Lanri 2.0 (SoCal regional 1st place)

tmoiynmwg 6337

I placed first with this deck at the Pasadena regional on July 25, 2015; the latest release was The Underway and 89 players were in attendance. This deck went 6-2 in the tournament. I beat 3 Prepaid Kates (@Nobo715 twice), Chaos Theory Stimshop, and Crypsis Noise; I lost to Whizzard Eater-Siphon (I completely failed to anticipate Account Siphon) and had a timed loss against Gang Sign Leela (3 of her 4 R&D accesses were agendas). Of my 6 wins, 3 were agenda victories and 3 were via flatline.


The Underway brought enough powerful new cards for the Weyland Consortium to play with that I was finally ready to update my 2014 Worlds deck. The environment has changed immensely in the intervening months but Weyland has again fallen into a slight slump. Lanri was originally designed in a runner meta dominated by Andysucker; today, runners are roughly split between Prepaid Kate and various anarch builds. This leads to both new challenges and new opportunities.

  • The deck has shifted away from the Archer-Hostile core that I previously identified as Weyland's most defining attribute. In a field of low-rig and recursion-heavy anarchs and shapers, Archer has become both harder to land and less impactful when it does. Bad publicity has also become a greater liability now that Clone Chip and SMC are everywhere. Still, 1 copy of both remain in the deck as powerful surprises against unprepared runners. I try to delay scoring the 1 HT as much as possible, because of a new addition to the deck...
  • Now that HT is no longer integral to the game plan, we gain the ability to play the best neutral agenda - NAPD Contract. NAPD has great synergy with Midseason, and it's tough for any corp to survive frequent R&D multiaccess without playing agendas that can protect themselves.
  • Power Shutdown now plays a different role, but one that is no less important. Whereas it was necessary last year for trashing Faerie, now it's here to fight against Datasucker and Clone Chip. Parasite is Public Enemy #1 for practically every corp right now; the Blue Sun ID and plentiful Power Shutdowns go a long way toward keeping our ice intact against the current strongest runner card.
  • Oaktown Renovation just completely outclasses older money agendas like Fracking and Corporate War, because money is never lost advancing it and it even has a secondary use as an economy asset in a secure server. The public drawback makes it awkward to play in some situations, but overall it might be the best Weyland card since Blue Sun itself.
  • Weyland's new default 5/3 agenda is High-Risk Investment, as it single-handedly wins any credit race for the corp. This is obviously extremely powerful in concert with Midseason Replacements.
  • 1 Traffic Accident is a strict upgrade over Scorched Earth when the only tagging mechanism is Midseason. TA lowers the cost of the combo and significantly improves the chance of flatlining through I've Had Worse.
  • The addition of Spiderweb opens up a route of victory against Prepaid Kate (previously an awful matchup): a heavy focus on taxing Lady counters. Lady simply cannot keep up with the density of barrier subroutines in this deck. A standard ice setup against Kate would be something like Ice Wall + Spiderweb on R&D, Hive on a remote; now Kate will only be able to make about 3 more runs through your important servers before Levying. This makes it very tough for her to challenge an econ asset and opens up lots of play avenues for the Weyland player.
  • My estimation of Contract Killer has continually gone up. This card is super flexible. His main use case is to snipe Kati, ProCo, or Aesop to put a severe damper on any runner's economy; however, he can also masquerade as an agenda to provoke a taxing run or help fight IHW. Soon he'll also be essential for keeping up a Midseason threat by destroying Film Critic.

Lanri is not a deck for everyone, because it has never been highly consistent. Rather than having a script of fixed moves for every game, this deck requires a ton of adaptation to the cards you draw in relation to the board state in order to determine the best plan for a particular game. But if you enjoy making ballsy plays and keeping your opponent guessing, and you're looking for a deck that does well against Prepaid Kate, then you might want to give this deck a shot.

Continued thanks to my testing partners @sirris and @alexstevens, who gave me confidence that my Blue Sun could still be strong in a very different world. I find it quite fitting that my breakout deck from Worlds last year helped me cinch a chance to compete at Worlds again this year. I only hope that I can adequately acquit SoCal again this time around!

