Scorching Blue Sun

anathomical 23

Listed for easy reference when I'm streaming (http://www.twitch.tv/anathomical).

This is my current Blue Sun build. It's pretty straightforward, and not doing anything terribly original. There are just a couple of things to call out here.

  1. I happen to prefer Amazon Industrial Zone loops over Adonis Campaign loops in Blue Sun: Powering the Future for economic abuse. They both result in 3 credits per click, but I feel that Amazon Industrial Zone has a couple of advantages: first, it's all in-faction and requires no influence; second, you can use it from turn 1, running it in a central server before you could protect Adonis Campaign; third, Amazon Industrial Zone gives you free wins against some decks (like Nasir).

  2. There are four cards in the deck that are there to try to deal with Plascrete Carapace: Taurus and the 2x Shattered Remains are there to try to blow it up directly, and Midseason Replacements can set up a triple-Scorched Earth turn later in the game. With the exception of the Taurus, each of these cards have secondary benefits that make them worth playing against decks without Plascrete.

4 comments
1 Jan 2015 Pinkwarrior

Have you thought about putting more Archers in? you have more than enough 1 pointers to fuel them.

1 Jan 2015 ItJustGotRielle

Running Midseason AND Sea Source I feel like you are playing against yourself by playing three 3-pointers. Taurus, Archer, Guard, and Wendigo are all things you don't want to reveal via AIZ, but there is strong synergy with Hive and Enigma off the bat. You aren't even playing Hedge Fund though, which is a click and a card draw for 4 credits- if you plan to scorch (6 influence, 2 Shattered, 1 Taurus, and 3 Scorch) it seems you would need stronger econ options, or at least a larger density of them. Running Subliminal over Hedge x3 says to me that you are confident there will be multiple turns (more than 8) where you believe the runner will not run (the equivalent of 2 Hedge Funds that you are likely to draw during a game); on top of this if you are holding Scorches AND bouncing ice to your hand each turn on top of mandatory draw, it seems to me the Subliminals are going to clog your hand.

How has the deck fared so far running only 2 program destruction cards? It seems cards like Imp and D4v1d would give you trouble, which are popular splashes in Shaper even.

2 Jan 2015 anathomical

@Pinkwarrior I've toyed with putting in a second one, but I have a very complicated relationship with Archer. I suspect that it's at least partially meta-based, but everyone I play is ready for it. They've got Faerie or Da4id or Sharpshooter, and they just don't walk into Archer without a solution in place. I like to have it, just in case, but in many situations, I don't play or rez it. And when those situations come up, I'd hate to be stuck with two in hand.

Similarly, in those games where you get stuck unable to score early, having two or three Archers drawn early feels awful, so I try to avoid it. That said, yeah, I could see going up to a second one, maybe, and it's something I may test some later on.

@ItJustGotRielle The reason I run both Midseason Replacements and SEA Source rather than settling on one or the other is that I'm often going to go get whichever one is more appropriate with a Project Atlas token. Sometimes that means I'll be killing on a turn after they stole an agenda, and sometimes it won't, so having access to both options is nice. (And burying someone in tags with Midseason Replacements is a good way to set up a triple-Scorched Earth kill if they have Plascrete Carapace out.)

As for the Priority Requisitions in the deck, I feel that it needs the pressure that can be applied with a 5/3 agenda, and most of the time Priority Requisition just reads "gain 14 credits" when it's scored. Sometimes the variance hurts me, but it's also definitely won me games.

I actually have no qualms about revealing Guard to Amazon Industrial Zone. It's really there to make sure that criminal players have to go get a breaker to stop the Amazon Industrial Zone loop rather than to "get them" when they try to Inside Job.

The Subliminal Messaging is currently the card that I'm testing in the Hedge Fund slot (which is what was there in the last build of the deck), and I'm still not sure what I think. One thing that's been nice is that Subliminal Messaging doesn't cost a click to play. When I'm doing something like running an Amazon Industrial Zone loop for economy, one click a turn is devoted to re-playing my ice, so having an economy source that doesn't take up a click is sweet. That means that I'm less likely to have to discard one if I draw it (since it's not being played instead of something else I need to do that turn), and its ability also means its less of a problem to discard as I'll likely get it back later.

So far I haven't really felt the need to play more program trashing. Imp is only a problem if they can get into your servers, and I've found that it's pretty easy to make that expensive. As for D4v1d, it is a problem, but I've found that, generally speaking, the trick is to just stack something with your Curtain Wall. It costs all the counters to get through Curtain Wall, and I'm also running Tollbooth and Hadrian's Wall, so it's pretty easy to just run them out of D4v1d counters. You can also force your opponent to use D4v1d to kill an Oversight AIed ice, or one your running through a loop with Amazon Industrial Zone, and then they don't have those counters ready to deal with scoring servers.

3 Jan 2015 Pinkwarrior

@anathomical Id probably go to 2x Archer i similarly don't like 3 in the deck.

An yeah people usually have an answer for it but the point is if you res it it's 1 less Faerie, D4v1d or Clone Chip in the deck and that's actually important to get rid of and yeah it didn't stop them that time but it's another each time they encounter it.