End of the Line

IonFox 1618

"There is no escape. There is no salvation. There is only death."

This is an updated Blue Sun Government Takeover deck I've been running for the past month after regionals, and it has performed quite admirably, having a combined record of 21-2 online and at my FLGS, against a variety of runners. The main reasons I love this deck are due to the flexibility of how you can build it, as well as the numerous choices it offers to you in any game. While you will win through flatlines most of the time, don't be hesitant to score agendas once you're properly set up. In this write-up, I intend to cover certain card choices and how to play this deck, so be warned that it gets a bit lengthy.

The deck runs a standard 6 card Government Takeover agenda setup, in order to minimise agenda density as well as to always threaten the runner with a double punitive counterstrike. The economy is the usual Blue Sun operation driven burst economy, in order to rez your ICE and play your kill pieces. This deck can also get away with running a bigger, more expensive and taxing ICE suite than usual as there is little need to defend your servers early in most cases. There are certain card choices that do need to be highlighted:

Bastion: Not really an interesting choice, this is more of a flex slot, and you can slot in whatever you feel will benefit you most. If you're looking for something a bit bulkier, throw in Hive, Hadrian's Wall or a couple Fire Walls. Cerberus "Lady" H1 and 4tman giving you headaches? Swap in a couple of those shiny new Spiderwebs.

EDIT: Upon reflection, spiderweb is probably the superior choice as it better taxes lady, atman and faust and as Blue Sun you are resistant to most parasite attempts.

Run Bait: Cards such as Cerebral Overwriter, Shattered Remains and Cyberdex Virus Suite fall into this category. These are basically the cards that you will use to bait the runner into wasting their credits on a pointless run and opening themselves to potential flatlines. The cards here are simply those that I have found to have the greatest effect, but you can also try out Aggressive Secretary, GRNDL Refinery, Project Junebug, a second Contract Killer or even Snatch and Grab. Feel free to experiment and choose whatever works best for you.

Contract Killer: Now you may have noticed that this card is not in the above list. That's because he is 100% mandatory. This guy means business. I threw him in when The Underway came out and I have never looked back. He is so important as he lets you choose one of 3 potent effects: First, he gently reminds the public that they are discouraged from associating or assisting cyber terrorists. Ms. Jones doing a cash run? Nope. The Supplier getting orders? Lights out. A group of Professional Contacts? Hope they all had insurance.

Second, he lets you play around I've Had Worse. One issue with previous iterations of this deck was that the smallest amount of damage it ever did was three, making it likely to hit an I've Had Worse if the runner was holding one. Now, you can instead choose to pop Contract Killer first. If you hit it, save your kill cards for later. Otherwise, flatline that pesky anarch who was running everywhere willy-nilly thinking that he was safe with this in hand.

Lastly, while this is quite rare, there are cases when this card can outright execute the runner. Sometimes, a runner just sets up all game and refuses to run out of fear of SeaSourceScorch and Punitives. They may also get a false sense of security and forget to top up their hand. In such cases, I usually have a copy of The Cleaners scored, and if they just happen to ever end with 2 cards or less, then it's game over. So yea. This card is pretty sweet.

Targeted Marketing: This card is my personal favorite, as it just offers you so much control over the game. Also, by having only 6 agendas, you reduce the main flaw of currents, which is them turning off when the runner gets a lucky access. One common mistake I see is people usually just call out Plascrete Carapace. The problem is that it immediately tips your hand (there could always be a chance that you're a different bootcamp glacier right?) and it simply isn't profitable as most people play only 1, or at most 2 copies. Instead, choose cards which people will consistently play throughout the game or will severely hurt you game plan such as SMC, Account Siphon, Street Peddler, D4v1d, Cache, Imp and Daily Casts. Turns out Prepaid Kate isn't so scary when she's hesistant to even play her SMCs.

But Fox, there have to be better choices than this. The runner could be playing their own currents, or they could still get a lucky access or whine whine whine

(>.<) Fiiiiiiiiine. If you really don't want to play it, you could alternatively choose to run a pair of Daily Business Shows (to filter you agendas and find those kill pieces), Blacklists (to further stomp on shapers) or Executive Boot Camp and Adonis Campaign.

In order to pilot this deck to victory, you simply have to do 3 things:

1) Outpace the runner's credits. Your cards mean nothing if the runner has more money than you. You can't threaten kills with Scorch or Punitive. Thankfully, this entire deck is built to tax the runner if they make any run while bursting you own credit pool like it's going out of fashion.

2) Properly manage your cards. Early on, you probably just want to setup a bit of ICE and get to work on your credits straight away. However, later on, you need to keep careful track of your agendas and kill pieces. For example, if I'm holding 2 punitives in hand, I wouldn't mind leaving 6 points in archives for the runner, but I also wouldn't want them to luck out and find the last card in HQ and win. Likewise, if I haven't seen a single agenda I'd start shoring up R&D, and then the scoring remote in order to push something out the moment it arrives in HQ.

