2-Server Sun (Kansas City Regionals 2nd)

Several people asked me to post this, so here y'all are. Bet you never thought you'd see Dedicated Technician Team or Research Station make it to grand finals at a regional!

The basic strategy is to stack ICE on centrals, drop Crisium and/or Caprice on HQ, and score out behind Off the Grid. The ICE selection is pretty normal Blue Sun: Caduceus Enigma and Hive keep you from getting stomped early, Cobra and Assassin slap facecheckers, and the fatties enable Oversight AI and big taxes on HQ. Always move your ICE around to make it as taxing as possible: against stealth decks, for example, pile all your sentries on R&D and make HQ something like Curtain Wall - Spiderweb - Spiderweb. If they drop CyCy on one of your centrals, move your Wormhole to the other central. If they play Atman-5, bounce your Assassins. Standard Blue Sun shenanigans.

Mushin allows you to install your agenda and OtG turn one, then bounce OtG and score the agenda turn 2, while also saving you 3 credits on the score. I ended up only scoring one agenda this way the entire tournament, and I'm cutting the Mushins for a second Caprice. If you're at the point that you can make that play, the runner is probably better off ignoring HQ for the rest of the game unless they are the god of psi.

Research Station allows you to hold on to all your punitives, anything you bounced and don't have time to replay yet but don't want to discard, spare OtGs and Crisiums in case one gets trashed, etc. I would like to run a second.

Dedicated Technician Team is surprisingly nice in Blue Sun, since you're installing ice on 3-deep servers so often. I would run 2 if deck space wasn't so tight already.

Launch Campaign is a 0 influence baby Adonis. Throw it behind a Hive and get 2 credits a turn.

Punitive punishes runners who don't get early agendas, because by the time you have 2 or 3, any agendas they find in R&D or HQ will likely cost them a pile. Sometimes it also gets you random kills. Know when to hold on to your punitives and when to give up on them.

Vanity Project means you only need to score twice, while GFI means you don't lose as much. When there are only 5 agendas in the game, things get really weird - you know which central has the agendas, and the runner doesn't. Abuse this. You can discard Vanity-GFI into archives and punitive the runner if they go for it. You can leave R&D lightly defended if you know the runner can't win off it.

Strengths: Difficult to land siphons, apocalypse, or keyhole shenanigans. Shuts down security testing/bank job economy really hard. Can get silly random wins. Runners without strong long-term economy (e.g. Kati, Mopus) will fall behind.

Weaknesses: Sneakdoor forces you to play 3-server sun. Inside Job is good economy against Curtain Wall. D4V1D hurts; D4V1D + cutlery really hurts. Political Operative ruins the OtG scoring plan and forces you into some really awkward plays to score. Councilman can be unfortunate.

Matchups: Sneakdoor Criminal is hard. Fortunately, few people play crim and you're probably icing Archives anyways. If you can secure yourself against them early, it's a pretty free win.

Faust Anarchs come down to if they can get D4V1D when they need it. Most of the games I played against them, they almost burned through their deck twice, so it's possible to outlast them if you get somewhat lucky. Punitive threat goes a long way.

Non-sneakdoor criminal is real easy. Enjoy making no money, nerd.

Standard Kate is moderate. You need to build your servers carefully to make it awkward for her to break things, but she can't make very many runs due to not enough economy.

Nexus Kate you're pretty much boned.

Stealth decks generally give you enough breathing room to set up and make money, and you can usually build servers that are really annoying for them. Could go either way.