Exam Conditions (Winter Resits) (15th at Charity Gift 4)

I already used my excellent 'Strawberry Blonde' pun for playing Jinja out of yellow in another deck, so this one gets an unimaginative academia-linked name. Sorry, team!

This deck was based on the one I took to the Sheffield Regionals. It went 4-0 there, so I was reasonably sure it was up to scratch. It did me pretty well for Charity Gift 4 as well, going 4-2 on the day. Somehow it got over the huge handicap of me generally forgetting to name a card type on Turn 1.

It plays pretty similarly from game to game, so I won't do a blow-by-blow of the games. I'll just make a few quick comments about game plan, specific cards and potential changes.

The dream scenario is a Jinja in the remote and a Jinja on R&D, then a game of Jammy NBN. The nightmare scenario is an Apocalypse deck on the opposite side of the table. I ran into two Apoc decks at CG, and, to make matters worse, both were crewed by extremely skilled players. I enjoyed both games, but through soft tears.

Degree Mill is pretty great. The original version ran GFI, but after the new MWL it had to go. A couple of these got naked installed, a couple killed early game tempo. One let my opponent shuffle away their Aumakua before landing an Apocalypse... they can't all be winners.

Attitude Adjustment is constantly surprising me with how good it is. It keeps HQ clear, meaning that you can focus on defending R&D and the remote. It synergises so well with Jinja, too. Two is plenty, though.

Embolus was a mistake. It was a Jua for a bit, then it was a Slot Machine. I wanted something 1 or less influence which would give the remote a bit of extra pazazz. But really, this and something else should have been dropped for a SEA Source/Exchange back-up win condition. I made the deck during the Zer0 meta, and didn't bother with too many cards which sat in hand. Now that dark night is over, the deck needs something to do when the remote just won't cut it.

Pop-Up Window is never being removed, ever.

Massive thanks to Rich and Cathy for a brilliant day, and the most Billions-style Netrunner tournament I've ever attended! Executive suite, bay-bee!