Lunisolar Flare (1st place, Stevenage SC)

beyoken 6091

23 player Store Champ, deck went undefeated on the day (8-0).

Battling against the Lunisolar Flare,
Will no doubt be your greatest nightmare.

The fiery light of Sol keeps the current in play,
The Hounds watchful all night hold runners at bay.

Do you resist being Targeted by landing in a plight;
Or succumb to Marketing, strengthening Sol with all might?

Face the blaze of a thousand suns at noon,
Ride a one-way Astrotrain to the moon.

It's your choice, but merely an illusion;
They both lead to your fatal conclusion.

Backstory

I had been vacillating over various shades of yellow and black Corp decks, finding all of them unsatisfactory. Sync Butchershop is far too weak to Imp, Casting Call Argus cannot consistently pressure tags, Bootcamp Blue Sun vomits agendas far too often, and Astrobiotics folds quickly to Noise/Whizzard.

I was in a state of panic and uncertainty less than 24 hours before the tourney. While practicing my Runner side (Noise) Korrigan came along, smacking me silly with this monstrosity. This is my attempt at reconstructing his deck, and it proved to be the miraculuous antidote. Thanks Korrigan, hope this validates your deck! :D

Card Choices and Strategy

New Angeles Sol is very well positioned now. Coincidentally, two other tournaments in the UK on the same day featured strong performances by Sol.

The surprise factor played a major role in the wins; I capitalised on so many Runner misplays throughout the day. For in-depth analysis, check out my video report on it:
Part I
Part II

Tournament Report

Game #1: vs Noise (Barry)
Turn 1 steal agenda, turn 2 Midseasons flatline. Y U NO INSTALL PLASCRETE?!

Game #2: vs Whizzard (Chris)
Chained with Astro to 5 points early, but Blueberry Whizzard found his Medium and Turntable early, swapping my game-winning Astro token away. A clutch CVS appeared on R&D, cutting the Medium dig and opening the window for, you guessed it, Midseasons - Traffic - Scorched.

Game #3: vs Whizzard (Charlie)
More blueberry! This one was down to the wire however: while I did manage to stick some early Midseasons tags on him and casually score a 5-point Beale. He then slapped Clot down, followed by a Clone Chip, which meant I had to dig for my kill. I left a Beale in hand greedily because I had my 2nd Psycho as well. After all, running HQ seemed a silly move on his end considering he had to pay 4 for the Resistor trace each time. But hammer HQ he did - his sixth senses were on point here. To make things really uneasy, he already was on match point too, so hitting the Beale wins him the game. 3 HQ accesses, missed the Beale all 3 times. Then I drew the kill to finish him, but I really deserved to lose that game for my sheer idiocy.

Game #4: vs MaxX (Ciaran)
Siphon MaxX is sad when Account Siphon is targeted. All the early burst economy was spent on Eater - Keyhole, which nabbed a Beale and left the Midseasons flatline door wide open.

Game #5: vs Ken Tenma (Nick)
I've always had trouble as yellow versus blue (in spite of finding a turn 1 TM for Siphon). Ken managed to always keep ahead of Midseasons via Laundries, Public Terminal and High-Stakes Job. It didn't help at all that R&D decided to vomit agendas that round: 12 agenda points in the top 15 cards, 4 of which flew to his score pile and 8 of which were stuck in my hand: Beale Astro Astro Palooza. Decided to make the ballsy play of installing an Astro behind a single News Hound (absolute stupidity given he's almost certainly running Inside Job). But run it he doesn't, and I proceed to Astrotrain to 4 points, followed by topdecking a 15 Minutes to bring me to game point with the game-winning Beale in hand. All this while I was quivering in fear, knowing full well that all he needs is a single Legwork through my News Hound on HQ to win. Thankfully, Legwork he did not either; instead he Femmes the Archangel on my R&D, find a Beale to go up to 6 points. I ramble on to him about how he sniped my game-winning agenda, and thankfully that distracted him from running my hand in his final clicks, so I score the final Beale for game. That was way too close for comfort.

