6 Feb 2015 frost-duty

@siahofmars I dislike your last set of changes, mainly because I think at this point you are gearing the entire deck to counter only anarchs, and this is a bad plan. Whilst in the post O&C landscape this may be a good meta call, I don't think some of these changes will be beneficial in the long run.

Guard is a bad change. The deck relies on taxing ICE even when breakers are out (other than the sole exception of datapike just because it is so very good if the -2 credits lands in the first couple of turns. I haven't had any real problem with criminals, so this change seems unnecessary.

With changeling, I don't think this ICE is very good. There is a reason it isn't played much, and having it in just to mess about with the cutlery set is too specific a purpose.

Changing to firewalls helps protect you against cutlery just because they are taxing and you will have many barriers - they can only use knifed so many times a game! Sensible ICE placement should make that a nuisance but not a showstopper.

Again, with the removal of a taurus and shattered remains you strengthen vs anarch but weaken vs everyone else. I would be very uncomfortable playing with much less plascrete removal than the deck provides, simply because there will be frequent times where you WILL need to remove it. i.e. most of the games not against anarch.

Was you 85% win rate with your specifically anti-anarch version, or the original list?

Sorry to sound so negative to your changes, but I do think they are largely predicated around beating one single archetype, and I don't think this is a good idea.

Otherwise, I'm really glad you like the deck and are having such success!

7 Feb 2015 wingzero98

@frost-duty is this the decklist or a derivation of the one that Eady of Run Last Click mentioned during the tournament archetypes podcast?

8 Feb 2015 frost-duty

@wingzero98 Yes, I am James and this was the deck he referred to.

13 Feb 2015 (A)Joke

Do you like Orion? I will try -1 Hadrian's Wall +1 Orion.

13 Feb 2015 (A)Joke

With Orion you can use subroutine from Checkpoint, Janus 1.0, Taurus or even Datapike in a very taxing ICE.

13 Feb 2015 frost-duty

I am not a fan of orion. The advancable ICE does not synergise well with blue sun. Also, I can't image many, if any, circumstances where any of the subroutines will go off given that it can be broken by any breaker. Trashing program subs are largely irrelevant to this deck, and the other sub requires you to have already rezed something that will be a nasty hit - Janus might be the best example. All in all, I wouldn't have it in the deck.