19 comments
30 Jul 2015 IonFox

Congratulations on your victory, it's nice to see Blue Sun taking the top place in a relatively high level competition despite many people saying it's weak now. Contract Killer ftw. Just out of interest, how often do you manage to overadvance your Atlases?

On a side note, what do you think about the government takeover variant of blue sun?

30 Jul 2015 ItJustGotRielle

Nice job man. I've been working on my newest Keystone, very similar thoughts and card choices to yours. I really like your idea of a TA over a 3rd scorch though, well done. See you at worlds!

30 Jul 2015 Thike

Nice! I've been eyeing going back to Midseasons recently, as Bootcamp has been a little lackluster. Between that and Noise, it's my Worlds 2014 setup all over again. :P

  • Why not Posted Bounty over HT? The traceless Tag is so big.
  • Did you consider 1x Ice Wall => Meru Mati? Seems like a straight upgrade.
31 Jul 2015 tmoiynmwg

@IonFox Scoring an overadvanced Atlas is hugely important since it really enables the Midseason kill. Searching up Hostile for the 7th point is also quite common. I probably manage it in 40-50% of games.

I haven't played the 6-agenda kill version but it seems quite intimidating to face! I do worry that it's too cumbersome to score out, so a runner who sniffs out your plan has lots of time to build up and make precision runs. The difficulty of scoring Government Takeover is especially troubling, since it's likely that a runner will hit it eventually in a long game and probably just win on the spot.

@ItJustGotRielle Thanks man! I'd love to see your version too!

@Thike Worlds 2014 was the good old days ;-)

  • HT is mostly in the deck for Atlas to search up a 7th point to finish a tight game. Sometimes I score it to turn on Archer when that card seems particularly scary for the runner. The situations where Posted Bounty wins the game are pretty rare these days, especially when I cut down to 2 Scorches in the deck.
  • I tried out Meru Mati right after it came out and I wasn't too impressed. The lower cost on Ice Wall is actually pretty relevant. Having a moderate tax on HQ rarely matters for this deck, and against Kate your barriers need to first go on R&D and the remote. Occasionally it's even nice to advance Ice Wall in order to guard against an end-of-turn Clone Chip -> Parasite.
31 Jul 2015 Badeesh

Excellent. This is IMO best Weyland.

2 Aug 2015 Srobb

Love this take on the older deck, great updates. I'm looking at the Lotus Fields though and wondering if there'd be any better ice to use the influence on now Faust is seeing a lot of play. How did it work for you on the day?

I'm considering trying it with Wraparounds to force Faust-based Anarchs to find their Corroder/D4v1d while taxing Lady counters more, or maybe a second Tollbooth and an Enigma/Datapike for the gear check? Any thoughts?

2 Aug 2015 tmoiynmwg

Lotus Field did some good work for me, but I almost certainly would have lost my game against Noise if he had had Faust to break it. Gear checking for Faust is still not the worst but the card has certainly become weaker than before. Tollbooth/Enigma would be a fine alternative to try; but Noise with Faust is quite scary and it's likely that even more changes would have to be made to combat it effectively.

4 Aug 2015 chill84

This is a really well-tuned deck, congratulations on your big win. I started playing with this and it feels like playing the corp version of reg Maxx. Like I have a big decision for every click.

Have you used liz mills in this deck at all? Does power shutdown always live in the bottom 10 cards of the stack?

4 Aug 2015 tmoiynmwg

Thanks @chill84! Your comparison to MaxX is an apt one, as Blue Sun really demands a lot more tactical thinking than most corps.

It's always a lovely surprise when Power Shutdown actually shows up at an opportune time. And I never tried Elizabeth Mills because she seemed too narrow for this deck. I think she has an important role in a different build with more HT/Archer/Grim, Executive Boot Camps and Blacklist, and probably Meru Matis to defend HQ while you durdle with Mills. Finding the cuts necessary to implement this plan is an exercise for the reader. :-P

4 Aug 2015 chill84

Thanks for the response, thinking about it today I realized the anarch matchups arent improved more with mills than other matchups are with ck.

