34th at EMEA - Highest Placing Mercury

This is the runner deck I took to EMEA Continentals, against the swelling consensus that Mercury is not a great runner ID (at least in a competitive sense). It turns out the consensus was probably right, at least in this meta.

A summary: This deck isn't great, but it is fun. Optimal play against it is to ice RND heavily, and to play fast advance, which it cannot interact with.

Notable includes:

Logic Bomb - the night before the tournament, I dropped the Diesels, Nukas, and 1 Liberated Account that I was spending influence on to play 2 Logic Bombs. It did well on the day, as it combos well with other tools (such as inside job) in a similar way to backstitching, while being significantly more flexible.

"Baklan" Bochkin - another include I haven't seen in other decks, I mainly used this to derez Border Controls. A nonbo with Logic Bomb, but installing No Free Lunch can help alleviate that pressure.

Banner - I thought this card might be good early on in testing, but never used it on the day, so I'm inclined to think the influence would've been better spent elsewhere.

Game 1 vs Terrificy's Ob: A great game by my opponent, who did a good job of icing up and playing cautiously, but attempted to rush out an Oaktown too early, and after stealing 4 points out of RND I was able to get through the remote one last time.

Game 2 vs Fridan's Precision Design: Had the unfortunate pleasure of taking the full facecheck of an MIC this game. My opponent struggled to find ice in the first few turns, and I managed to steal an agenda and return his Ikawah to hand after he had managed to secure the remote. Eventually got the remaining points off of RND, after bouncing a Mannegarm placed there (by a steal during a Sneakdoor Run).

Game 3 - loss vs osclate's Azmari - a game that I couldn't keep up with. My opponent (correctly) double-iced every server, and forced me to use more tools to get into them. Despite an early steal, they pushed 5 points through the remote, managed to tag me and shipmenting out the last points.

Game 4 - loss vs ReinaMorada's AgInfusion - a well played game by my opponent, but one I never expected to win. When I ran with bypasses, the bounced me into Archives, or later into an Anansi, which I couldn't break after my Mayfly left. Eventually died to Keeling.

I 241ed the last 3 games, and luckily rolled corp each time, winning the first 2 but not the last one.

Thank you so much to the TO, to the judges and to everyone at NSG who helped organize the event!! It was my first live event, and it was tons of fun.