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mawa 449

So if you haven't heard, Blue Sun is back. Turns out the fact that everyone stopping running d4v1d is enough to break out the Oversight AI even though Employee Strike is everywhere. But this deck isn't quite as competitive as those decks. This is the sort of thing that's perfect for new players, for the jinteki.net casual lobby, for players who don't want to do anything too unfair, but still want an occasional win against even tier 1 decks. With that in mind, I'm going to recommend this as a list for relatively novice players looking to play against more experienced foes with strong lists.

This deck is nuts. A couple months ago I started with the goal of making a deck that was as "fair" as possible, a deck without fast advance, without defensive upgrades, without obscene combos and unreasonable amounts of recursion and without a kill plan. I've kind of deviated from some of that a little, but the goal remains very similar: score every agenda you draw behind ice the runner can't afford to break, then score the last agenda because they can only afford to get in once. This deck will teach you to identify scoring windows.

Of course, make sure you leave at least 8 credits in your pool after you've protected your server. What makes this list stands out is the 3x DNA Tracker. Your standard ice placement is one on R&D and HQ (and archives against Criminal, and then two or even 3 on the remote). With 6 ice that HURT even when the runner has no breakers, and your natural ability to shuffle around the one dangerous ice that you've found, the runner can't afford to run until they can deal with all three ice types without going bankrupt. That buys you a huge amount of time and money. Don't use that to advance ice or make more money than you need or install more ice, use that to score out.

Now let's return to that Employee Strike issue. For a while this deck was running Scarcity of Resources, which is by far the best corp current, instead of Lag Time, which is by far the worst. Or it was until recently. See, Lag Time can be expected to cost most breakers only 1 more credit to break, but with all the conspiracy breakers around (Black Orchestra, MKUltra) and Criminal's new addiction to Abagnale, or even Faust, particular strengths become significantly more costly per ice. And when the average increase to break on every ice is 2 credits, Lag Time is actually bearable and breaking ice is not. Bonus marks go to shutting out the weirder casual lobby breakers completely by boosting DNA Tracker to 7 strength or Curtain Wall to 11.

Then there's the timing. Scarcity of Resources wants to be played as soon as possible, likely turn 2, whereas by contrast I recommend saving Lag Time until the most impactful moment. Same with Blacklist: learn to ruin your opponent's plans, make them find that second Paperclip and score out while they do.

I will admit the ice suite requires greater explanation, and it's entirely down to the icebreakers you will expect to face. Paperclip and Faust are the barrier breakers of preference, so high strength and high subroutines is king. And let me tell you a little secret: it really doesn't matter if your server doesn't have an end the run on the inside. You don't have the time to be positional with ice, just shove it in any order. If they do get through the Curtain Wall on the outside, the DNA Tracker will hurt so much that even if they do steal your agenda, they can't get the second or third. Don't forget to rez Blacklist before they encounter Hailstorm or Bulwark but after they get a chance to jack out to get rid of that Paperclip for good.

Hortum: don't bother advancing it unless you think they can't break it if you do. Like all of the ice you have, if it's not taxing any more take it back to hand for the money and discard it. There's no point installing ice that you don't want to rez. That is especially true of:

Tribunal:

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3 comments
13 Jun 2017 mawa

P.S.: If you're wondering why there's three of something, it's because you want to see it early. It's that simple.

13 Jun 2017 Jeffrey Bosboom

I'm slightly confused by your mention of Blacklist and Hailstorm. Once Blacklist is rezzed, Hailstorm's first sub can't remove anything from the heap.

13 Jun 2017 mawa

@Jeffrey Bosboom well serves me right. You're completely correct. Previously I was using Signal Jamming for a vaguely similar purpose and I treated the cards as similar enough in purpose that I didn't spot that key difference.