I’m surprised a dedicated thread for Blue Sun hasn’t popped up yet.
There’s been some discussion of {crisium, off-the}-grid combo decks, with or without Blue Sun, but I wanted to share this straightforward glacier build I’ve been working on. When I first built this deck, I built it with 2 off the grids (cutting other otherwise 3-of cards to 2-of), but thought it was too inconsistent/janky to try an off the grid combo at the same time as the oversight AI combo.
This deck uses the oversight AI combo to power up its economy, and packs ash 2x3zb9cy and a modest sea/scorch kill package as its goodies.
Strengths:
The ID ability synergizes especially well with SEA source. You don’t need to split your wealth between your ice and your credit pool to simultaneously protect your agendas and threaten to kill the runner.
The root is a great economy asset whether or not you assemble the oversight/curtain combo. It’s easy to protect, as you just jam it in your scoring server and pick it up when you want to push an agenda through.
Restructure is really easy to fire off consistently without clicking a bunch to get up to 10.
Early game agenda rush is a lot easier than in conventional glacier decks, as you can quickly put shields back up on R+D/HQ after scoring. So you don’t need to use jackson as much to push agendas down to the bottom half of your deck.
Weaknesses:
Tricky to play against Noise, as he can just kill oversighted ice with david. It’s often better to wait to oversight until the ice itself is protected by another ice outside of it. On the other hand, very easy to defend against parasite.
Common to use jackson to find combo pieces, which means he can’t simultaneously help with flood or help against Noise.
Unlike the cerebral scorching deck, this one can’t kill once plascrete hits (as long as the runner also stays above 4 cards), so scorches can become useless. In fact, there’s a lot of pressure on HQ, since you want to keep it full of scorches, agendas you can’t score yet, and the root all at the same time.
Very bad matchup against Nasir.
I’ve tried swapping one of the SEA sources for eliza’s toybox, and relying on atlas counters to find the SEA. Eliza’s can run away with the game on its own, especially against criminal, but is bad against noise (since your multi-turn plans are already pressured with triple-click virus purges), and I also find myself using atlas counters to find the first copy of oversight AI instead of SEA.
Almost perfect analysis. The ability to Restructure/SEA Source from low creds is huge. I simply cannot overstate this fact. You mention the deck is weak to Nasir: while I haven’t tested vs. Nasir yet, I believe Blue Sun will do just fine as you can pick up/replace an Ice Wall and keep rezzing it when he tries to attack your scoring server. Secondly, the single biggest strength of this ID is it’s ability to almost ignore some of the most ubiquitous runner cards: Parasite, Knight, and Femme. This fact alone is enough to make Blue Sun (or Weyland B.S. as I have affectionately dubbed it) viable.
I’m really, really excited about Blue sun. I intend on running the Grid combo, but I understand your reasons for not doing so. A couple thoughts:
Why the Datapike here? I’m not sure why this was included over Enigma. I know that when they run into the first time it costs them two creds, but I don’t know if that’s worth it.
I’d personally probably drop one of the SEA’s to import some more big ice, but I definitely love the inclusion of Hive here because you can bounce it back for its credits.
What about using Hostile Takeover for the creds, but also running one copy of Elizabeth Mills that you can recur with the ID to get rid of the bad pub? Also, Will of Wisps might be useful to snipe barrier breakers so they can’t get through all the barriers.
Amazon Industrial Zone seems terrifying in Blue Sun. 7 credit clicks for AIZ + Root + big ICE recurred to your hand. It’s a tad clunky to set up, but one Oversight and you’re rolling. I think this is by far the strongest ID that FFG have made. Silly money.
This was a pretty good read; definitely got me thinking about Blue Sun. I’m glad to see you also considered Eliza’s Toybox; it seems like a pretty solid card for a deck that wants to rez large-and-in-charge ice. The fact that your money is “invested” into your ice, rather than permanently sunk there, is pretty fun to play with in terms of math.
I also notice this version apparently doesn’t generate any bad publicity at all. I’d wondered if that was possible to do reasonably.
I might proxy the necessary card and give this a shot tonight.
In a totally different direction, I was toying with the idea of creating a BS deck that used traps. You can return them to your hand, playing a constant shell game by making the runner wonder whether you just put back a trap or an asset or agenda.
…wait, can you bounce OAI? It comes into play face-up and is installed on Ice, but does that count as being rezzed? If so, Blue Sun is going to be the worst fucking thing to play against.
Hmm, hadn’t considered that tactic. Good idea. I was just referring to the way that, if I want to get my ice rezzed without oversight AI (i.e., picking up an oversighted curtain and rezzing it with the profits), it will give nasir a boatload of money as well as me. It’s like if your hedge funds said “the runner and you each gain $4”. But as you suggest, giving nasir $14 off curtain wall can only help him get his rig set up; it can’t help him get into the server again later.
