The Government Takeover - Leisure Games, London, 2nd Place

This deck needs Archived Memories something savage. It will just win you games flat out, doubling as a Punitive when needed or a Scorch.

@travisrchance An archived would be lovely, but it doesn't double for scorch unless you have already used one and are only trying to do a SEA, archived, single scorch. I don't think this happens often at all. It is far more viable as a second punitive, and I'm certain it would see some use. However, I genuinely think it's not as useful as the cards it would replace. I'm pretty happy with all the influence spend atm. What would you remove?

I play a similar "hide the agenda" kill deck, and I really like using Hive. Since I rarely score out an agenda, it keeps 5 subroutines for most of the game, making it a "Lady" killer.

@Oisin I really don't like Hive (in my version anyway). I sometimes do score out, and I also like to score The Cleaners whenever possible if they don't run after install-advance-advance. I also don't like potentially having a bunch of useless ICE on top of the early game datapikes which probably won't be any use late anyway - this can lead to problems.

Overall keep playing Hive if it works in your build, but I don't like it in this deck!

My Lady killer is just too many barriers... she can only break so many!

@frost-duty The Tollbooth seems superfluous to me, entirely. It's a great piece of ice, but, as a one-off, it's just another big ice that happens not be a barrier. I feel confident you can find a replacement for this. In fact, I would rather play a Snare that Tollbooth, esp. since you wanna let them into R&D without much fear.

I played a HB punitive deck for a few months last year and Archives was the clincher time and time again. There are plenty of scenarios where the runner could end up floating tags, Siphon being the most common, so you may not need Sea Source.

Have you considered something like Manhunt since you have so few agendas? I know it's three influence a pop, but, man, with the runner banging their head against the wall and not much of a fear for having them find an agenda, this seems just fine. With all this money, you could be landing tags enough to put the runner off running much at all.

Also, have you considered Checkpoint as a taxing ice? Man, with all your it seems like this would be a nice fit on a central, or to even deter them from stealing an agenda, esp. when you you can follow this up with Punitive.

You could play a single Wormhole, which actually works decently with your ID: install, advance, advance. Rez, copy ETR, pop it back to hand to net credits. Not saying this is the most click efficient means, but even hard rezzing this monster is enough to shut a runner down often enough.

Did you ever try any taxing ice for your R&D? Errand Boy? Even something like Shadow for the early game that you can pop back to hand and recoup your investment that also can potentially tag a runner. Is Data Raven just a better slot than something like Snare--I know it can kill, but let's be honest here, your Scorched combo is easier to lean on than hoping a runner is dumb enough to run on last click and then eat one of these. Snare obv isn't a great feint, as you are only playing 5/3 and Takeover.

TYPO: Archives = Archived Mems. Apologies. Yuk, three posts in a row--tre embarrassing.

@travisrchance Firstly, the ice. I agree that tollbooth largely fulfils the position of being a non-barrier ETR. However, I do not like any of the other options available. Advanceable ICE does not synergise well with Blue Sun, and wormhole is the only piece I would consider playing in place of tollbooth. I do not like checkpoint, as all of the ice in this deck is designed to be taxing; I really do not want to be giving out bad pub. Bastion being a 3 cost break to corroder is hugely important in the early game. I have run checkpoint before in another version of this deck, and the trace never landed, or it was essentially ETR if it went off.

You will have slightly misunderstood the way the deck functions, it’s not that I want to let them into RnD - on the contrary, with government takeover every access makes my heart pound in the rarly game. I do however want to make every access cost at least seven or eight credits. This is simply prevents the runner from accessing frequently. Changing the tollbooth for a snare would also decrease my ICE count, and I am an easy about running with less than this number. Thus, something would have to be removed to make way for another piece of ICE. Wormhole may perhaps be the only thing I would replace it with - even though I do not like advanceable will ice I think I would be likely to pay the cost and read it for full money, just to bring it back into hand after. However, I still worry about being stuck with this piece of ICE early before anything else is rezzed.

