☎️ Dial EA for Murder ☎️ - 4th, 5th, 10th @ EMEA

Eight players from EA Sports 🏅 brought this deck to the EMEA Continental Championship - the only eight Azmari in the field - putting three copies into the top 16. Across swiss and cut games, the deck's record was an impressive 43-12-1, for a massive 76.8% winrate in one of the most competitive tournaments of the year. And yes, every one of those 43 wins was a flatline.

Records by player:

Kikai - 4th after cut - 6-1-1
CobraBubbles - 5th after cut - 6-1
not_yeti - 10th after cut - 6-0
Countzer0 - 23rd after swiss - 6-1
davz 131 - 31st after swiss - 3-4
Bartimaeus - 39th after swiss - 5-1
KamiKami - 53rd after swiss - 3-2
Fridan - 58th after swiss - 4-2

I was delighted by the deck's performance - but, as I said to not_yeti when we sat down to play in the cut, I was not surprised. Everyone else was though.

The deck is a stone cold killer. It might look like a gimmicky mashup of two existing corp ideas, but the result is an extremely fast and consistent combo deck that few runners can keep up with.

Can't get into a double-gearcheck remote with Piranhas by turn 4-5? Reeducation, Djupstad, you're dead 💀

Can't crack the remote and steal Reeducation without dropping low on creds or cards? Punitive, you're dead 💀

Think you're clever sitting behind a Stoneship or Class Act and not interacting? Commandment, Planogram, Reeducation, you're dead 💀

Yes, we got a few easier wins in the early rounds from people not expecting Punitive, or taking the wrong lines because they assumed we were on Neurospike, but this deck is very capable of killing runners who know what it is doing.

To survive, you need to assemble a plan to get into the remote plus either a pile of money or tech that saves you from Punitive - sometimes both - within your first four to five turns. If you can't, an Azmari pilot who knows what they're doing will be 25+ cards deep into their deck and have very high odds to kill you one way or another by their turn six.

That's a big ask for a lot of runners, and applies a lot of pressure that warps how they have to play. Putting one foot wrong usually means death.

But you don't have to just take my word that the deck functions in open decklists.

Azmari went 5-1 in the cut at EMEA against players who knew very well what it was doing. It killed more than half of the players who made up the top 16 at some point in the event, including two wins against our new EMEA champion in swiss, despite it knowing about Punitive and Djupstad in both games.

So heed my words: play this deck, or try to prepare for it. Whatever you do, don't underestimate it.

Some notes on card choices, piloting and matchups:

40 cards is correct. The best all-in Reeducation decks were already coming down from 44, and here we sometimes actually benefit from the higher agenda density, as an unintentional early steal can result in a flatline. You could make the case for going to 41 to fit the third Adjustment if you're particularly worried about Esa.

Sudden Commandment rules. Sudden into Planogram to dig five deep in one click is extremely powerful, but that's just the floor of the card. It can open up some really wicked kill lines by clicklessly putting us up on cards to Reeducation through larger runner hands, or clicklessly digging for Punitives or the YDL we need to land them. It's a super fun card, with lots of applications, and I'm thrilled that we found such a great home for it.

Klevetnik does just enough. After jfoley put up good results with the card at APAC, we started trying it and found that it could straight up win games by blanking Bankhar and Stoneship. That potential - realised in my game against the eventual tournament winner, where blanking Bankhar secured the combo kill - earns it a deserved spot. 1x is enough; we have plenty draw so it will find its way into most games where it might be relevant, and we didn't want to go to less than 2x Ping, which is also a great tempo rez against key resources.

Tsarevna is the best available sentry. We tried Jua and F2P at various points, but neither of them quite do what we want consistently. Between the many synergies we have with being up on cards over the runner, and the fact that many of the best cards against us are resources, all of Tsarevna's subs are relevant on most board states.

You can play Neurospike if you want to. Kikai did, in fact - his list was -1 Adjustment -1 Djupstad +1 Hansei +1 Neurospike. After the tournament he said that the changes are bad, but there are some lines Neurospike offers you where you can near-guarantee the kill by digging for it with the Reeducation trigger.

'Make 'em have it' is our mantra. Don't be scared about the runner finding the right breaker to get in, or having the Steelskin/Stoneship whatever to try and live, or not buying your Punitive bluffs. We are playing the fastest proactive gameplan in standard, so we get to set the pace and force them to keep up. Ask questions now and shoot them immediately if they answer wrong.

Pre-advancing Reeducation is one of your most powerful tools. The more clicks you have on the combo turn, the more cards you can draw to fuel Reeducation. Even just one extra click on the score turn is often enough to make killing through Stoneship or Class Act trivial. This is also one of the reasons that we like Djupstad over Neurospike - preinstalling it is another way to improve our click efficiency and guarantee the kill.

Don't be scared to massively overdraw. Playing multiple draw cards in a turn will usually work out well for you, even if you have to discard several cards. One big YDL can fund your whole game, and even if you whiff on that, you're finding your combo pieces and may get to drop agendas into Archives to entrap an unsuspecting runner. Snap off your first Sudden to start digging, but try and hold one for the combo turn against Shaper and Crim to open up more kill lines.

We thought Esa and Lat were our worst matchups. But I killed three Lats and an Esa in swiss, so who knows lol. Most players on the team killed at least one Lat, and Kikai beat Testrunning's Esa in one of the most spectacular streamed games of all time in the cut, so while these matchups are difficult, we've proven that we have game into them.

World Tree Ari is probably our actual worst matchup. But hey, that's true for almost every corp these days 🤷 If they have a turn one Tree, they are much better at assembling the required pieces to contest the Reeducation safely and quickly than other runners. That said, you can still win by going fast and playing to make 'em have it - even with Tree they need to draw well to beat your faster draws.

It was an absolute blast getting to take the field by storm with this deck alongside my EA Sports teammates. We are truly in the game.

Special shoutouts to not_yeti, my star pupil and partner in cybercrime, who earned well-deserved redemption for his devastating near-miss at UK Nats, and fooled me not once but twice with his 'I'm sad because I didn't win OH WAIT I TOTALLY DID' act.

Big up to all the other players listed above, plus AAshbo, Cursor, Tanzzen, Emily, the Lizzard and of course my tender Pige0n. It was a true delight holidaying with you all, even if you did mock me for my obsession with developing Punitive math equations.

EMEA was an incredible event. Atien and the crew were extremely ambitious with their pitch and somehow they pulled it off. It was such a blessing to be able to enjoy another sunny weekend of Netrunner so soon after Barcelona Worlds, and I am deeply grateful to the organisers. Thank you thank you thank you - hope you're resting up!

Finally, as an anonymous friend said to me on Saturday shortly before dying to Klevetnik:

Peace, love, and fuck Giorgia Meloni,

Cobra x