2-Server Sun (Kansas City Regionals 2nd)

tooplard 347

Several people asked me to post this, so here y'all are. Bet you never thought you'd see Dedicated Technician Team or Research Station make it to grand finals at a regional!

The basic strategy is to stack ICE on centrals, drop Crisium and/or Caprice on HQ, and score out behind Off the Grid. The ICE selection is pretty normal Blue Sun: Caduceus Enigma and Hive keep you from getting stomped early, Cobra and Assassin slap facecheckers, and the fatties enable Oversight AI and big taxes on HQ. Always move your ICE around to make it as taxing as possible: against stealth decks, for example, pile all your sentries on R&D and make HQ something like Curtain Wall - Spiderweb - Spiderweb. If they drop CyCy on one of your centrals, move your Wormhole to the other central. If they play Atman-5, bounce your Assassins. Standard Blue Sun shenanigans.

Mushin allows you to install your agenda and OtG turn one, then bounce OtG and score the agenda turn 2, while also saving you 3 credits on the score. I ended up only scoring one agenda this way the entire tournament, and I'm cutting the Mushins for a second Caprice. If you're at the point that you can make that play, the runner is probably better off ignoring HQ for the rest of the game unless they are the god of psi.

Research Station allows you to hold on to all your punitives, anything you bounced and don't have time to replay yet but don't want to discard, spare OtGs and Crisiums in case one gets trashed, etc. I would like to run a second.

Dedicated Technician Team is surprisingly nice in Blue Sun, since you're installing ice on 3-deep servers so often. I would run 2 if deck space wasn't so tight already.

Launch Campaign is a 0 influence baby Adonis. Throw it behind a Hive and get 2 credits a turn.

Punitive punishes runners who don't get early agendas, because by the time you have 2 or 3, any agendas they find in R&D or HQ will likely cost them a pile. Sometimes it also gets you random kills. Know when to hold on to your punitives and when to give up on them.

Vanity Project means you only need to score twice, while GFI means you don't lose as much. When there are only 5 agendas in the game, things get really weird - you know which central has the agendas, and the runner doesn't. Abuse this. You can discard Vanity-GFI into archives and punitive the runner if they go for it. You can leave R&D lightly defended if you know the runner can't win off it.

Strengths: Difficult to land siphons, apocalypse, or keyhole shenanigans. Shuts down security testing/bank job economy really hard. Can get silly random wins. Runners without strong long-term economy (e.g. Kati, Mopus) will fall behind.

Weaknesses: Sneakdoor forces you to play 3-server sun. Inside Job is good economy against Curtain Wall. D4V1D hurts; D4V1D + cutlery really hurts. Political Operative ruins the OtG scoring plan and forces you into some really awkward plays to score. Councilman can be unfortunate.

Matchups: Sneakdoor Criminal is hard. Fortunately, few people play crim and you're probably icing Archives anyways. If you can secure yourself against them early, it's a pretty free win.

Faust Anarchs come down to if they can get D4V1D when they need it. Most of the games I played against them, they almost burned through their deck twice, so it's possible to outlast them if you get somewhat lucky. Punitive threat goes a long way.

Non-sneakdoor criminal is real easy. Enjoy making no money, nerd.

Standard Kate is moderate. You need to build your servers carefully to make it awkward for her to break things, but she can't make very many runs due to not enough economy.

Nexus Kate you're pretty much boned.

Stealth decks generally give you enough breathing room to set up and make money, and you can usually build servers that are really annoying for them. Could go either way.

6 comments
17 May 2016 crfluency

props to research station, that's my favorite card. Congrats on the finish!

20 May 2016 CowboyHatValor

"Enjoy making no money, nerd" nearly made me choke on my coffee. Cool deck!

7 Jul 2016 shapsation

what do you do against Employee Strike?

7 Jul 2016 tooplard

Keep going with the plan: stack ice four/five deep and start scoring behind OTG/Crisium/Caprice. If it comes out when you were planning to OAI Curtain Wall, cry a little. It doesn't hurt that badly, though.

That said, I would definitely make two cuts to fit in 2x Paywall Implementation, because Hacktivist Meeting completely ruins this, as I discovered at the FFG regional. It's about as bad as Sneakdoor.

7 Jul 2016 shapsation

Good points and fun deck, thanks! Tried it with the Paywall Implementations really worked, especially when I didn't pull some good money early on. Had some trouble scoring out with the 3 turns it takes for OTG + GFI / Vanity Fair. I replaced the Mushins as you suggested above for another Caprice, but wonder if they still deserve the spots. How early in general are you looking to pull off scoring? Felt like while I was trying to get it out before the runner set up, I ran short on credits trying to rez everything on HQ and still leave enough for all the advancing.

Favorite thing about playing this is the runner's response when they check archives and pick up a Vanity + GFI or Government Takeover and their heart just drops...

7 Jul 2016 tooplard

Usually I score super late. Most of my games I was below 15 cards in R&D. It's for exactly the reason you said: you need the money to rez all your HQ ice, plus Off the Grid, Crisium, and Caprice, plus the psi game.

I often felt with the mushins that I was gambling on getting Mushin, Crisium, OTG, Agenda early on before the runner set up, and if I didn't then I had to hope I drew into the single Caprice. It was also more combo pieces cluttering HQ.

With 2x Caprice you don't have to worry as much about the runner getting set up. If HQ is 10 credits to get in, the runner needs 25c plus 10 per failed psigame to stop you from scoring (plus psigame money). That's a huge gamble as runner, because if you don't get it it's gonna be a long time before you can get into either central.

Also I should say that as much as I talk about stacking ice four deep, what counts is the cost for the runner to get in. Sometimes it's enough for HQ to just be Curtain Wall.

"Favorite thing about playing this is the runner's response when they check archives and pick up a Vanity + GFI or Government Takeover and their heart just drops..." absolutely, 100%