I like the idea of manhunt, but it will be far stronger if it showed up early thus necessitating multiple copies which I do not have the influence for. Additionally, this card can be played around by never running on the fourth click. I suppose, if the corp got lucky and spent for the tag prior to them hitting a snare this would be superb, but I also think this would be an unlikely outcome. Mostly if you spend they will just remove the tag on the last click. You don’t want to spend a lot to tag them if they are just going to remove it, and you really don’t know if they will hit a snare!

I have also tried Data Raven with almost no success, it was very underwhelming and also does not synergise well with SEA scorch scorch, as it promotes jacking out! It’s frequently denied me kill opportunities when I wanted the runner to succeed so I could kill them.

People may float tags against HB, but in the 50 or 60 games I have played with this deck no runner has ever floated a tag. Not once. Ever. SEA is thus a completely necessary include, and one of the few things I would absolutely never change.

I find that the economy of the deck is such that I do not need any of the so-called taxing early game ice; I can easily afford to rez a couple of firewalls, and this is enough tax. Only in rare circumstances have are really struggled for money early game. It happens occasionally, but I would not put any more early game ice into the deck.

One of the reasons I like the snare is simply that it opens more kill windows; if a runner hits on the third click they remove at the tag on the fourth and remain with a low hand size, and this can enable kills from single scorches or SEA double scorch through a plascrete. It also slows down runners even further if they like to hard dig RnD.

I hope this answers most of your queries. I will certainly consider swapping the tollbooth for a wormhole and trying to add in another snare, although I’m not sure what I will have to remove to add the extra card. Thanks for your feedback!

@travisrchance I think that was largely coherent... it's quite late XD I really appreciate that you spent so much time writing such a detailed commentary.

I've been playing Argus as a NEARPAD style build; the Data Raven / Checkpoint / DRT combo has worked well for me. Here's my list:

netrunnerdb.com

I ended up cutting the two Caduceus for two Paywall Implementation, which are great in this deck.

Hey, I'm sad I didn't get a go at this deck. I'd love to see how it turned out. Instead my HB vomited agendas against your Gabe and I ended 3rd. It's a great idea, I wouldn't have thought about not running 1 pointers in a Government Takeover deck until I'd seen your list, but of course it makes sense. I'm not sure I'd trust my R&D enough to play your ICE suite and econ package. It's obviously a late game monster but I'm struggling a bit to see how you get off the ground economically. Well played Saturday, the Final was painful to watch and we were all exhausted after 17 games of Netrunner.

@MasterAir I am also totally sad we didn't get to play the other side, I would have really liked to see how much trouble your Kim deck would have given me - I think it would have been a total pain in the arse. The game against your HB was a bit silly, nothing you could have done.

People have repeatedly seemed concerned about the econ, yet in practice I'm normally swimming in cash quite quickly. Occasionally if none of my econ cards show up it will be a bit tough, but those games are rare. As soon as you can use one of the 9 econ cards you are normally on your way, and I often bounce back to make sure I have a decent credit pool in hand. Only later on do I start really leaving ICE just sitting on the board. It gets off the ground by not having to rez too much early. If your opening hand doesn't have an agenda in most cases this means I can just let the runner into HQ and only rez a single piece of ICE on RnD to keep them out or quite taxed. If there is an agenda in HQ then it's a tougher choice. At this point I normally let them into RnD and use the super low density to protect me - this works the vast majority of the time. The low density really protects the corp in what is traditionally its weakest point of the game, giving you time to set up.

It was super exhausting, and my frustration in the last game was also tied to the previous week, where variance also lost me both my games in the final - didn't see a single agenda as corp, and was flatlined by a topdecked punitive after going 5-0 up as runner. All 3 games were lost due in small part to awful draws (for me anyway). But, as you said at the time, that's netrunner! Sometimes the game just doesn't go your way.

*in no small part

me no type good

I think Ed would have been a pain in the arse, not sure whether it would be enough of a pain in the arse. That's one hell of a death machine you have there. 6 agendas in R&D isn't very many!

@MasterAir I did lose to a Kim deck in casual play actually :P

He took all my punitives out and survived a SEA scorch scorch attempt with I've Had Worse. He then played a sneakdoor for total havoc. Eventually he got into my flooded HQ for the win after a long slog and having seen every single card in RnD via medium runs... only to realise I had all 12 points in hand XD

Kim's ability really hurt me that game since I had a bad opening hand and he just kept trashing my economy cards.

