Blue Sun - Mushin Grid

Yea, I’ve had the same experience with Eliza’s in most every deck I’ve tried it in…it’s just a bit too clunky. Maybe one day HB will get an identity that gives you 4 clicks a turn, but doesn’t let you score agendas the turn you install them. Until then though, I think it’s just kind of a cute trick that ultimately doesn’t work out too well.

Yeah I have had the same experience. It’s funny because I would have thought “rez anything for free” would be strong even at Eliza’s costs but it is still really finicky.

Have you tried it with 3 Archer, 3 Curtain Wall, 1 Janus? Pretty solid.

I played against some sort of Mushin Grid variant as Kit in a GNK tournament. I dropped a Sneakdoor, blew up Crisium and blew up Off The Grid. I saw 2 Punitives in HQ, he was sitting on a big pile of OAI / Curtain Wall money, and I hadn’t found Plascrete yet, so I couldn’t steal the Mushin’d PriReq.

I ended up losing that game on time with just the PriReq scored.

Foor for thought, I suppose.

I’ve tried it with 2 Tollbooth, 3 Hadrians and 2 Curtain Wall. I don’t think Archer and Janus are any more solid, and it all comes back to it being too click-intensive to be worth it.

Minor rules quibble - it’s the ELP first, because you have to MNS into a new server, and then install Of the Grid afterwards. .

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Any update on the archetype yet? I’ve picked it up recently, as I wanted to try Blue Sun out. So far it’s been mostly good.

Does anyone have any in depth experience on playing it now (in SHL for example) for a while, when people are aware it exists and maybe know how to play against it?

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Well I’m 22-5 in the Stimhack League (updated list in the OP).

A ridiculous number of those games were flatlines despite the list being around for a while now. Several of those flatlines involved setting up and baiting an archives run into 5 or 6 points for the surprise double Punitive through single Plascrete. Most of the losses occurred when I was too eager to pursue the flatline route when I didn’t need to take the risk.

With Project Atlas, the deck is pretty good at just scoring out quickly if the runner respects the meat damage.

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I’ve found that the archives run -> death-by-Punitive play happens more often than I would have guessed. It’s a lot of fun too; if they run on archives, they die, but if they don’t it’s a handy place to hide the agendas other than your hand, where they are less useful when you can’t play them safely. If they run on your hand, and the two agendas are there, they can often get just one, making the Punitive ineffective. But two in archives, and suddenly it’s a trap!

Agreed. On more than one occasion I’ve been able to bait the archives run against Crims with Security Testing by dropping a naked Crisium Grid on archives as a “tax”. Only when they run it, they realize it’s not actually a tax, it’s instant death :stuck_out_tongue:

Btw, is there a full list of things that Crisium Grid counters? I’ve not realized the other day that it invalidates things like Legwork…

It also works a bit strange with Sneakdoor beta, right? Masanori does nothing on a run vs this server? Datasuckers don’t provide tokens?

Is there a summary list somewhere? Especially the borderline cases?

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I’m really intrigued by this deck. My question is: with a low amount of ice (14), do you have problems with the early game? I would think the first 10 turns would be rough, especially against criminal / account siphon. Would it be worth dropping the demonstrations for two more early game ice?

the whole archives dumping + punitive thing is what really breaks @Flickerwisp’s deck IMO. you basically get one chance to check archives against it, and you better hope there are enough points to win in there, or you lose. punitive/archived/punitive after stealing 2 3-pointers is 12 meat damage, and you ain’t walkin away from that.

There are only 8 agendas so random accesses are unlikely to hit. Siphon is a problem only because it turns off your PC plan.

I think the Demonstrations could easily be 2 more ice, like 2 Lotus Field for example.

Why I don’t really like the play in the first place - it can get disarmed really easily by virtue of random access, and you need to keep a Jackson on the table for when it happens.

So, a way to handle the situation as runner is: don’t check Archives until you’ve found at least some other points somewhere.

Alternatively:

  1. run Archives, steal 6 points
  2. run RnD, find nothing
  3. run HQ, find nothing
  4. play Notoriety
  5. win
  6. mock @Flickerwisp mercilessly for attempting such a n00b play
  7. (optional) go on to your online forum of choice and write a long post about how Notoriety is one of the most underrated cards ever
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Indeed. I only really use it as a desperation measure in Dead Coats for exactly that reason (or against Noise).

So I’ve tried this deck a few times and never won with it, mostly because some random trickle agenda steal early happens and then then they plascrete and you can’t punitive anymore. I swear to jebus I want the idea to work but it feels like early Vegan Weyland builds: seemingly lots of promise but I don’t see the winrates vs. my playgroup. I probably suck at playing the deck or just never get a good agenda draw order or something though :).

