Sunny's Way - 2nd place Halifax, NS Regionals - DON'T PLAY T

As per the title, don't waste your time on this deck.

Truth to be told, I really didn't want to play this deck today: I abandoned trying to make Sunny work about a month-and-a-half ago, having concluded that it lacks early game ooomph / enough influence to make up for having to import a console & tutoring (and there generally isn't enough to do with massive link to make Security Nexus worthwhile against most decks). ;-)

Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley. Arriving at the venue for the 1/2 hour marshaling period, printed Jesminder Sareen: Girl Behind the Curtain deck list in hand, I realize that I've forgotten most of my cards at home. I dig out my deck boxes to see if I can cobble together something, and find most of this deck already sleeved. A frantic check of cards to patch what I think most of the holes are, and I'm away to the races (or, in this case, a first round bye).

Second round, I run into jgoahl's a Making News = a pretty quick loss.

Third round heralds a tough fight vs. HexNet's Palanas. I beat a Batty to score a Nesei, then snagged another. R&Digging scores me a NAPD, but I trash the Agroplex a little too soon and can't seal the deal as my worthy opponent scores out two GFI and my last R&D dig comes up empty and I go down 6-7.

Final round: a lovely lady whose name escapes me with NEH. I score two Astros, and dig to victory. I remember the match being pleasant, but quick.

With 11 points, and most players breaking at 10 rather than 12, I'm shocked, delighted, and 6th going into the Cut.

First round pairing against an old friend from Toronto (Adam), he gets the choice of side and picks NEH to play against my Sunny. This is where things got interesting: I drew a solid hand with my Astrolabe, Aesop's Pawnshop, Armitage Codebusting, Overmind, and Net-Ready Eyes. I then click-draw into a Security Testing and Jak Sinclair, while the Astrodraws bring me another Security Testing. Daily Casts help keep me afloat (and, as I recall, a Drug Dealer to speed up the Astro-draws), and I'm able to power on through to victory!

Third round, after dropping the Corp match, puts me to a do-or-die match against Kevin from Northern Gaming (in New Brunswick). He, too, is playing NEH. This time, Symmetrical Visage does some lifting, as I snag a 2 pointer then the 15 Minutes (more on that later). Unfortunately, my earstwhile opponent has the Midseasons, and goes down to 3 credits to sink 8 tags after I bankrupt myself. MVP of this match, however, is Dirty Laundry, which together with the Symmetrical Visage keep gaining me 4/turn to clear 2 tags a turn (and pick up a random Breaking News along the way). A lot of drawing doesn't produce the second scorch or other punishment, so I'm finally able to stagger free of the tags and get out a Daily Casts. I snag a Beale to bring me to 6 points; my opponent decides not to shuffle the 15 minutes back into the deck the following turn. A Same-Old Maker's Eye, IIRC, nets me the last breaking news point for the second surprise win.

Fast forward to the finals vs. the as-yet-undefeated-in-eliminations Rob B (Snake Eyes) from Freddy Beach playing Palana. Actually, you can fast forward to the end of this short match, too: First turn R&D runs net a Phelotic and a Braintrust, but after that it went as I expected (I probably should have mulled, had breakers and a little bit of econ, but not enough to carry me). Since I was already down one, that was a wrap, folks!

Thoughts for Improvement:

Play any other runner except Apex or Exile.

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You're still here? I thought I told you this was a bad deck, and you shouldn't play it! I felt bad playing it!

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Fine. First, ditch the Levy. Didn't need it at all. Security Testing eats a lot of influence, but it also does good work vs. Asset Spam (or even un-iced R&D), and it makes Jak Sinclair do work against non-bioroid decks. The Aesop's Pawnshop was there to turn off the Drug Dealers if needed, get most of my creds back from the Overmind, and speed up the return on the Daily Casts; I think the influence could be better spent. At a minimum, I'd consider ditching those two cards for better choices (x2 Scavenge to recur Overminds or turn them into your real breakers and provide a modicum of recursion in case of accidents?) That leaves you one spare, to be spent on fruitlessly trying to Rebirth into a better ID. (Or a Net Shield, if you want to be practical).

I never ended up using Special Order, and as a one-of it isn't that impressive. Legwork is a good card, I hear, or maybe a second Net-Ready Eyes, or a third The Maker's Eye?

Looking at the deck from a theoretical perspective, with only 25 inf, I find it hard to find a spread of cards that make sense for Sunny Lebeau: Security Specialist. Maximizing the 'spread' of influence among other factions makes the most sense (otherwise, if there is a concentration of influence, why not play as that other faction and have nearly as much influence with a whole suite of toys in-faction and an actual runner ability?) And then the 50 card deck size makes it harder to find all those cool influence toys, and tutoring is out of Sunny, so it's all a big mess.