Cut #1: vs MaxX (Ciaran)
Turn 1 News Hound HQ, News Hound R&D, Targeted Siphon. He facechecks R&D and loses money to the tag trace, facechecks HQ and loses money to the tag trace. Did I mention how insanely good News Hound is? Joy was short-lived however; my worst fear came true: Siphon MaxX does run Hacktivist, and he burns my current to Siphon me without triggering the +10. Big plays from a competent opponent. At this point he's tagfloating all the way, so he Deja Vus for an IHW. I drew my combo a couple turns later, and a very lucky Traffic Accident misses both IHWs in hand - 30% chance of that win right there. Y U NO INSTALL PLASCRETE?!

Cut #2: vs Noise (Ollie)
TM comes out early, naming Wyldside - it's no Cerebral Static, but it drastically slows down the Noise mill. He stubbornly doesn't play his Wyldside; without card draw I felt safe scoring 2 Astros behind a Little Engine, one of which came courtesy of the Fast Track. They don't do much however, given Clot and Deja Vus were flying all around the place. Hence the game dragged out for longer than I would've liked, but I overcame the Clot torrent to score out in the end.

Cut final: vs Noise (Ollie)
He beat my Noise in Finals Game 1, so this is for all the marbles, both in terms of the prizes and the undefeated pride of this deck. Can't ever complain about a turn 1 Targeted Marketing (naming Wyldside). Baited him into bankrupting himself to clear a Tollbooth remote, only to find a Jackson Howard that he couldn't afford to trash. Having JHow in a secure server is such a luxury versus Noise! While he was poor, I took the chance to sneak out a naked Astro. At one point he steals an agenda then clicks for credits, leaving me with a tough option of bankrupting myself to Midseason for a single 1 tag, which I chose not to.
Then I topdecked an Astro and scored it.
Then I topdecked an Astro and scored it.
His Clot finally came down, but with 6 points + Astro token, I was feeling relatively comfortable. Slid a Cyberdex in my secure Tollbooth remote, but he runs with with a Parasite and 5 Sucker counters to kill it - huge mistake on my part, I forgot to purge with Cyberdex on encounter! He found another Clot, but eventually made the fatal error of running my Archives with that Cyberdex in there, allowing me to Fast Track 15 Minutes and score for the game (and the marbles!)

So that's it! Now we know the FFG recommendation is 4 Swiss rounds for a 23 player tournament, which is just plain silly. It shortchanges everyone who came down for a good day of Netrunner. I even had several side games with fellow tournament participants due to finishing some games early (playing flatline Sol does that :P). PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY NETRUNNER, PLEASE RESTORE THE NUMBER OF SWISS ROUNDS!

Shoutouts

Shoutouts to Nick for showering everyone with Siphon Sweets, Barry for stepping up to the plate as TO, James for convincing me against taking Weyland to the SC, as well as Team YouTube and LNG2 for your fantastic support :)

29 comments
23 Feb 2016 sruman

Congrats on the win bewnt. Seeing only 6 money cards (outside of targeting marketing), I would think that mid-seasons might be hard to land past the early game if they refuse to play the target of the marketing? How often did you find yourself ahead on credits to threaten the mid-season?

23 Feb 2016 beyoken

@sruman Quite often - Anarchs generally can't keep pace with burst econ in the early turns, and this is a crucial window to get the Astrotrain/Midseasons dual threat going. They also have to account for accessing Palooza, which often enables Midseasons inadvertently.

24 Feb 2016 Swiftie

Well done on the win mate. Did you manage to get your ticket to Birmingham regional?

24 Feb 2016 beyoken

@Swiftie Sure did! Yourself?

24 Feb 2016 Asjveal

I like it, fooling around with sol lately myself. I do wonder, do you think data raven has a place in this deck? for some reason I keep trying to squeeze some ravens in. Or do you feel like it's unnecessary and your current ice suit fits the concept better?

24 Feb 2016 beyoken

@Asjveal Data Raven doesn't have a place in this deck in my opinion. I have no way to punish tagged Runners on successful runs (QPM, DRT, Keegan Lane). Good runners can circumvent the ICE (clearing tags/killing the ICE) or simply go tag-me, in which case Data Raven is a dead card.

