The Sun Never Sets on New Angeles (2nd, 2017 SC)

sigma83 293

Weyland Never Sleeps

Weyland is my favorite faction. Blue Sun is my favorite corp ID by a miiile. Project Atlas is my favorite agenda, Consulting Visit is my favorite corp card of the last 2 cycles... so being able to combine all of these into one deck is a huge boon for me. (seriously my 2nd favorite corp deck is like, 20% as fun as Blue Sun)

Version History

Previously I had been running Ran Cao's Bootcamp Renovation, a pure glacier setup that I absolutely loved. However, since Rumor Mill and Employee Strike, the deck needed some tweaking - a change in ice, extra Executive Boot Camps, running Hostile Takeover - but then high link decks burst onto the scene. This invalidated too many key cards: Ash, Caduceus, Assassin, and I feared I had to shelve the deck.

In the depths of my despair came Consulting Visit. Being able to tutor Oversight AIs and currents to counter Employee Strike on command was extremely good - but new problems started to emerge. Deckslots and influence (especially once I started running Janus) were faaar too tight to allow me to run Ash and Public Support and Executive Boot Camp and Adonis Campaign - all cornerstones of Bootcamp Renovation.

So instead of trying to make it all fit, I leaned hard into Consulting Visit and created a BOOM version that ended up being within 2 or 3 cards of the Silver Sun/Boom Sun archetypes. I stole some of their ideas (Mother Goddess instead of Rainbow allows you to just outright win some games since you can ensure that MG is the only rezzed ice), extra Restructures, 2 Boom 1 Scorched instead of 3 Boom, and the result you see before you.

Who should play this deck?

If you like tutoring, big ice, or having 40 credits by the end of turn 3, this is your deck. Do be warned that it is fairly technical - making the wrong choice at the wrong time will set you back extremely far.

Core Strategy

Its primary win condition is trying to score - then having the runner interfere with your plans and then being Midseasoned and dying. Consulting Visit puts literally half the deck at your fingertips and an overscored Atlas basically reads 'Win the game if you make the right choices.'

2017 Store Champs

I worried that people would tech heavily against kill decks because of Boom, so much so that I almost brought a rush NEXT Design instead - but I decided I would rather lose having fun than win with something I thought was only okay fun-wise. I made the correct decision because people had universally cut their plascretes, expecting a field full of CTM and other rush NBNs. The Kuala Lumpur meta is incredibly difficult to tech against because what people will bring is a complete crapshoot. The top four IDs:

Andromeda/Near Earth Hub
Chaos Theory/Blue Sun
Geist/SYNC
Valencia/Potential Unleashed

Round 1 vs Khan

Criminals without Inside Job have a very very bad time against Blue Sun. My opponent could not find Paperclip and got locked out before stealing an agenda then dying.

Round 2 vs Geist

Cloud breakers do nothing against Curtain Wall and Scarcity of Resources meant Geist was broke as hell. He couldn't make Employee Strike stick thanks to Consulting Visit and before he could find his Sherman I already had 2 Atlas Counters. R&D leaked an agenda and I Midseasoned but I forgot that Geist has the ability to trash cards to draw up, so he survived the first Boom. However I managed to Midseasons him again (thanks Preemptive Action! Such a good card) and this time it was lethal.

Citadel Sanctuary is an excellent card against Hard Hitting News. Against Midseasons... not so much.

Round 3 vs Andromeda

Armored up against Temujin (opponent only got 3 ticks of Temujin and discarded all Desperados because they simply wouldn't do enough). Installed Curtain Wall on a remote and advanced Oaktown Renovation behind it. Runner Femmed the Curtain Wall and went down to 2 credits. Midseasons -> Trash Citadel Sanctuary. Andy, knowing she was dead next turn ran R&D and stole an agenda bringing her to 6 points, then ran again. I panic rezzed the R&D ice leaving me unable to defend HQ from a single access to win.

Should have been my game to win but I fumbled at the end. Alas! Don't overpay your Midseasons traces everyone.

Round 4 vs Valencia with En Passant

My opponent offered me an intentional draw. Given that my Blue sun vs Val and my 40 card no-net-damage-protection Chaos Theory vs Potential Unleashed matchups are both awful, (I might have had a chance vs Val due to it being a tagme deck, but I hadn't played against the archetype before) I took the ID.

Elimination Rounds

vs Geist (Game 1)

I had a higher seed than Geist/SYNC so I chose Blue Sun vs Geist. I had a favored matchup against both but I felt like my chances vs Geist were higher as SYNC could still do a number on me with Observe and Destroy to take out my Opus and Exchange of Information is still a thing.

Geist got richer this time as he found his Tech Traders early (even installing the first one through Scarcity) before landing an Employee Strike. I Consulting Visited for the 2nd copy and Geist Same Old Thing'ed the Employee Strike.

I used Jackson to shuffle in both currents and the consulting and immediately mandatory drew a Scarcity. The game proceeded fairly evenly until after Geist facechecked a Janus for 3 brain damage, then Midseasons -> Trash Citadel Sanctuary -> Scorched ended the game.

vs Andy (Fun Bracket Finals)

By all rights I should have won this game, but I made 3 critical errors because I had been playing Netrunner for 8 hours and was sleep deprived due to dealing with a medical emergency the night before.

1) I did not ice archives against Temujin even though I had spare ice in HQ. Andy therefore got 1 full value Temujin which put her faaar out of Midseasons range and gave her the money to trash an Oversight AI'ed Janus, denying my economy heavily.

2) I didn't install my 2nd Jackson even though Andy had already trashed the first one. Then she ran HQ and trashed it, thus leaving me unable to Jackson in the first Jackson and some more economy. I never saw the third Jackson or the Preemptive Action, leaving my tempo significantly and permanently damaged.

