Rosetta Stone (Winner, Jupiter SC, Binghamton, NY)

This version of HB is the most fun I've had playing corp in a while. I feel like it's light, flexible and interactive. I would recommend people who are frustrated by a lack of "fair" corp options give it a spin.

The idea evolved from the Trash Panda list I first saw a couple months ago and loved: https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/39689/trash-panda-2-0-a-k-a-fastcoats-2nd-f2f-games-sc- I tried the list out in a GNK (it went .500 with two close losses - my runner carried me), then overhauled the ice suite and operations based on some of my personal preferences, play style and meta changes. The final version landed pretty close to the Under Armour list, from which I took a few ideas - the 1 ravana, the 3rd ichi for a fairchild, and swapping a MVT with a crisium grid while dropping the third architect.

Cards:

Mumbad virtual tour: This card does a lot of good things. It taxes shapers (I'm looking at you, Smoke) who can largely nullify a lot of your ice. It can be a brutal early game tempo hit if the runner clicks through your ice - and makes the stakes a little higher in the never advance game. Sometimes it creates scoring windows. Paired with assets, it makes Whizzard pay real money to trash your stuff. It's often a good Friends in High Places target to place on a server you'd like to discourage the runner from hitting. It puts a major dent in temujin contract (now it's 5 clicks for a net of 11 credits on an uniced server) and can be played with AAL after the runner targets it. And it sets up the deck's special sauce and my new pet card, Hellion Beta Test.

HBT: I tested a handful of different ways to try to decode the Sifr once it dropped. Ark lockdown for parasites felt like a dead card in too many games. Wasn't getting enough out of lotus fields (I don't love the rez cost for something that costs 2 cards to get through with Faust and gets spooned right away. Diluting your ice suite as a glacier build also makes some of the bad matchups like Smoke worse). Then I tried out HBT, and in its second game, it took out a wyldside/adjusted chronotype turn 2. I've found it's good in a lot of matchups. With fortuitous timing, it can take out many problem cards such as net mercur, Katie Jones, tech trader, R&D interface, DDOS, desperado and clone chip. You name it, as long as it's not a program. It is a little niche, however, and you have to build and play around its condition. It's important to play fast so the runner can't sit back and get rich. You ideally want it to land when the runner is poor and you don't have to invest much in the trace.

Friends in high places: I think everyone knows this card is good. In this deck, it can get you out the hole if you're poor (AAL + launch campaign will help you recover fast), replace trashed ice and put trashed defensive upgrades where you need them.

Brief Jupiter Games tournament report (10 players, but don't let that fool you. The players who were there were all legit, and it was as competitive a tournament as I've played in):

Some highlights before the cut included luck sacking a dyper Kate with an ABT score to rez 3 ice (he still managed to put a ton of pressure on me and get to match point - biotic labor/CVS to clear clot won it); friends in high places spam recurring crisium grid to keep an Andromeda from siphoning me into the dirt; and losing a super tight game I thought I had in the bag when a Dumblefork-style Whizzard vamped me to nothing and medium dug me, as I was on the verge of FA'ing for the win. Went into the cut as first seed at 5-2 based on strength of schedule I believe.

Post cut, temujin Whizzard outraced me pretty easily when I got a slow start to send me into win or go home territory. Then my HB went back up against the same Andy I saw in Swiss. This time, caprice nisei behind Turing helped me get on the board early with a corporate sales team score, and I drew enough ice to stymie his run economy. My runner (Andy) got wins over IG-49 and CTM to set up a rematch with the Whizz who beat me in Swiss.

In the final, just about everything went right for me. I was able to consistently pair economy assets with MVT, delivering major tempo blows when he clicked through ice to stop me from rushing agendas like I did in our previous matchup. Hellion beta test landed twice after I didn't draw it in our previous game (it took out wyldside and sifr). Friends in high places replaced ice he destroyed, and I built a taxing-enough remote to score out the old-fashioned way. Despite all of that, he still got to 6 points and might have won if I'd drawn one fewer piece of ice.

It's worth noting a lot of this deck's games go down to the wire. It's pretty resilient, can give you a lot of paths to victory but rarely delivers blowout wins. Still, in 60 games in Jinteki's competitive rooms, it's won 84% against Whizzard with a 76% win rate overall.

For anyone in the region who hasn't checked Jupiter out, I recommend it. The people are great, the space is big and they run top-notch events. Last year's SC had much better turnout; this year it was rescheduled after being snowed out on the originally-scheduled date. I understand they applied to host a regional this year. People in the northeast should come check it if they're approved. You won't regret it.