@frost-duty No reason to defend an OAI ice from Knifed, the runner playing Knifed on a firewall to get to a Curtain Wall will trash both of them because of OAI's ability.

Really interesting deck by the way, looks extremely punishing and the fact your running so few agendas makes it look like a nightmare for runners to win the game before you blow them up.

Hi! Thanks for sharing. I think there's an error in the deck or in the description. You wrote :

“The main changes are in the ICE composition and the addition of two crisium grids. The grids are there for obvious reasons. I have removed the datapikes and replaced them with fire walls - these cost only 1 credit more to play, but each taxes eater 4 credits per break.”

@Pyjam thanks for the catch, that got carried over from an old version! It also talks about a ghost branch, which is now a cerebral. Oops!

@bluebird503 good point! Although I would always protect an OAI ICE with something in front just to deter runners from trying to trash it. Once they see two ICE they generally just give up and let you have the money.

@travisrchance

Friendly reminder that Blue Sun cannot recoup the cost of Constellation ICE without some way of first moving the tokens off of the ICE, so Wormhole is no good here. Blue Sun would only recoup the discounted rez cost (and actually end up losing out, having spent both clicks and creds placing the advancement tokens)

Hi! I'm playing the similar deck here! People in my area runs Utopia Shard,so i have to include a foxfire :< also do you think Housekeeping is good? I have two copy of them and they are certainly annoying to the runner. But not sure if "annoying" worth the spots. And no crisium gird?

@IceRay42 Ah. Indeed! Good catch!

This is a despicable deck. Pure evil

Thoughts on +2 janus +2housekeeping -2snare -1 tollboth -1datapike

@frost-duty I have to say I like the deck. Though I literally had two of the worst starting hands...9 points and then 6 points with little to no ICE and no Econ. It also didn't help that the only punitive that appeared was Imped and the runner knew how to play against blue sun. Thankfully a well times SEA to kill a SoT (MaxX with Levy in heap), a snare! on a legwork, and no agendas in the top 10 cards of the deck lead to a flatline with a single Scorched...

Going to have to give it some more plays and make it my own, but I love 6 agenda decks

Have you thought about Midseason Replacements instead of the 2 SEAs? I really like that in my Blue Scorch deck because it means I don't have to wait forever to use my tag operation the same turn as my Scorches. Frees up hand space and a card slot.

Several comments to respond to!

@gundamcc I would not run housekeeping. The problem is it needs to be out early and so you need three copies... this deck simply doesn't have the deck slots to support that. I also think it's effect isn't worth it.

@rogedavi The older version had +2 Janus. I swapped them for snares! Both have their merits, Janus can be an utter pain for some decks to deal with, and a surprise Janus can almost win the game. However, the Snares prevent endless RnD dig, and can also open kill windows. Both are good, try them and see what you prefer. As above though, I really don't think much of housekeeping in this deck.

@solendor Glad you are enjoying it!

@Horse85 Yes, and I would never do it. Agenda steals are very rare in this deck, so you would have very few opportunities to hit a midseason, in fact, you would have two at most. This simply isn't viable. Resting a lot of your meat damage potential on a card of which you only have a single copy is a very bad idea. You want x2 SEA partly because you see it twice as often.

So yes, I have thought about it, but I don't think it's a good fit with this deck.

Any thought to Project Junebug instead of Snare!?

I've been experimenting with it and it seems pretty useful in a similar deck of mine. In my meta, I once faked it as a Government Takeover because everyone knows I run it, so they hit it with 5 counters on it.

In other cases, it makes everyone hesitate before they run my legitimate agendas (if I install them) and pretty much means their runs are either: a) take damage from Junebug, or b) Take damage from punitive.

Props for the research station. Haven't seen that in a tournament ever.

Have you considered trying to find room for a copy of Reclamation Order to open up additional kill opportunities with Punitive Counterstrike or rez opportunities with Oversight AI? This could also help protect against Kim / Anarch milling.

