Built to Beat Sebastião (it doesn't beat anything, really)

I thought everyone at the tournament would be running Sebastião. He’s such an exciting ID, how could you run anything else? Ok, I’ll expect a couple of Mercury Jeitinho decks. Why would anyone run something tried and tested?

I set about building the best anti-Seb deck I could. I even put Lotus Field in it, that’ll teach his Crew I thought. I initially based it off this Real Fake Flags deck, which I categorically made worse (but not against Seb, I thought)

I practiced this deck on J-net the day before the tournament against randoms and quickly won 7/8 games. The only loss being a mulligan into 4 agendas.

Lesson 1: Killing J-Net randoms means absolutely nothing. Obviously, this is not news to anyone.

Lesson 2: Just because a deck is fun to build does not mean it is fun to play. Building this felt silly, cheeky and whimsical. Actually, playing it was frustrating and mostly dull.

Lesson 3: Breaking the established rules (econ, agenda density, 3 spin drs, etc.) can actually lead to less imaginative gameplay. Clicking for credits and watching the runner stroll into HQ was not my idea of zany gameplay

I think only 2 other people brought Seb, I got to play one of them and it was my only win of the day. A timed win by 1 agenda point. So not exactly the proof-of-concept I’d imagined.

Fortunately, everyone at the tournament was lovely and it was great to catch up and hang out with some of my most favourite netrunner people. Lew is always a delight and runs events with real skill. I had some delicious spicy stuffed aubergine for lunch and we had biscuits.