25 Feb 2016 Swiftie

@bewnt yeah got my ticket while waiting for the train for Oxford store champ. Look forward to giving you another game!

25 Feb 2016 gumed85

How do you feel about playing 24/7 - breaking news for tag instead of midseasons?

25 Feb 2016 beyoken

@gumed85 Last time I checked, there's only one BN in this deck :P

24/7 is strong. But it belongs in a different deck; with the 10c from Targeted Marketing you want to be able to leverage on it fully.

26 Feb 2016 Dr_Feelgood

Good job, man! I am looking how to build butchershop decks post-MWL, and this one is quite interesting. It's a shame that I sticked to NEH (cause after MWL extra influence is a viable resource) and completely forget about such a nice piece of ICE as News Hound. I have a question for you - how do you feel about adding extra couple of currents like Predictive Algorithm or Manhunt in order to enable News Hound more consistently? Of course, they are not Targeted Marketing, but are taxing for the runner somehow. Probably instead of 1 Psycho and Snatch and Grab.

26 Feb 2016 Cryoclasm

Snatch and Grab is crucial to get rid of Kati Jones or Film Critic, where the latter allows to disable Midseasons (you should think of 1 SEA Source) probably) and the former wins economic race.

26 Feb 2016 beyoken

@Dr_Feelgood Current consistency is not too big an issue; you don't really need News Hound's ETR early on in the game (unless it's your only ETR ICE and you need to pump that Astro out). If anything, you want them to make a successful run, access that Palooza on R&D, then Midseasons for the win. The worst thing about not having TM early is giving the Runner a window to install Faust/Wyldside before you can harvest your 10 creds - that's something the other currents can't fix.

@Cryoclasm is absolutely right about SNG's use. The main problem with SEA Source is that it requires a run; good players won't run on low credit levels, so you lose the utility of killing loaded Katis and turn 1 Aesop's.

26 Feb 2016 LSK

@bewntDid you try the list with a second Breaking News over the 15 Minutes? I feel like it can set up some kills pretty well.

26 Feb 2016 LSK

Also: What's Crisium Grid for? Targeted Marketing already protects you pretty well from Siphons and I can't figure out what other cards are problematic. I guess maybe Wanton Destruction?

27 Feb 2016 WorldSerpent

Played this today at Warboar SC, deck did great but I missed the cut on SOS. Lost only one game with this after my Jackson got same old thing drive byed then hades sharded for an unexpected score of 4 points out of archives. Even managed to win when I drew all my agendas and my opponent scored 5 points within about 4 turns with the psychobeale. Love it.

Keep making great decks.

28 Feb 2016 beyoken

@LSK Great questions. Early game it's hard to set up the kill because you're only running 2 Scorches. Mid to late game, with Faust running rampant it's pretty hard to pull off a Breaking News kill because remotes are always porous. Hence I prefer the defensive 15 Minutes, which helps re-enable Midseasons and has helped me not lose against megadigs.

Targeted Marketing helps against Siphon... assuming you actually draw it. Having one extra out against Siphon decks is important, because you fold pretty hard to early Siphons. Mid-late game it also allows you to retarget breakers against Criminals, There are too many successful run-based cards floating about as well (Vamp, Wanton, Medium, Keyhole...); you can't cover them all with TarMar.

28 Feb 2016 beyoken

@WorldSerpent Glad to hear you got Psychobeale to fire off :D Great to know that people still aren't used to playing against Sol :)

28 Feb 2016 WorldSerpent

@bewnt yeah, the look on one guy's face when he saw the scorch off R&D was priceless even though he was running kill out of NEH himself.