3) Force the runner into no-win situations. Targeted Marketing is a card which does this perfectly. It either turns the runner's cards into dead draws or provides me with a massive economy burst. Likewise, once you have cash and kill cards in hand, feel free to start advancing traps and agendas in your main remote. They can either hide and let you score, or run and get blown to tiny little pieces. Damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

And that's all I have to say about this deck. It is extremely fun and satisfying to play, and every game is always packed with action and tense moments. Feel free to drop any feedback and questions down below. Good hunting everyone! ^.^

11 comments
29 Jul 2015 Nex

Awesome! i've been trying to build a killer Weyland with Government Takeover for some time now and never could really answer the situation when the runner decides to never run until he or she has enough money to resist SEA-Scorch-Scorh. With such a low agenda density, you don't often score an agenda at that point and just look at the runner clicking thorugh Magnum Opus.

How do you deal with such situations?

Nice idea with Targeted Marketing I really gotta try it :)

29 Jul 2015 TheWackyWombat

@Nex I put something similar together using Argus and if you really want to setup the SEA-Scorch combo you should try running High-Risk Investment. You wont score one every game, but when you do it guarantees that whatever you want to throw at the runner sticks.

In one turn you can Crack High-Risk, SEA for the runner's entire cred pool, then scorch away.

Unless the runner has something like Forger to dump tags during your turn, it's an almost guaranteed kill.

29 Jul 2015 Nex

You can't use two Scorched Earth in the same turn you use High-Risk Investment and SEA Source, so you mean you count on the runner having less than 4 cards ?

I guess it works better with Punitive Counterstrike, but event with High-risk, pulling a double punitve on a 3/5 or one on Gov-takeover requires perfect timing and not losing any agenda before.

29 Jul 2015 DarkTsunder

I feel that you would be better off with Spiderweb over Bastion. It costs the same to rez and burns through more counters on Lady.

29 Jul 2015 IonFox

@Nex This deck is largely tailored for my meta and I have not seen Opus in a while. However, if you happen across a runner who just clicks it all day, don't hesitate to push through an agenda or two. They are then forced to either make a super taxing run through your remote and open themselves to punitive/scorch or you score at least a 5/3, preferably a high risk investment as pointed out by @TheWackyWombat. If you are really worried about cash, you could change the agendas by adding in another investment or some pri reqs, or just swap out the virus suite for a GRNDL refinery. Or just be a badass score the takeover and get a superior opus while saying "Deal with it".

29 Jul 2015 IonFox

@TheWackyWombat Geist is actually this deck's hardest matchup because of forger and sometimes decoy. If he gets any points on he simply uses his ability to draw up on your turn before you land the kill. At that point, you either have to land two 6 point punitives ot just score out, both of which are a bit tricky.

@DarkTsunder Your probably right, as I just realised spiderweb also taxes faust 4 cards instead of Bastion's 2, and Blue Sun laughs at parasite. Edited write up.

30 Jul 2015 razortoy

@IonFox what do you usually use Targeted Marketing for? Their Plascrete or I've Had Worse or do you do it on a breaker or one of their econ cards?

30 Jul 2015 IonFox

@razortoy I have covered the basics of this in my write up. Here is a more detailed explanation. When you play targeted marketing, just run off a checklist of the card you want to name. First, is it a key card in the runner's deck? Second, will the runner playing that card hamper your own game plan? Third (and usually the most important), will it be played multiple times over the course of the game? Usually the card you name should cover at least 2 conditions, but all 3 would be ideal.

Hence, I never name plascrete and icebreakers in most cases as they simply aren't worth it as they usually just get played once in the entire game, as most runners would choose to suffer the 10 credits once and get that 1 card out. If you really do not know what to target, then you can name economy cards which will get played multiple times.

Here is a pretty comprehensive list of targets, organised by faction and priority (Anything after the first card should be targeted by your second current):

Shaper: SMC (by far the most important), Clone Chip, maybe Diesel/Quality Time. It's not necessary to target Lady as without clone chip, they're dead in the water.

Criminal: Account Siphon, Inside Job, Emergency Shutdown. Nothing else comes to mind.

Anarch: The trickiest as Blue Sun rolls over their main tool (parasite). D4v1d/Cache (Noise)/Street Peddler, Imp, Deja Vu. There is no reason to target I've Had Worse as it doesn't trigger Targeted Marketing when it gets trashed.

Economy/Utility: Daily Casts, Same Old Thing/Sure Gameble. Only use this list when you have no idea what they have in their decks, and even then you're probably better off using the faction lists.

I know this is pretty long but I feel that so many people simply cannot use this amazing current properly and I think his response covers almost everything. Hope this helps.

30 Jul 2015 razortoy

Thanks @IonFox I am a new player and the specific card list is really helpful, since I don't really know what key cards to look for in my own decks at this point, I am kind of feeling things out and copying decks I like the feel of. I have about 20 games under my belt now so am starting to get an idea for where I want to go with my own design but this is really helpful, thanks!

6 Aug 2015 Vimes

Will you run Vanity Project in this now or are the effects of Cleaners and High-risk too important?

10 Aug 2015 IonFox

@Vimes I will probably try it out, but I don't think it will wprk due to influence constraints and because 4 points means the runner only needs 2 agendas, yet 2 punitives are still required for a flatline.