Sandburg Bullshittery - Won Small GNK, Post-Rotation w/ Bans

This is just my pretty basic CI Sandburg deck that won a small local GNK, so I though I'd put it out there. Only match I lost was to Omar, which was over in 4 turns and involved 2 DDoS's and an Indexing.

Mulligan for Scarcity and Clearances - if you have both and some ICE, you've probably won, and if you have an early Bryan Stinson to combo with them, it's pretty easy to lock the runner out.

This deck is viscous against Geist, Sunny, Alice and other slow to set-up runners. As they won't be facechecking you in the first few turns (as they will most probably be focusing on their late-game engine), you have the possibility to just blow them out of the water.

And if the runner does try to keep you honest (and poor) by forcing rezzes, well that's where the Fairchild 3.0, Brainstorm, Tribunal and Architect punish their hubris. Also, early running often leads to poor runners, which turns on Bryan, and just lets you recover pretty much instantly.

You want to be putting the most protection on R&D early, as Indexing is all the rage nowadays, but as you transition into the middle- and late-game, HQ and your Sandburg server are the most important. It might seems weird to put your Ash with your Asset over your Agendas, but losing Sandburg is backbreaking.

For this reason, you should generally overscore your Vitruviuses, for recursion of either Scarcity of Resources or Sandburg, depending on the boardstate. Money cards are actually more valuable to you in Archives, especially Ultraviolet Level Clearance, for Bryan to use later.

General tips + tricks:

Mining Accident is pretty damn popular, and often you won't want to pay the 5, especially in the first few turns, but you need the runner poor in order for this deck to function, and giving them bad pub mitigates that somewhat.

Interdiction is absolutely devastating, as is Hacktivist Meeting, so it's often correct rez your Sandburgs the turn you drop them. And if they do get in and trash it, then they are poor, and that'll just let you accelerate out.

Successful Field test generally gets you between 5 and 8 installs, and saves you a lot in both clicks and credits, so it's okay to leave it on the table a turn or two, and slow-roll it in order to fire off your Violet-Levels at the end of turn to generate boatloads of value. Mid-game, a good SFT install can save you easily 10-15 credits when you are vomiting down ICE.

Depending on the matchup, Turing can be decent HQ or R&D defence against AI-focused decks, as the Sandburg will offset the low Str against normal breakers, especially if the server in question already has some other decent taxing ICE on it.

Dealing the Brain Damage of a Fairchild 3.0 is a viable strategy, especially if it is a blind or unimportant access. Limiting options means a slower runner, which combined with all the other taxing affects you are sporting, really helps snowball the deck.

Ashigaru is literally unbreakable once you have decent cash and Sanburg out, and against some Runners, can be the only ICE on a server and still be impregnable. Sunny of course, waltzes through all this, but this is what everything else is for.

Final Thoughts.

The deck is not as tuned as it should. Tribunal, although brutal in the early turns, especially when the Runner is facechecking you constantly, is pretty porous lategame. Brainstorm never quite worked out for me either, generally due to Hunting Grounds or Aumakua, so I'd swap those out for a Loki (which combos exceedingly well with Ashigaru) and either a Macrophage or an Excalibur, depending on how many turtles are floating around.

I initially went for the 3x Elective Upgrades in order to help me fast advance, but in practicality, that didn't matter. Either I had money coming out of my ears, or I was behind, and scoring a 5/3 when you are behind is always a bit dicey. Therefore I'd probably exchange one Elective Upgrades for a Paper Trail, just to hit Geist and Sunny right in the wallet.

tl:dr - it's a pretty decent deck, and is real good against most of the Runners out there.