3) I forgot that Cobra costs 1 credit for Andy to break with Mongoose, therefore giving her a 2nd full value Temujin and therefore full control over R&D with Medium. Until the 2nd Temujin, I had Andy down to 7 credits and had trashed Security Testing with Best Defense. Oopsie.

Given that Andy's Paperclip was the 44th card in her deck and her 2nd Special Order was the 42nd, this should have been an easy win, but alas, alas.

Final Thoughts

I love this deck. It has everything I love about Blue Sun + everything I loved about Argus rush/Supermodernism in a single package. The Crisium Grid could be a Cyberdex if you're expecting a lot of Anarchs and I think Sapper is a really good include for the future, perhaps over Caduceus given how much Link we're seeing right now. I also never rezzed the Bulwark. Needs more testing to see how I feel about it.

I last minute cut a 2nd Datapike for Preemptive Action. Best choice ever. Preemptive Action is SO GOOD for this deck because you can Preemptive and Consulting Visit whatever you put back in (usually BOOMs, let's be real)

Thank you for reading this writeup. Weyland 4 lyfe. For my runner deck (Magnum Opus Chaos Theory) click here

7 comments
19 Dec 2016 rubyvr00m

I'm really glad to see Blue Sun performing well this Store Champs season. I've been tinkering around with BS a lot lately, as it is one of my favorite ID's as well.

I really like your ice suite, and may even end up borrowing it for my own build, but I'm wondering if Bulwark is worth it considering you can't really dodge the BP (No Elizabeth Mills). Has it performed well enough for you to earn its place?

I'm also wondering how you handle an opponent who installs Film Critic. I've been including Snatch and Grab in my lists because it's easy to tutor with Consulting. Do you normally just try to score out or are you pitching multiple agendas into archives or something to try to "overload" the Film Critic?

20 Dec 2016 mrgoldendeal

@rubyvr00mMost people who are running Film Critic are also running NACH, so Snatch & Grab won't do anything to them other than cost 2 credits to avoid the tag. I feel like the move would be to either rush out agendas or pack a Contract Killer.

20 Dec 2016 sigma83

@rubyvr00m Thanks! Re: Bulwark I thought the same as you but after reviewing my games on the day - If I had installed and rezzed my Bulwarks instead of chucking them (because I was afraid to give criminals the BP) I would have done so much damage.

Think about this: How do you stay safe as criminal/Anarch? You install your Mimic/Mongoose/Faust/David and start facechecking. A Bulwark rez will ruin your day - at the very least it will trash a Datasucker, worst case your breaker is gone (Unless you're willing to pay 4 cards with Faust) and then even if you just lose the Faust and Deja Vu it that's a pretty large tempo hit. Draining 1 david counter is massive because david with 3 counters is a huge world of difference vs a david with 2 counters for Curtain Wall.

Against Shaper it will have slightly less value but 7 with paperclip (6 after BP) is still nothing to sneeze at. I don't think you pick this ICE up after you rez it, it just stays on that server forever.

Re: Film Critic. No one in my meta runs Film Critic. If you DO encounter Film Critics, take advantage of how slow that card is (especially if it costs 3 to install) by forcing another agenda install immediately after the first one. I don't know about slotting Contract Killer because you have no way to tutor for it besides Atlas Counters but then again who runs two Film Critics?

20 Dec 2016 phette23

I'm assuming Mausolus wasn't out since it seems crazy to prefer Datapike over it. How would you shift the ICE suite to fit Weyland's first good code gate? Just cut 'em all & add 3x Mausolus? Or is the Quandary gear check too valuable to lose?

21 Dec 2016 sigma83

@phette23I actually don't know about cutting Datapike or Quandary just because the deck has no Tollbooths any more and thus very few ETR code gates. The flood of criminals in the meta means that code gates on remotes have extra value now.

Unadvanced Mausolus has great facecheck value for 4c especially because it costs 3c in effect, and ice which give econ are great for Blue Sun. I actually think the slot it might replace is Caduceus given the prevalence of Power Tap/Link - suddenly I have ice of all 3 types (Bulwark, Cobra, Mausolus) which do damage on facecheck. I've also never had the runner let me have the 3c on Caduceus ever, so Mausolus will actually give me more money than Caduceus!

Advanced Mausolus on the other hand, I can only see in two very specific circumstances - as a high end gearcheck that is very expensive to break (so probably R&D ice - on a remote Curtain Wall does the job better) or making the runner play the 'Wormhole, Ice Wall, Orion, or Mausolus' game in the early stages of the game, making them less likely to want to facecheck and giving the server Mausolus is on slightly more breathing room.

The other issue is how to fit Sapper. Sapper is a really good card and I honestly don't know what I can cut for it other than a wormhole and MAYBE a Mausolus - both of which I'm kind of loathe to do because Wormhole -> do 1 brain damage/trash 1 program is GOOD. I might actually play Sapper over Mausolus just to make my centrals spikier and because advanced Mausolus doesn't 100% jive with the Blue Sun ID, whereas 'where's the Cobra' is one of my favorite Blue Sun games and now I can play it with Sapper too.

21 Dec 2016 Gerrark

@mrgoldendeal Just a heads up to you and everyone else who thinks NACH will stop Snatch and Grab: it won't. To avoid losing the connection, the runner HAS to take the tag. They cannot avoid it. Avoiding it means they did not fulfill the condition the card presented, which is that they must take a tag to save the connection.

You don't need to take my word for it btw: ancur.wikia.com

22 Dec 2016 sigma83

@Gerrark thanks dude