Sunny Tzu's Art of War

Sunny’s biggest problems in my opinion are a) her speed and b) her predictability. The former comes from her inability to draw the numerous components she needs quickly and the cumbersome nature of her breakers leaving early game scoring windows a mile wide. The latter is similar to the Opus decks of old – you’re drip may be strong but the corp will know if they can build a server that’ll keep you out long enough to score.

This deck attempts to patch both of these issues. It’s far from being tier 1 or the best Sunny deck, but I wanted to get the ideas out there for discussion.

“Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.”

Speed

1. More card draw (duh), picking IHW because its less of a credit investment than Quality Time and frees up some deck slots by providing damage protection.

2. Faust; lets you get into 1-ice servers out of nowhere, with Security Nexus lets you get into any 2-ice server (as unlike anarchs sunny has permanent answers to Turing). If you know the game is not going to go long enough for your drip to pay off, feed it to the devil to get accesses. Not to mention Faust weakness in multi-sub ice is the one thing Sunny’s breakers are really good at!

"All netrunner is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to run, we must seem unable, When we are near to scoring, we must make the opponent believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

Predictability

1. Faust again, blah blah hold it in your hand till the corp makes a play, everyone knows what faust does.

2. An event package that lets you react to the to the corps plays in a way that is flexible and unpredictable. Vamp to beat Psi games and just leverage your Sunny money, multi-access, and Stimhack to give that unexpected money boost to get into remotes. Security Clearance and recurring Makers Eye’s is all the R&D pressure I’ve found necessary. 1 Planned Assault felt like the right number but I may be wrong.

"If the corp ices everywhere, they will everywhere be weak"

1. If the corp knows you can threaten any server with cards out of your grip, they have to spread their ice thinner, which allows you to leverage Security Nexus more effectively. Jak and Datasucker give enough archive pressure to make them want to put ice there as well. A rig of Faust, Nexus, Shrike and Sucker has proved sufficient in a lot of games.

Other cards

1. Datasucker over Multithreader as the former works with Faust. In addition it’s surprisingly easy to turn off Data Folding with too many programs.

2. Just the one Security Clearance as I feel it’s a late game pressure card – can’t afford to spend the clicks until a significant drip is going.

3. Two Jak’s because I want those earlier for the horizontal matchups and the difficult NEH fast advance games. Jak proves surprisingly useful verses Turing as well.

4. No link boosting, the matches where you have time to built up link seem like matches sunny was going to do well in anyway. Compromised Employee might be a good idea though, as it gives you money before you have Nexus out.

“They who relies solely on burst shall be exhausted; they who relies solely on drip shall be outpaced."

1. All the money, and a mix of money options to make that late game Sunny inevitability happen.

2. Employee Strike because I had one influence left over, could be anything else instead.

Results Won a fair few games online and took it to a GNK where it went 3-1; beating HB Glacier, RP, and Medtech Glacier and losing to another HB Glacier who ABT’d out a tollbooth onto his scoring remote on turn 3. In all the wins I was able to Faust in to destroy Campaigns/land legworks, then sat back on the drip econ before landing a Vamp. Against the trappy medtech I decided 3x Drip would be all I needed and pitched the rest to Faust/Damage

Future A very good player has suggested SMC instead of multiple fausts and I think that’s a pretty strong direction to try. I’m really happy with the event package though SMCs would make me want more stimhacks.