SanSan SYNC FA (1st Place Meeple Madness ATL SC)

dodgepong 1796

A more-or-less standard Biotic SYNC deck, though I decided to try 2x SanSan instead of Archived Memories, and I really, really liked it. A SanSan behind a Data Raven is absurdly taxing, and if you can stick the SanSan, then the 2x Fast Track become godlike. It is known.

If I were to play it again, I would remove the Subliminal and add a second CVS. The Subliminal gave me only a marginal amount of extra credits over my games, because I either never drew it or occasionally forgot to return it to my hand after the runner didn't run. Regardless, it seems clear that the deck can operate on a little less money, and a 2nd CVS is golden in Shaper and Noise matchups.

I removed the Closed Accounts, which was sad, but I think ultimately it was for the best. Even when it was in the deck, it often felt like a dead draw, because I would be forced to pitch it before they went tag-be, at which point it was basically gone forever.

This deck had 2 losses on the day: one was a timed loss to a Kate player where I could not for the life of me find the CVS (hint: it was the very last card in the deck) and I didn't have any more way to bait the Clot through their last Clone Chip. It was really frustrating because I had the Psycho/GFI win in hand with an Astro + counter, but no window to score it in. The other loss was to Pacer Stringfellow's Noise, arguably the best Noise player in the country, and he just hypermilled me before I could get the train off the ground. I had one shot to get the SanSan to stick, but he Clotted, then found a second Imp to kill it with after I purged. After he milled the Biotics it was just a matter of time before he milled me out. I admit that I didn't really have any experience with the Noise matchup with this deck, either. It seems like a tough one. Anyway, a 2nd CVS would have been awesome in both of those situations.

10 comments
31 Jan 2016 tonybluehose

How often did QPM score themselves for you? If you had them in hand, would you opt to just score them kit?

31 Jan 2016 dodgepong

As long as you have a Data Raven over R&D, they are pretty safe in R&D. You don't want them in hand if you can avoid it, unless you can put it into a Data Raven remote that you're pretty sure they can't deal with. Film Critic is annoying, though. At this point in the meta, people know about QPM and will generally try to avoid doing the things that will cause them to score QPMs for you, which is good new for you. So that means no R&D digging unless they have some way to deal with the Data Raven, and no hitting facedowns in a Data Raven remote.

I did have one game on the day where I was at 6 points, so the runner panicked, went tag-me, and dug through R&D. It was only a matter of time before he won for me.

31 Jan 2016 Wookieeofdoom

Nice deck! p.s. I love your youtube channel

1 Feb 2016 Badeesh

Awesome. I think 2 CVS is pretty critical.

5 Feb 2016 rwknoll

I really like this deck. How well does it do with economy? It looks really thin on credits to me, but obviously I'm missing something if it did so well.

On a related note, what about Pachinko versus Resistor? Or is the 0 rez cost that important?

5 Feb 2016 dodgepong

As you said, it's pretty light on economy, so Resistor is pretty important for making a positive trade with the runner. The smaller deck size means you'll see your econ events faster, but since most of the ICE is cheap it's not a huge deal to click for credits.

5 Feb 2016 rwknoll

That's fair, and I can see how it might be helpful. I haven't playtested it yet, but Resistor still strikes me as less helpful than Pachinko if you're going to be running thin on ice and economy. If they get Corroder/any fracter out early game, it's easy to break. If they get too many tags to make breaking inefficient, they can just let the sub fire and then beat your trace -- especially in Nexus or cloud breaker decks.

I like Pachinko because as soon as you get one tag, it's 4 credits for Corroder to break at 1 rez cost, or 1 credit and 1 Lady token, or 3 cards from Faust. Did you have any problems with Resistor being too porous, or was the trace more effective than I'm expecting?

Did you ever use the flip side ability of SYNC (-2 credits to trash a resource), or did you tend to keep up the original ability for tag removal taxation? And how many tags did you typically keep floating throughout the game?

Sorry for all the questions. I'm much more familiar with HB, but I just purchased Data & Destiny and wanted to give NBN a try. Coming from glacier decks, I'm finding myself very unsure of how to effectively play the NBN FA strategy.

5 Feb 2016 dodgepong

Pachinko only works as positional ICE, basically just as the innermost ICE on R&D, where you're stacking the tag-me ICE (Data Raven and Gutenberg). It does nothing on other servers where there is no tagging ICE in front of it and does nothing early game. Runners are very resistant to go tag-me, so Pachinko will only ever be turned on if they are forced to take a tag from Data Raven during that run. They might go tag-me late game when they get desperate (at which point Resistor is better because of the higher strength), but otherwise they stay tag-free.

I don't often use the flip side. There has only been one instance where it might have been useful after they already went tag-me, but usually it stays on the tag removal side.

9 Feb 2016 Tolaasin

I tried this out last night - came up against DLR Maxx/Eater/Faust. Siphoned from turn 1 - very little I could do. We played a second game to see if I could do any better knowing what was coming, but the deck seems to run very econ-light. Getting resistor out early helped for one central, and I just managed the win off a very late psycho-GFI. Wondering about Information Overload as an alternative ice. Against anyone floating tags and running econ denial, not sure how to play this deck.

28 Feb 2016 profwacko

Great deck @dodgepong! Ran this yesterday at a 20 person GNK tourney and it did really well. Swapped out a Quandary for a Little Engine to help rush out AstroScript Pilot Program earlier against Faust builds (and rushing out against Noise) which are really prominent in the meta right now.