29 Feb 2016 WhackedMaki

Took this to second at a Store Champ today. Only got one flatline victory, and my two losses were due to my own misplays. One game was won off a 7 Point Beale which was awesome

29 Feb 2016 Smattc

Took this to a store champs and won. Great Deck Thanks to yourself and Korrigan. Won in all ways, fast advance, kills and one 7 points beale psyco

29 Feb 2016 Korrigan

Hi there :) First off: congratulations on the win! @LSK The Crisium Grid is extra Siphon protection and also helps against Wanton, Legwork, Vamp, Apocalypse and Keyhole like @bewnt already mentioned. @sruman My list didnt have Fast Track and Snatch and Grad, but Restructures instead. And yeah I tried a second BN but it's usually too difficult to score with clicks left. 15 Minutes enables great Midseasons plays and shuffling it back into RD is priceless :) (it also lets you reset your TM target hah)

6 Mar 2016 tmancino

@bewnt Thanks for the list and the podcast explanation. Took this deck to the Team Covenant SC and was 2nd in swiss and 1st Overall. Lost 1 game on the day, with all wins due to kill. Last game was a nail biter, with midseasons after click one draw after the runner scored a sixth agenda point. Only major changes was -1 little engine +1 muckraker (which on the day was a great add).

6 Mar 2016 beyoken

@tmancino Congrats :D Team Covenant huh, hope to watch the commentated videos soon! What was the field like (mostly Anarchs?) and what cards did you feel pull massive weight (was TarMar effective)?

6 Mar 2016 beyoken

@Smattc Great work, saw your decklist and inclusion of Lily, not a bad call! What were your matchups on the day, and did you find yourself winning more often with kill/Astrotrain/Psychobeale?

6 Mar 2016 tmancino

@bewnt I played almost exclusively Anarchs: Noise and Dumblefork. TarMar never fired, but that is kinda the point ;) I would mulligan for it and call Wylsde, and I don't think I saw the full Wylsde draw combo all day. I ran 2x breaking news and no 15 minutes. Two of my kills were off breaking news tags (one with Astro and on double advanced) so that worked out. Other than that Exploda-a-palooza was a champ putting me over the credit limit for two other kills. I added a muckraker as well if I needed some additional tax on centrals and it worked well, but I realize the anti-synergy with giving the runner a BP.

7 Mar 2016 Circadia

I took this (with one change, -1 Quandary +1 Archangel) to 1st place at the Evesham SC. Undefeated against Jesminder, Leela, Kate and Whizzard. All flatlines except for Whizzard which was a 7 point psychobeale.

Everyone needs to figure out how to beat this deck because I think it's one of the best in the meta right now, with runner decks homogenising around a few key cards.

My one suggestion would be not to Target Market the card that causes the most impact, but the card that will allow them to steal your agendas. I often go for an icebreaker rather than Account Siphon against Criminal, and then protect HQ with the corresponding type. Runners can win without Account Siphon, they can't win if they can't break your ice.

8 Mar 2016 beyoken

@tmancino Interesting. I suppose you cut Crisium for Food? Exploda-a-palooza is SO GOOD - it messes up the maths for Midseasons all the time, it's ridiculous. How'd you find games where you don't start with an early TarMar?

8 Mar 2016 beyoken

@Circadia Agreed with the homogenising bit making TarMar Sol really good, but it is perfectly possible to beat it if you see it coming. I see you didn't play any Noise or SpagsHayley ;)

Agree with your final paragraph and the rationale behind it wholeheartedly, but it's by no means a hard and fast rule:

1) TarMar Siphon is quite important especially early on - you're in a rut if your opponent Siphons, clears tags, and ends up with a good credit lead over you. Crucially, if you find it turn 1 it allows you to completely get away with 0 ICE on HQ for the entire game vs. Leela/Ken, which means constructing your scoring remote that much quicker. Also, that's why I love the Crisium: it allows you to retarget TarMar onto their missing breaker, which would then allow you to construct a scoring remote with the right gearcheck.

2) Wyldside is almost always called before Faust against Noise. It draws them their econ to beat Midseasons, as well as viruses to mill agendas for the win. Sure, Faust helps Noise steal agendas more easily than Wyldside does, but it leaves them more vulnerable to kill/Psycho too.

7 Apr 2016 Spammer

I had so much fun with this deck so far, tyvm. Love it!