Azmari but it's actually Sync - 4-2 at American Continentals

Limes 708

I've been playing this Sync deck for a while, and it seems to do quite well - it went 4-2 at American Continentals (I ID'd round 7 for prizes), won every game at the last store championship I took it to, and wins about 80% of its games in Jnet casual. Many thanks to the lovely people in Slack's deckbuilding channel, who helped me make it not suck.

The gameplan is pretty simple - you need to be fast and taxing enough to force the runner to go tag-me, at which point you can kill them with BOOM!. You have great matchups against most Criminals and Anarchs with this plan. Most Shapers can wreck you with Misdirection, but American Continentals had only 20 Shapers of any kind (compared to 34 Leelas, for example), so this is not too much of an issue in the current meta. Some of the card choices:

  • Casting Call is fantastic in Sync. The tempo hit from two 3-credit tags on top of either of your 3-pointer agendas is very damaging for the runner, and it helps in the Leela matchup which is fairly common at the moment. A turn 1 consisting of Casting Call-advance-advance is often not a bad play.
  • Forced Connection can also be very taxing, and is often unexpected for the runner. If they've just run through a couple of Data Ravens, you can often mess up their math for clearing the tags by paying into the trace a little. It's also a Weyland card, which contributes to your being able to afford Consulting Visit.
  • The kill package - this is a little fragile, with just one BOOM!, one Consulting Visit, and one Preemptive Action in case you lose either piece. Being a 44-card deck helps you find your stuff here. Happily, clearing numerous tags is often so expensive that your kill windows are multiple turns long.
3 comments
3 Aug 2020 Saan

Casting Call on Bellona just seems cruel. I'm kinda in love right now. <3

6 Aug 2020 BlackCherries

Can I ask what you look for in a starting hand?

Obviously you don't have Azmari or GameNET money so early economy seems so important/fragile for you.

7 Aug 2020 Limes

Ideally you want a Rashida or Daily Quest and an ice to put it behind, plus maybe another ice for HQ in certain matchups. Best ice for the remote are ones that involve tags, so raven, ip block or even thoth. Put your gold farmers and enigmas on HQ/R&D. You can come out a little poor in the early game, but rashida/DQ and hedge fund combined make up just over 20% of your deck so you can usually find a bit of money quickly. If you have casting call or HHN in-hand you can generally allow an SSL to be stolen for money too.