With thanks and love to cobrabubbles, J0N4LD, not_yeti, Countzer0, Ollie and to all the players that travelled to Cambridge and made East Anglia Regionals just a lovely day of playing netrunner with friends.

Also, congrats to everyone from EA Sports 🏅 who made the top cut. I am super proud of how well we've performed over regionals.

Special shoutout to Fridan who went completetely undefeated in swiss with his off meta picks of--checks notes--Hoshiko and PD (they are both very cool versions of Hoshiko and PD, and are well worth checking out).

Results

5-1, and 1st out of 44 players at East Anglia Regionals 2024.

With wins against 5ax0n on mitosis PE, Rotage on City Works BtL, KingSolomon on Prana Condenser PE in Swiss, and Fridan on Shoot the Moon PD and Bowlsley on Charlotte AgInfusion in the Top Cut.

Loss to ClickOneRun on Mitosis PE (where I flatlined to a Moon Pool + Urtica Cipher)

Write-Up

Click here for a more detailed write-up that explains the nuances of the deck.

I've been playing netrunner (and posting decklists) for a long time, and Bankhar Steve is my favourite deck I have ever developed. It is an absolute blast to play, and it makes me so happy to see other people enjoy playing it as well. I have lost count of the number of times that someone has come up to me at a tournament just to tell me how much fun they have had playing this deck.

It makes me genuinely sad when I think about how close we are to Dawn, and I am resolved to bringing this deck to every tournament that I can before Steve rotates😭.

Changes

I put a lot of effort into tuning this deck before EMEA, but I was still surprised when I didn't feel the need to make any changes afterwards. It felt like all of the numbers (2 x emergency shutdown, 2 x career fair, etc) had actually settled in the perfect place. A new banlist update is the appropriate time to reconsider things, though, and I did decide on two (mostly theoretical) changes for the 24.09 meta.

Earthrise -> Class Act

I swapped the 3rd Earthrise Hotel for the 3rd The Class Act. This is a meta call, but I think it is a safe (and correct) meta call to make. Earthrise gives you more value, but Class Act gives you protection against Punitive and Neurospike type kill strategies. With Azmari being the highest performing ID of 24.05, and with a similar PE deck also making the rounds, this is a prudent change.

It's worth mentioning that, with Steve, 3 x Class Act also gives us access to a 4th Class Act (in a way that 2 x Class Act does not).

Miss Bones -> Boomerang

This change took some guts.

I was never very happy with Miss Bones in the original list, but it is difficult to argue with 10 credits, and a fear of asset decks kept me from cutting it. However, I think, against assets we should be in a position to get good value out of our HQ runs (because HQ is unlikely to be well protected), which means that we should have an improved economy in any case, and (hopefully) we don't need those 10 extra credits.

Boomerang is better for our regular game plan, and helps with otherwise tricky pieces of ICE such as MIC, and is an essential tool in the EAzmari matchup.

A helpful tip on how to play boomerang

It is surprsingly easy to misplay boomerang, and so I want to share with you this helpful tip:

only install boomerang on a rezzed piece of ICE

Installing boomerang on an unrezzed piece of ICE is a great way to waste 2 credits, a click, and a card. This will only set us back. Don't do it. If you are trying to avoid a nasty facecheck, dig for Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga or Revolver instead.

Final Thoughts

After the tournament, I opened up the Bankhar Steve thread for the first time in a while and discord reminded me of the originating post. This was in the run up to EMEA continentals. While the rest of the team where frantically trying to find a way to beat PD as Ashnikko, I was working on Bankhar Steve in almost complete isolation--unsure if the deck was pure jank, and to the complete bewilderment of everyone.

I wanted to share it with you because I think that it's aged beautifully.