2 Sunny 2 Furious - 4-3 Worlds 2021

INTRODUCTION

This is an iteration of our previous Bristol Sunny deck: https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/65655/mummy-long-legs-6th-18th-ntscapenavigator-sc I won't be repeating details here, so please read that writeup also for context. What I will be covering here is the changes between the lists, & how I feel Sunny sits in the current meta.

CHANGES

+1 Mad Dash +3 Pad Tap +1 Turtle +1 Data Folding -1 White Hat -2 Falsified -2 Office Supplies -1 Globalsec Security Clearance

The Falsified Credentials were nice, and were definitely a shame to cut, but the influence was required to fit in the Pad Taps. This left 1 inf spare which went on the second turtle. The pad taps are universally excellent - early money helps Sunny's tempo, & if the corp slows themselves down by trashing it plays into Sunny's late game, which is truly monstrous. The second turtle helps a lot in the PD matchup, as well as being a universal breaker against any asset based deck.

Swapping Falsified out for taps & turtle required two further cuts, & Office Supplies was the obvious target. I really don't like Office Supplies, and it never feels good to play, but sometimes you just need more draw especially in the quicker matchups (e.g. PD) if your dreamnets/gachas etc haven't shown up. The remaining Office Supplies is the slot I'm least convinced by in the deck, & I have wondered since the event whether it should have been a Sports Hopper instead for the added kill protection (& the extra link is always nice). I do however remain certain that Hopper is non-essential for both Nexus value & the CTM matchup, so ymmv depending on whether you need to tech more for speed or kill.

Globalsec Security Clearance was only ever in the deck as tech vs BtL Government Takeover decks, & now that they no longer are legal there is no need for it any more. Hence, the third Folding can come back in as a straight swap. Additionally, as we are now seeing less combo decks we can drop White Hat down to a 2x - it still has great value, as almost all corps have things they need to keep in hand (Neurospike, Seamless, HHN/Boom) as well as enabling Mad Dash plays by shuffling away the non-agenda cards.

MATCHUPS

Sunny is definitely favoured vs all Yellow decks to various degrees, and this is the biggest reason for taking her into tournaments right now. Having a strongly positive matchup vs CTM can carry you a good way even on its own. Acme is close to an auto-win, and the various R+ etc decks floating around also pose no real danger. Re-education/Neurospike Az can be a problem on bad draws (and I managed to lose to one on the day due to some terrible play), but in general should also be fine.

PD is a mediocre matchup for Sunny, but far from unplayable - I estimate it at 40-something %. This can be made up for in part by matchup familiarity - I've played a lot more games vs PD than my opponents have vs Sunny - but in general if your meta is dominated by PD then you may want to look elsewhere. There are no other HB decks worth considering.

Jinteki Grinder decks are also generally fine - having a 50 card deck is actually a positive in these matchups, and White Hat does a lot to control any Neurospike Shenanigans. Just beware Anansi, because it is the only ice in the game that Security Nexus is not a free pass against.

Non-Gagarin Weyland (mostly Outfit) is generally fine to deal with - again Nexus laughs at any big ice, and White Hat disrupts Neurospike Combos excellently. For anything that isn't trying to pro-actively kill you, you can always set up and let the first agenda go as there is no way that the corp will be able to keep you out of the remote through the mid/late game.

Finally, Gagarin. I had tested gagarin a lot for myself when it was first un-banned, and whilst I felt that False Lead Gagarin had potential I couldn't make it work, and therefore largely disregarded it. However, it was much more of a feature over the weekend than I expected, and whilst I haven't played against the NWE list yet I also think that it would pose Sunny some major problems. More testing definitely required.

CONCLUSION

In the run up to worlds I was very unsettled on the runner side - I had previously been playing 419 as my main runner, and changing to Steve felt like a big drop in power. I find MaxX's playstyle thoroughly distasteful (and am looking forward to rotation), and Shaper has ceased to exist as a faction. Sunny filled the role of punishing the slower decks that have become more popular recently (e.g. Acme) whilst remaining positive against CTM and playable vs PD. I don't think there is a runner with positive matchups across the board, so this was a tradeoff I was willing to make. Were worlds to be run again in the same meta, I think I would stick with her again, though perhaps with a couple of tweaks to help with Gagarin.