@frost-duty I have to agree on what you said about housekeeping. I've been testing a very similar deck for more then 1 weeks. ( In my deck I have 3research station,2housekeeping, 1snare, no CO, 1 Janus,1 ghost bunch) and the SC I went to yesterday it went 6-1, the 1 lost is 1 RDI getting 2 agendas. Housekeeping showing up late is definitely a problem and I will think about removing it.

A few problem I noticed during my 20-30 games with this kind of BlueSun My friend who helps me test this deck played PPVP Kate. They have some much money and will not run without legwork or Maker's Eye. They normally also have 1 plastic and 1 Utopia Shard (In my meta) so it makes it extremely hard to deal with.

The Stealth Andy I played against, despite the early siphon or Emergency shutdown( not every Andy runs ES now), they told me they will not run after they gets 6 points (just clicking for 4). Not until I start advance something. and even if it is trap, I don't see how CO or SR will kill them as they have money /plastic.

And as people get more and more experienced with it, they trash research station soon enough. Without research station I don't think this gonna work well...yesterday I played my game mostly with 9 hand size. But in the double elimination, my opponents already knows my deck, they trashed my upgrade asap and that hurts me so much. : <

Hey great deck. I had several questions about different cards you may have tried. What about one or two Mother Goddess in the bastion slot, essentially the same with a rezzed barrier but also has corner cases as a hard stop if you pull back ice to score behind it.

Also thoughts on trying a Utopia Fragment in place of one Priority Req? Actually haves you a more taxing angle to scoring through advancing.

@gundamcc Not running without legwork or maker's shouldn't be a problem, since most of the time even with them they are unlikely to hit anything. They will thus burn through a bunch of cash for no gain (that's the hope anyway!). Plascretes shouldn't be too much of an issue, I have killed many with shattered remains/taurus. Utopia is a pain, the hope would be that with a huge hand they won't get the critical pieces. It should also cost them (one way or another) to get it onto the board. Personally I haven't had many problems with Kate, no more so than anyone else anyway.

I suppose if they don't run after getting 6 that will create issues. However, if they manage to get to six then they should have made quite a few runs already, so the hope would be that you have already had some chances. Once they are on 6 and legitimately sitting on a huge pile of cash then it's going to be a hard game!

I agree about research station, but seldom do I see a runner willing to break into HQ for an expensive sum and then spend 6 to trash them both knowing that you might have a SEA scorch scorch in hand. But yes, overall I think I agree that people will be more willing to trash it in future, and it is annoying. The fix is to wherever possible make HQ expensive enough to get into that they just won't be willing to spend an extra 6 credits.

@jodahae Mother Goddess is actually a pretty good idea! Although there will also be some cases where it won't be as good as a bastion overall I think you might be right that it could help you out in some cases. Nice idea.

I like my Pri Reqs. Sometimes they are invaluable money. I wouldn't make that switch. Not that the fragment is bad, but the deck should generally already be taxing enough.

@jodahae I used to run Utopia Fragment, that's only because I still have a dream to score government takeover lol ...but not anymore, Pri Reqs even just a 5 cost ice is super nice. Remember that BlueSun is not real rich (except you have 3 AI early ), it is just good at borrowing money. But PR let you rez one for free, it frees up so much calculation.

@frost-duty thanks for the nice comment! Yeah most of the game ends as 0-0, 1/3 of them ends as 3-3. What I'm saying about Kate is that they try to maximize their run efficiency. so they don't spend a whole lot (especially with Lady! even though the tokens are limited ) during the run and stay rich. :<

@gundamcc The version of the deck with Janus is in many ways more taxing to Kate. However, despite the efficiency of Lady you do have options. For example, a triple Fire Wall server isn't that expensive, but it is havoc in terms of counters. I know shapers have recursion, but you want to force them into recurring Lady for pretty much every run. This will exhaust their tricks and eventually they will simply run out of counters.

Makes me want to run Battering Ram

I think I'm the hilarious Anarch, frostduty. Wasn't it MaxX ?

I was reading through the comments. Is only 9 economy cards (Hedge Fund, OAI, Restructure) really viable? Your results speak for themselves I guess, but I just can't believe that works. I usually reserve ~16 slots for econ. I realize you can always bounce your ice back but I feel like you'd have to do a lot of credit-clicking in this deck. How do your games go when you don't draw into an OAI?

