My local meta knows I've been trying to force SYNC to be good lately (even though it won the last Cafe Mox Store Champ!) and I've basically gone back to the drawing board every single time I run into a really difficult matchup.

The reality of SYNC is that in a meta where the runner is ludicrously rich, you're very often not going to be able to punish the runner's mistakes very easily. NBN is pretty new to me and I was inspired watching the "old tapes" of Ben Ni's Fiery SYNC deck from 2016 Worlds to make a good SYNC deck again.

The previous iterations of this deck included 22 Operations to "sculpt" your hand but I just ended up either quick winning or hemorrhaging points so fast. It was usually the latter.

Newer iterations had me realizing Better Citizen Program was a secret SYNC card but it's really difficult to score out. Then I tried Lady Liberty shenanigans and I ended up just really really confused as to what I was even doing anymore.

So then I stopped.

I took a real hard long look in the mirror and thought: "What's your true play style? What are you best at?"

As much as I want to think that I am the jank master, the reality is that my best deck / playstyle is Ruse Cruise Glacier. One of my favorite / best decks is spiky Palana Glacier. Did I just jam an NGO Front? A Rashida? Snare? Or is it actually points?

You jam ruses to bait the runner and tax them out of gas, that's your scoring window.

So I started over and said, how can I make a ruse cruise glacier out of SYNC?

Here we go!

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You want to score out early AR-Enhanced Security. Always always always. Glacier up and use Pop-up Window and Surveyor to make an actual threatening, non-porous remote. IAA a Ghost Branch or NGO Front! Preemptive back whatever tools you need. This deck can tend to have a decent amount of money and Preemptive can ensure you get your ruse tools back.

If you feel like the deck is a touch too rich, you could consider swapping -1 IPO for +1 Closed Accounts to really make everything sting, but I feel pretty good about this. If you lose both BOOM!s and can't get them back, you can keep burying them in tags and Psycho out a Big Beale.

Which reminds me! Ghost Branch lets you play this most amazing game of "Beale or No Beale" ever.

This is I think where my heart truly lies out of SYNC. I had to stop trying to do everything and just put on the hat.

Good luck, and happy rusing!