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I ran a deck very similar to the Blue Mushin deck that was played at worlds at a local tounament a few weeks back, and I found some interesting things about it. The first that comes to mind is that as Hypomodern said early accesses really take the teeth out of a build that runs punitives. In one game in particular I had seeded archives with six points and was sitting on two counterstrikes, when my opponent managed to snag an agenda through R&D. If this is followed up by a plascrete you’re basically hooped unless you can drop three in one turn, and even then if they keep their hand up they don’t have anything to fear. If you have a Jackson out to protect Archives it’s less painful, but the second they get points against you the kill potential goes out the window and suddenly punitive starts comparing very unfavourably to Scorch.

The next thing I noticed when playing the deck, is that there is no better thing than using Mushin to set up a Project Atlas with three counters. If you can get to this state, you’ve probably won the game as those three counters let you fetch whatever you want and it really takes the deck up a notch. The play of Mushin + Off the Grid with a strong HQ is simply so back-breaking that if you can sneak anything through there, Atlas, PriReq or even a well timed Hades or Eden fragment it effectively seals the game.

Alternatively, seeing a Mushin No Shin when you don’t have the combo pieces is the worst feeling in the world, as you’re devoting so many pieces to the combination that money in the deck is a little scant, and seeing a Mushin without the ability to solidly protect HQ or an Off the Grid is painful. The deck definitely needs to be tweaked to get more money out reliably (I know that sounds strange but it’s true) and I think Executive Bootcamp + less Jacksons and more Eves might be the solution to that, but I’ll need to do more playtesting.

Even though this deck looks like it wants to play fast using Mushin and OTG/Chrysium to score out agenda’s quickly, I found that it wants to play much slower than that, build up it’s ice towers (especially on HQ) and use a few oversights to get some credits. It’s really more of a bully deck than a rush/FA or trick deck. Mushin can be used to score something out quickly but having that agenda that you’ve put out be stolen is such a critical swing in the game to either side that letting the runner snag it is often as devastating to you as scoring it is to the runner. Try to squeeze something out to early and you might end up handing points that shut down your punitives early, but the swing offered by PriReq (usually 10-14 credits in my games) or Atlas (either an easy kill with archives or tones of money) make it a tempting option. I found it striking that all the games I tried to score something early, even protected by a Curtailwall, I usually lost if they scored it.

When this deck works though, it’s a thing of beauty to behold. Punitives in hand, Chrysium on HQ/R&D, tonnes of Ice and all the money in the world, once you get going, you just don’t stop. I haven’t played a more meaty version of Blue Sun yet, and I haven’t played one with sheer money through assets + Executive Boot Camp and I’m not sure which one is better, but if you play this deck right it’s scary good once it gets going.

Turn 2 mushin a 5/3 behind a hive is sometimes insane.

IMO scant money is the fundamental weakness of the deck. If you want to fix it, play bootcamp glacier. But this deck is not without its own tricks – its prireqs are second to none (because of the extra click), and it can protect late-game OAIs better than bootcamp glacier by OAIing in the combo remote. Consider a government contracts instead of the fragment (never cut prireq).

You realize eve is 3 influence, right? And that runners will kill it if it’s naked?

The deck is absolutely a rush deck. You need to rush out atlas behind hive in order to assemble the combo.

If the runner beats the combo at any point during the game, you lose. But among the reasons it’s so good is that 3 of the runner’s 4 clicks must be running, so it’s easy to predict what the runner is capable of. Assume they have one but not two stimhack or inside job, then count your HQ tax, double it, and add 5. I find this number is frequently 10 to 15 cred higher than the runner’s money.

Try the deck without punitives. I think that makes it more resilient.

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All excellent points. I guess what I was driving at with my changes is that I’m wondering if Mushin No-Shin is useful in the deck at all. It’s great to get out those three counters on Atlas early and plopping down either a big ice you can rez or OTG to protect it, but I’m wondering if having more money in the form of assets instead of Mushin would work. You’re building an additional server that way, but I found myself doing that lots anyways to make the tax on running the OTG remote that much more severe. Is being able to put an Eve or an Adonis behind a Curtainwall worth the loss of those counters and the speed at which they come out? Is Mushin No Shin rush better than OTG/Chrisium Glacier?

It seems to me that the OTG/Chrisium build allows you to play better with scorch or asset economy better, but I’m not sure if adding in OTG/Chrisium dilutes that deck or enhances it, as the Mushin version is the only one I’ve played.