The nasir player I tested against was also splashing for d4v1d (remarkably effective, btw), which makes oversight AI require its own defense just like versus noise.
Come to think of it, I’m also afraid of the Quetzal matchup. The deck has enough barriers that getting them two or three deep isn’t an issue, but e3s promise to make it hard to get OAI-curtain economy off the ground in the first place.
Eh, could go either way. If they cost the same amount to rez, losing $2 is more punishing than losing a click. I figured the ID ability makes the higher rez cost a non-issue, but on the other hand, during testing I’ve almost never picked datapike back up again after rezzing it (short of needing to move ice from remotes to centrals or vice versa). I’ll try with enigma.
Hostile takeover is really good, and I miss having it, but NAPD contract is also really good. A bad pub build with geo fracking, takeovers, and archers would also be reasonable, but it needs a different long-game plan than Ash.
'S what I thought. Glad the game isn’t that broken.
Honestly, one or two giant bits of Ice seem good, but I think plans that involve too much abuse of the ability with Ice are doomed to fail when they can’t protect multiple servers effectively. They make for good scoring servers, but there’s a limit to how much people want to invest there, I think.
That’s also how I feel about it. I have seen lists that include 3 curtain walls, 3 hadrians then a janus and some other giant ice. You do have the ability to rez those things with the ability, but if you mulligan into giant ice with no OAI, you’re pretty screwed. Because of Adonis and Eve, HB can afford to rez all the big bioroids, but weyland doesn’t really have that luxury. Yes we have GRNDL Refinery, but most people will run on it expecting an agenda, and it has a low trash cost.
Also, I had this idea as a strategy because I plan to run the grid combo out of Blue Sun. Set up the grid combo(easier said then done I know, with data ravens on HQ and R&D, then install Dedicated Response team in the Off the Grid server. Seems like it would be pretty mean, but it’s hard to set up.
EDIT: Nvm, DRT doesn’t proc on servers with Crisium. If only it only stopped my opponent’s cards.
This is the deck I’ve been tinkering with. I’ve eschewed Scorched Earth for OAI and recursion effects. I like the ability with Jackson and Archived Memories/Recl. Order to keep playing OAI for huge profit, and Power shutdown to ruin their rig. My favorite thing about this deck is that the ice is much more resilient. There is only 1 ice “weak” to parasite, and curtain walls get to dodge Femme counters. Don’t really like Eliza’s toybox (but I love Dugger’s). I would like to fit in Restructure, but I don’t know what I would cut.
This is the basic deck list I have been thinking. I only run two OtG, and you can search for it with Project Atlas counters if you need it. I didn’t want all large ice, so I chose Data Raven’s for some of the taxing ice. I know Cerebral Static seems random, but its basically just for Noise. And mostly because there is only one guy in our playgroup who plays him, and has been terrorizing all of us with him. I would probably slot in an Ichi 1.0 in another situation. I chose not to use Curtain Wall because I think it is only worth it if it is the outermost piece of ice, which then makes it vulnerable to Inside Job. Although Idk if that one card is enough of a deterrent not to run it.
There are two things I think this deck lacks: Money and Program destruction. I know with Blue Sun it sounds crazy that you could be low on money, but at present this really only runs 6 money cards. Oversight AI basically becomes a money card, but it’s not definite. Can anyone think of a way to slot in some GRNDL refinery?
Grid Iron
Blue Sun: Powering the Future (Up and Over)
Agenda (9)
1x Corporate War (Future Proof)
2x Government Contracts (A Study in Static)
3x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
3x Project Atlas (What Lies Ahead)
Asset (3)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) •••
Upgrade (5)
3x Crisium Grid (First Contact)
2x Off the Grid (Second Thoughts)
Operation (13)
1x Cerebral Static (The Spaces Between) ••
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Oversight AI (A Study in Static)
3x Restructure (Second Thoughts)
3x Scorched Earth (Core Set)
1x SEA Source (Core Set) ••
I’m curious as to how often people are using this ability during a game.
I think Eve Campaign is a really strong use of influence in Blue Sun. Additionally I was thinking about code gate suite and figured Datapike>Quandry since it has value in credits even after a Yog is brought to the table. I haven't heard anyone mention the replay value of cards like Roto/Grim/Swarm/Fenris/Taurus with Blue Sun, but I think it is something to consider, at least in your selection of Sentries.
Yea money seems more useful at this point. I spliced in a Will’O, and the Geothermal Frackings. An interesting side effect of the will’O is that they sort of have to trash it otherwise I’ll pick it up the next turn. There is a good bit of trickery in having unkown upgrades/assets uninstalled and then reinstalled that makes the runner question certain things he/she wouldn’t normally question. I hadn’t considered this, so thanks for the suggestion.
I played a couple with the oversight AI and it just feels goofy. Not to say it isn’t good but it makes me want to vomit. I’m made a couple of bad decisions because of it. Im gonna test the grid combo instead.