@netdeckdane Thus the beauty of blue sun. Remember that in blue sun credits are mostly only temporarily spent, and this is what makes you super strong. That 14 credit curtain is coming right back next turn so it effectively cost you nothing to tax the runner potentially 11 credits with a corroder. When you play the deck you are often sitting on 45 credits.

Overall I have had very few economic problems. The most irritating thing to face is repeated emergency shutdown.

Pri Req is also pseudo economy which can be quite useful

@netdeckdane Plenty of games don't involve OAI. There is certainly some clicking for credits in early turns if the draws are bad, but I don't see this as a problem. This is mainly because the snares and low density cover you from early accesses, and as soon as a bit of economy comes out you are normally ready to go. I tend to find around 15 credits to be a serious turning point.

I am also very careful to make sure OAI works when I see it. Unless I already have a pile of credits and want to drain the runner I will OAI curtains behind a couple of other pieces of ICE to make sure the runner just lets it happen.

@frost-duty well sure, but maybe this is a better way to explain myself:

Runner runs and you rez your expensive ice. The runner doesn't care because it's a barrier so he just bounces. Now the runner is free to run elsewhere on you, because you sapped your credit pool and nearly all your ice is 5+ credits to rez. Next turn, you bounce your ice back and spend a click to put it back down. Now maybe you have a Hedge Fund ready; but otherwise, you've just lost a click reinstalling an ice that you're going to have to rez again next turn when the runner runs.

This clearly works for you because you've had so much success. So maybe I just don't play Blue Sun properly. Do you just let runners run where they want until you find an OAI? I feel like I could just bankrupt you by running centrals, then trash anything in your remotes because you don't have the money to rez overwriter, and then imp any agendas so i don't get shot.

@netdeckdane Ok, so there are some subtleties here. Firstly, Tollbooth and early on Datapike are great because they aren't too expensive but can also punish facechecking. If possible, get them up ASAP. The most glorious first turn I ever had was hedge and install 2 datapikes. By his click 3 the runner had a single credit and hadn't seen a thing.

However, this is obviously not always viable. So, you have to let them in, it's just a matter of when and where. Due to the low density you can go long periods with no agendas in HQ. This can be useful, as you can just let them in. Essentially you know they will get accesses, so you have to judge where you want them to be.

Also, with 9 econ ops you should see at least one in a reasonable amount of time, so you work towards playing it however you can and then alleviate the pressure.

I don't tend to have any remotes for them to run early game, I don't really start to establish them unless I think I can rush an early agenda. Generally early is just solidifying HQ and RnD and gaining economy/combo pieces.

In all the games I have played I have only faced Imp a couple of times. It's annoying and a problem but is far from common.

The main point early is that yes it is your weaker phase, but with so few agendas it almost doesn't matter since it is very hard for the runner to capitalise on this weakness.

@frost-duty Ok. Thank you very much for replying!

@netdeckdane I think that is a general problem for BlueSun, especially if you are against experienced Andy. They make multiple runs each turn and just bounce if they hit some giant etr barrier.

This deck doesn't require any early remote or heavy RD protection(it does, only for taxing purpose) which saves you lots of money. All you need to do early and mid game is to rez one piece of ice for each central. And reinforce one depends on the runner ID. (like HQ for Andy)

Hedge Fund+some clicking for credits should let you be able to rez two 4-5cost ice early on, the good part is you don't have to rez RD ice since there isn't that much agenda. But then they will start to do Security Testing on RD. Hopefully you will be able to catch up by the time they start to do that. Also that's why I think datapike is a better choice than Enigma. I switched one of my barrier into Wall of Thorns. Hopefully that will help too.

It also depends on guessing what the runner really want to do. They may want you to rez ice and then Emergency Shutdown, they may siphon/legwork to force you rez HQ ice so that they can run the remote you are advancing. With 6 agenda in the whole deck. You need to know which ice to rez and which not to at a certain point. siphon is still a headache just as everyone else.

BTW, I ran one Orion and did advance it to rez it under 6. it gives me more stable protection and also one more target to AI.

