I’m finding sifr takes over games in pretty brutal fashion, and appropriately teching against it makes all my other matchups noticeably worse. It’s a bit of a dilemma. For example, Smoke is a bad matchup for my HB deck, and I’ve been seeing a lot of her. I don’t really want to dedicate slots and influence to lotus fields to make other already-bad matchups worse. Then again, we might be headed toward a meta where 9/10 decks you see are based on sifr, so maybe it will be worth 3 lotus fields and 3 architects in every deck soon.
I’ve been pretty happy with ark lockdown to chew up parasites so far and friends to replace destroyed ice. Hellion beta test is worth consideration, but even though sifr is expensive, runners typically don’t run poor – and if you’re spending money replacing and rezzing ice that got burned down for 2 credits to prevent medium lock, you’re not going to have a lot of cash to pump traces. Mixed results on that so far.
Best solution I’m finding is go fast and have some fast advance options. You’re probably going to lose no matter what you do once the sifr-yog-parasite-deja vu-atman-whatever train gets rolling, but the 5 install cost of both the console and yog can give you a little breathing room early game (unless temujin gives the runner a giant early burst).
Honestly, TheBigBoy’s Mushin-Overwriter-Brainstorm deck seems not a bad answer. The ice still stops the run and is annoying to deal with, and if they hit an Overwriter or facecheck a Brainstorm without Mimic/instant Parasite, it pretty much means they can’t ever use Sifr.
It looks like it taxes their econ enough to play Hellion Beta Test to trash the SIFR.
If they are relying heavily on SIFR the 5 cost to install a separate copy (or 2 more with deja vu for the same) should slow them down enough to score via Fast Advance on SanSan or pull off a Breaking News / Exchange of Information combo.
Looks like it may struggle with medium digs but what doesn’t
I think Chronos Project deserves a mention in this thread. Most SIFR decks I’ve seen in action are focused heavily on drawing quickly into the SIFR, discarding other pieces in the process. I have a feeling one scored Chronos will eliminate a lot of conspiracy breakers, backup options, and at least one parasite (probably their only one if it’s shaper).
Navi Mumbai City Grid isn’t exactly a silver bullet, but it will stop insta-Parasite from clone chip if they don’t expect it, that could give you a good chance to fire off a nasty subroutine or two.
Weyland has the ability to tutor for a lone Ark Lockdown (or any other op), Archer and Taurus in faction. They also can rush and threaten money for sea source/hhn/midseasons. Finally Lizzie Mills can at least slow down Wyldside and hurt tempo.
They have no in faction ice that is immune to Sifr, but they do have some interesting answers to part of the rig, which will get better once they have a barrier that is parasite proof and actually punishing to facecheck ill-equipped.
A scorched deck against Sifr also could just pack Curfew and wait for the opportunity to hit them with a single scorch. Which, scorches are easier to land now that Judge is actually playable with cards like friends.
Basically, I think Weyland has a few creative solutions, which while not top-tier should still be mentioned and remembered.
