This deck achieved a 7-1 result on the day, adding to its performance over the last 3 tournaments I have attended it is now at a 20 - 2 record, meaning that it (and its previous incarnations) have over a 90% win rate. The vast majority of these are flatlines. One loss was from having two agendas including a GT stolen early, and the other was from not seeing an agenda the entire game due to noise mill.

[Advice on how to actually play the deck is in Part 2, immediately below are the more general observations]

Part 1 - General observations on changes since the previous version

The MVP award on the day went to... Government Takeover! Despite the fact that the one loss came from having this card stolen in my first game it directly won me three games, including one hilarious encounter where I installed and advanced it in an empty server on turn 4 in order to bait an anarch into stealing it... they then died to punitive counterstrike, as having two clicks to find a plascrete was an impossible task.

Every time this card appeared the game ended in the next term after a punitive. Despite the fact that I know it will lose you games I am starting to think that overall its inclusion increases the power of this deck. There is doubtless a debate to be had here, ultimately its inclusion WILL lose you games, and whether this is actually worth it in a deck that was already winning almost every game remains to be seen. In the long run I'm still not sure if I will keep it. I guess it depends how willing I am to embrace variance XD

Given that I am running with a mere six agendas this deck has the lowest agenda density conceivable, freeing up deck space and meaning that early runs generally yield no points for the runner.

The ice composition has changed slightly from the previous version, I have removed the Janus 2.0s and replace them with two snares and a cerebral overwriter. The snares are to discourage deep RnD digs, and the cerebral is there to bait the run into hitting what they think is a Government Takeover only to take significant brain damage. The remaining ice has been switched to largely barriers that simply tax the runner to enter any server. I have found that most decks rapidly run out of money when facing this composition, and can only run sporadically. Even D4v1D decks often struggle, as they simply cannot recurr enough to continuously break so many barriers subroutines - essentially they run out of steam.

The main changes are in the ICE composition and, I have removed the datapikes and replaced them with fire walls - these cost only 1 credit more to play, but each taxes eater 4 credits per break.

The idea is to tax eater out the game. The new anarch builds have some economy, but I don't think it's enough to deal with the obstacles this deck gives them. Specifically I would aim to OAI a curtain wall behind a firewall, meaning that knifed will have serious problems getting through to the curtain.

Part 2 - How To Play!

[Description from previous version, Universally Blue Explosions v3]

The deck has an extremely high kill potential, as it is packing both scorched earth and punitive counterstrike. In practice this means that the corp almost always has a viable flatline threat. The deck is capable of mercilessly punishing any mistakes the runner makes.

The agenda composition synergise is well with blue Sun and is extremely potent in a deck with this much meat damage - a single scored cleaners can often render a plascrete carapace irrelevant, as the scorched combo now does 10 meat damage. I have yet to lose a game after scoring two copies of the cleaners. As always a priority requisition is strong with blue sons innate ability, and after order and chaos I will be replacing the Eden fragment with a high risk investment.

The low agenda density reduces the risk of early one steals, and often means that you know not to protect either HQ or RnD depending on the composition of your hand. Agenda flood is almost non-existent.

Shattered remains has been a truly potent counter to plascrete, and I have achieved several kills when one is with two plascretes have run one of these installed in a server, only to lose them both and then get scorched. I have even install an advanced one naked in a new server, and often find that one as well run not expecting this outcome.

The research station is an unusual choice, and a personal favourite of mine. When you are packing so much meat damage it is difficult to maintain enough cards in hand. Research station frequently allows me to maintain a double scorch as well as three punitive counterstrike in hand, meaning that regardless of what actions the runner takes they are in a bad situation. It also reduces the chance of having agendas pulled from HQ, and if the runner pays to trash them this can be highly risky, as the six credits required can lead to a scorch death. I have found these to be an invaluable inclusion to the deck and the increased hand side put a great deal of pressure on the runner.

The operations and economy package are self-explanatory to any Blue Sun player; I have found that this deck regularly ends up with 20 to 30 credits, and have landed multiple triple punitive victories. It is fairly easy to keep the runner poor when they have to run through large servers to steal an agenda, and then you simply return a curtain wall and go for the kill with the triple punitive.

The inclusion of both punitive and scorch has also led to several victories based on SEA, scorch, punitive kill combos.

The ice composition is also fairly explanatory, with some early game and the game ice. The datapikes have performed incredibly strongly early game against many different opponents, as one as do not expect to lose credits, and the ability to bring them back to handle makes them highly cost efficient. I replaced wall of static with Bastion, simply to be a greater tax on corroder, as 3 to break gets quite painful quite quickly. Also, this means a single Bastion will render a security testing/desperado run irrelevant.

Taurus provides yet another way to deal with plascrete.