SYNC or Swim (Top 8 at GLC Store Championship)

_deadstock 58

This is the latest in a series of SYNC decks I've been piloting since getting into Netrunner over the past four months.

After doing poorly at Worlds with a much jankier build (I'm looking at you Better Citizen Program), I discovered Saan's SYNC deck that placed 35th overall in the tournament. I set out to steal all the good ideas therein, and try to make improvements where possible.

I wound up taking this to the Green Level Clearance Store Championship, with a sizeable 52 players, and making the cut. The only game I lost with this deck was an incredibly tight match against Apex with a Heartbeat in play nearly all game, and required a second BOOM!ing that never occurred on account of my one copy getting shuffled to the very bottom of my deck post-Preemptive Action.

Your gameplan is to ICE centrals with inexpensive but taxing options, and set up your scoring/dummy remote to bait bad runs. Unlike previous iterations of this deck, there is no need to set up an additional server for Daily Quest, opting instead to rely on NGO Front as both trap and credit swing. The ideal and often game-winning play is to bait the Runner into a flubbed NGO access and punish with Economic Warfare and Hard-Hitting News the following turn. As well, removing Quest for the reliable burst econ of NGO allows us to run the more expensive Prisec over Casting Call and not give away our bluff.

Scoring an early Bellona to put pressure on the Runner can often prove beneficial depending on board state, and also encourages them to run when you install and double advance your NGO into the same server. I can think of only a handful of times when I've won by scoring out with this deck, but a couple tempo HHNs and a well-timed Echo Chamber make it entirely possible.

Overall, I'm happy where this deck has landed. Even when I've flubbed piloting it, every Runner I've spoken to post-game has said they were stressed out about getting flatlined the entire time, and really what more can you ask for than that?

6 comments
18 Dec 2020 Saan

Seems like pretty reasonable changes! Setting up a Daily Quest server was significantly harder than anticipated at Worlds, and I don't think I ever really managed to do it successfully, so NGOs seem like a solid choice, although make R&D a little weaker. I never really had enough money to fire off a Prisec, but maybe with the change to NGOs they're a better inclusion. Glad it did well for you!

18 Dec 2020 Saan

Actually, a better choice than NGO right now might be Sweeps Week, since they can't trash it. Plus, I'm a sucker for throwing the old favorites back in decks at the moment =)

19 Dec 2020 _deadstock

Glad you like the look of it @Saan! I think Sweeps Week is definitely worth a look for inclusion within the current Salvaged Mem meta, although I'd be a bit remiss to remove the NGOs.

Forcing your opponent to run through a Turnpike/Slot Machine/Raven, only to boop off an NGO, can be game ending. The credit disparity caused from them paying to break the subs (or losing cash to them firing), plus potentially having to remove tags after the run, plus the 8 creds you get from NGO, plus any Econ Warfares you may have in hand... the math gets wild pretty quick.

The untrashable nature of Sweeps might make it the better choice, as it helps to shore up R&D like you said, but I wonder if your ability to tag and bag takes a hit as a consequence.

19 Dec 2020 _deadstock

The Prisecs have been pretty good overall, and I've never had too much of an issue paying to get them to proc, but they definitely haven't been critical to any of the games I've played.

24 Dec 2020 Council

@Bridgeman I told you NGO over Daily Quest mang.

I feel like ice-wise you might be better served by Surveyor's than Ice Wall/Mausolus, though the Tag facecheck sure sounds nice.

25 Dec 2020 Bridgeman

@DonLoverGateTotally different builds though dawg ;) I think SYNC is more jammy and it seems like it needs to be, I´m running NGOs in my SYNC as well :)