@frost-duty I love the deck, congrats on the finish! I placed 2nd as well at our local store champs(10p) piloting this deck with one change (-2 Taurus +2 Errand Boy).

This deck was thrilling! First game of the day I lost with it (somewhat unlucky noise mills w/e), but proceeded to win every game until last round of swiss (runner loss).

Every win was through flatline, usually SEA Scorch Scorch (which by the way is much harder thanks to I've Had Worse ...) but sometimes through punitive/snare. The Research Station was great, letting me hold cards for either a scorch or a punitive kill and still be able to hold agenda/operations/ice. People rarely trashed it too.

Besides I've had worse, the biggest problem card for me was D4v1d. It often made fire wall feel insignificant, I think for that reason alone I would be happy changing them to Hive. I think Hive has more synergy with blue sun too, being able to recoup the costs after you score your second agenda (6pts). At that point in the game, the loss of subroutines is minimal. You can stack counters on firewall going into the late game, but you become less likely to pick it up, making it feel more like a +1/+1 bastion.

I never got someone to access Cerebral Overwriter or Shattered Remains. Well, not while they were installed anyway. I did have to use the blue sun ability to pick up a jackson howard once.

Errand Boy was pretty good. Drawing cards is really good for this deck. I know that sounds weird but it's true. I was never flooded with agendas, there were two games that finished before I even saw one. I think the runner face checking this early vastly improves your odds of scorch kill. It's even better when you pick it up after and swap it with another ice. It was definitely the right call (over Taurus) for my meta.

I made an updated list after the event. I really like the deck, and I think I'm going to stick with it. Thus far I've mostly changed around the ice a bit. Trying out some tech against I've had worse (Snoop!?)

An do you protect the I+D? Because 1 run with R+D Interface or Medium, with the markers Eyes, and you die like a Dog in 1 run. 9 points of agendas, and in other game 12 points in 5 cards.

Bad.... very bad

@duk I like Errand, its a good include and helps to accelerate your potentially weak early game. However, there is no way I would remove Taurus. That card has won me too many games taking out early plascretes. You need more than 2 cards to remove them, as you may well need to see something to get yourself into the game and reopen a kill window.

Also, the bigger issue to me is that errand does not ETR. This means runners can just run through it to get early accesses... something that I am not keen on.

D4v1D is always going to be an issue, but personally I'm happy when they are using counters on Fire Wall. Now they can't break a curtain. Go again and they can't break a hadrians. Most decks can only recur it so many times, and runner should be using it on large critical targets, not wasting it on Fire Wall.

I was tempted by snoop, but only having the influence for one makes it a bit of a gimmick.

In the end I just couldn't think of anything I wanted to remove for Errand.

@yosuv I'm sorry that was your experience, but you have to understand that such runs are extremely unusual. I have had people access 5 or 6 cards at a time and get nothing on a fairly regular basis. It is extremely unlikely that they will see more than 3 points in such a run. You will just have to accept that you were very unlucky in these games.

Of course you protect RnD if you have no agendas in hand, as you do want to avoid this happening wherever possible.

I WIN 4 games and lost 2, and yes, was bad luck for sure. 12 point in agendas in 1 run, is horrible luck!!!!

Good work with this Deck.

This deck is fun. It can kill in the first turn. (if they are unlucky and draw your 6 pointer). And its still strong after 40 turns... The runner has to be really carefull, and cant ever be low on coins. I traded some cards (1 fire wall, 1 research station, 1 datapike) for 3x housekeeping, with mixed results. Housekeeping is incredible versus Katy, and generally a pain in the ass. Not sure if its a keeper though. No pun intended.

Research station is basic to take a hand full of punitive and Scorched Earth. With 9 cards in hand, you cand wait and see to only gain credits.... and wait to kill. If the take a plan from your hand... punitive x3 and bye bye

A couple questions - Cerebral Overwriter worth it? Seems like a good idea to cut it in favor of whatever. - How is economy? You rely sooo much on winning traces, yet you pack only 9 economy cards (+2 PReqs) and very expensive ICE package. I was thinking Adonis.