Do you feel your noise matches are harder than kate matches, and are there any plays that seemed good to you but after practice you realized were bad?

Hard question, I know, but using PriCo seems like one of those things, on paper you can durdle race for credits, in practice you probably should have given up the midseasons plan instead.

4 Aug 2015 tmoiynmwg

The new Noise is almost certainly a harder matchup than Kate. Not being able to simply lean on Lotus Field really hurts, and the deck probably needs some retooling to better fight Noise.

Against Siphon Whizzard I dumped a bunch of credits into Taurus in order to duck the first Siphon. In retrospect, he was already so rich that it would have been better to let him Siphon-Same Old Siphon me and hope to kill him before he dropped the tags.

Private Contracts is great for getting the initial credit boost you need to safely score, but I rarely use it for more than one full cycle. Midseason should almost never be the main plan; it's just a powerful tool that happens to open up lots of scoring windows.

5 Aug 2015 RedScharlach

@tmoiynmwg Congrats on the win! I'm going to give this list a spin tomorrow.

I have a lot of questions, some of which were answered above. My biggest one now is: why no Executive Boot Camps? Seems like you could swap either the Private Contracts or a Contract Killer for one, and it'd help you get the Adonis engine going more consistently. I'm sure you tried it out, and I'm curious to hear why it didn't work for you.

5 Aug 2015 RedScharlach

Also, would you consider running the new 3/1 agenda that tutors a card when you score it in place of the Hostile Takeover?

5 Aug 2015 tmoiynmwg
  • The problem with relying on a single Adonis Campaign for asset economy is that it will get trashed sometimes. Bootcamp Glacier solves that problem by using Interns to recur it, but there's no room for that card in this list.
  • I did originally include 1 Bootcamp over a Contract Killer, but it's awkward to tutor for that card since then the runner will know what's up. I decided that I wanted access to Contract Killer more consistently, so I went up to 2 copies.
  • The Future is Now seems powerful enough to be worth trying out. But HT's entire purpose in the deck is to be very easy to score, so my instinct is that it would not be a great replacement.
7 Aug 2015 ichigokuto

Love it. Looks like a nice variant of what I played at regionals... and with Oaktown and contract killer, delivering some additional nastiness!

10 Aug 2015 voltorocks

Great deck- figuring out how to answer Foise is the big challenge right now for many decks.

Just thought I'd share an anecdote of two games I played last night with this deck- though I lost, the deck really impressed me.

The first game agaist kate I saw only Taurus for ice- 22 cards into the deck! The crazy thing is I got ahead on money, so the scorch threat was actually live right up until the end of the game when he top decked 6 points. One less point and i'd have flatlined him with only Taurus out!

Second game I mulliganed 8 points only to draw 8 more (followed by 5 more in the first 4 turns).-a nightmare draw, but even worse against leela! I finally got on my feet by PSing both zu and Corroder , but I was still dangerously light on ice. Femme+inside job nabbed point 7 for him.

My point was, it was crazy both times how close this deck came to winning despite a one-in-ten-thousand bad draw. The decks has a lot of outs even in the quest situations, and is definitely tons of fun to play to boot! Thanks!

10 Aug 2015 tmoiynmwg

Your experiences mesh well with mine, though I have tended to be much luckier. ;-) The incredible number of comeback options is a big part of why I love the deck. Thanks for sharing!

17 Aug 2015 Badeesh

Are you guys considering Film Critic and the impact it has on the agenda suite (it seems NAPD's less appealing, esp with our proclivity to bad pub at some point) and Midseasons. I know it's not the main winning line, but are we heading back to triple scorch / ss ?

18 Aug 2015 tmoiynmwg

That's likely the way to go if IHW continues to fall out of favor. As the deck stands, I think trying to assassinate the Film Critic is a reasonable plan.