3xHousekeeping IMO should fit perfectly in your deck, due to low agenda density and you threatening flatline and thus work compressing cards in grip, but you already mentioned your opinion on this card so whatever.

Just got 2nd place at Preston Store champs with this today. Dropped the research stations for house keepings, but this deck is brutal in a world full of corroders. Kudos on the deck, its brilliant.

Just 2nd place ar Ronin store in Vitoria, Spain. But was a draw with the 1º, and we solve the problem with the 3º and 4º player points. Great Deck, never lost in 4 games. All death with Punitive and 6 points agenda... XD

@frost-duty Really awesome looking deck. One question I have is: How has cerebral overwriter worked out? Would it be better to swap it out for an adonis campaign or something else?

Have you also considered cyberdex virus suite, given the new rise of hivemind + chakana virus storm decks?

@wjw and @RKOster @Metalize Housekeeping is still something I'm not sold on. It's useful early but not much help late. Even then it's only useful early to slow the runner a bit and if you happen to have a kill combo then that's extra good... but most of the time the kill combo alone will probably net you the win. I might give it a shot, but personally my next build is going to try Lag Time - brutal extra tax with no down sides. You also need 3 copies to get it down early, and there really aren't 3 cards I would want to remove from the deck.

@Metalize The overwriter is meant to be used as a bluff for GT. It didn't really do much, so recently I just added in a 3rd Snare instead, which I think I prefer. People constantly talk about economy as if it's a problem. The only time I ever have any economy problems at all is in the early game if I get a bad draw. Most of the time once you take off all is good since you hardly ever actually permanently spend money. I have never had economic issues tbh. I also recycle economy cards with Jackson quite a lot since he is rarely needed for agendas.

@IonFox As above, it hasn't been a star. Again, as above, economy isn't really an issue, so I see no reason to include an adonis. 3rd Snare is probably the order of the day... snares do a lot of work! I have considered a cyberdex, latest build has one in there.

I'm currently running 3 Ice Walls, 3 Datapikes and 2 Hadrians in my version as I was worried about a seeming lack of early game ice in yours. It obviously hasn't stopped you but I've found it quite effective. How do you deal in the early game? Also I've managed to score out Government Takeover twice - it's the best feeling ever.

@Spider I have yet to score a GT!! Nearly did it in my last game but the runner, guessing what it was, actually suicided through a Janus to get one last access to try and win.

Early game you deal with it by not having any agendas to steal :P It works over and over again. Also, I find the money very quickly gets up to 10 or 15 credits, and after that I'm away. There have been a lot of comments on the early game, but I have rarely found it to be a problem outside of extreme bad luck (like the game I lost when 4 agendas of the 6 had shown up by turn 5... but those games aren't likely to go well anyway!)

@frost-duty Nice. I've found the same honestly. This deck is awesome - I'm up something ridiculous like 17 -2 in casual play with my version and literally every win has been a flatline. So you've got the Janus back in?

I took this to Bristol and piloted it up to 2nd place. I think it has severe trouble with Noise, because it's basically impossible to stop huge numbers of accesses piling up in Archives. The deck is so slow that there's a very good chance of a win there before you can score out. I actually got decked out. ;)

@Brendan Noise is an interesting one. On one side, you can lose a lot of non-agenda cards, on the other side... you need to find some eventually!

I wouldn't say it is severe trouble, if you can engineer a 6 point steel out of archives then hit some punitive you can often pull off a win, and if you do see agendas reasonably you can also just attempt to score out, but Noise is one of the more problematic ones in my experience. If you pull a couple of agendas early that's actually really good. Make a server and rush them out asap before the mill is set up. The problem lies when you just don't pull anything and they simply attempt to deck you. This can be a very real threat.

Overall noise simply does a decent job of disrupting what is otherwise a very consistent deck... that's his job I suppose!

@Spider I veer between 3xSnare or 2xJanus depending on my mood!

@frost-duty Ha fair enough. I actually took this to a Store Champs today and got absolutely stomped on after a lot of success earlier...too many late-game runners paying attention to my tricks I think.

@Spider There are variations you can do on the build to help this. My favourite is to put Ghost Branch back in. Nothing worse than a huge late game run through taxing ICE only to receive two tags! It might even get you a triple scorch for the win.

This deck is an absolute blast to play. I've run a similar version more focused on glacier play but I wanted to ask about a few general Blue Sun choices.

Hive vs. Fire Wall? I was skeptical of hive at first, but it taxes Lady very well and deals with Quetzal much better for me. Your thoughts?

What does your OAI play look like? When do you protect it vs. OAI the curtain wall naked. Do you find yourself OAIing more on centrals or a remote?

Big ice evaluation. I see that you run 3 Hadrian's and 3 curtain wall. I've gone back on forth with some things like Orion and Wormhole. What made you land on Hadrians?

Finally how do you usually deal with early single accesses? I tend to let them into R&D (and agenda free HQ) early a few times for single accesses but I have a hard time telling when I should rez the ice and start taxing. How do you find that line?

Thanks in advance and kudos on the excellent deck!

@DarlingSensei I have written about my dislike of Hive in other places, but suffice to say once you score a 3 pointer (which you will certainly want to do if you have the chance) it's essentially useless for the rest of the game. Despite its early strength I don't like the idea of dead draws and having cards in the deck which will serve no purpose if seen late.

I almost never OAI anything naked for any reason whatsoever. Numerous runners have commented on how annoying this is for them XD Almost always they will give up on trying to get through if it is behind something. Sometimes this means I will save OAIs for a while. As for which server it largely doesn't matter, I mainly just want the money. Against Crims I will be careful of potential shutdown nonsense. Other than that, wherever makes sense.

Hadrians is middle expense and pretty taxing. Also links into my overall tactic of overwhelming Lady and being expensive for corroder. I sometimes switch the 3 snares, a curtain and a hadrians for 2xJanus. I'm not really a fan of the other big ICE, it gives the runner a variety of options. I don't like them having options.

As you say, let them in at the start, low agenda density should help you, and if you have something in HQ then of course rez to protect. You want to build up critical money mass as fast as possible - I find this is around 20 credits. Star taxing as soon as an emergency shutdown isn't going to completely ruin you (if vs crims). Otherwise it's pretty safe to tax ASAP. It's always good if a couple of Early ICE show up (anything 5 or under) and this is fairly likely.

Thank you! Glad you are having fun :)

Love the deck... testing it with changes here and there. I have been playing Blue Sun: Powering the Future since I started playing netrunner, originally using a Keystone variant. This is a really fun deck, really really fun, and I plan to play it, or a variation for some time. Great job on a great deck.

@Dydra the only agendas you can decline to steal are those that come with an additional cost like NAPD Contract. Rules say you have to steal almost all other agendas.

Again love the deck, and for variety sake I built a Weyland Consortium: Because We Built It derivative. Which is here: The Manhattan Project v1.2 (The Sun Beyond the Stars) for anyone interested. Comments and criticisms welcome. Still testing and figuring out the massive difference that the ID/ICE make.

A friend of mind runs a Kim deck which pretty much kneecaps this. He had multiple copies of D4V1D and Nerve Agent out. He literally destroyed every operation in my hand and r&d. This was before I could get my economy going. I only drew one data pike, the rest were fire walls.

I was able to play a Valencia Overmind/Memstrips deck and flatline her with a double punitive. So I know the deck works. It just feels like all of your economy in Operations (Which Kim destroys) isn't enough to get Blue Sun to critical mass as it were.

SUCH FUN>>>SO WOW. So much fun, although I feel like a real douche when I Punitive after Government Takeover gets stolen.

@frost-duty What does your build look like post-Breaker Bay?

Curious as to what changes you would make with the new decks available. I really liked this deck and I have a local tourney coming up. Would like to use an updated version of this.

Thx for the share! Since I’m a beginner and still need to learn more to hit to deckbuilding, I spent a bunch of games with this deck. And I’m always failing in one important point, creating money.... any advice how to play (probably first turns) to create a decent credit pool?

@frost-duty: sorry for the stupid question but I'm a beginner : what happens to the OAI card when you return a piece of ice to HQ using the Blue sun ability : is OAI trashed or it returns to HQ with the ice ?

@StefWeissen Any card hosted is trashed if it's host is gone