Bag of Tricks VI - Back in Business - 2nd @ Sthlm Regionals

"Playing PE at a tournament is like a drug. You do it the first time because you think it might be a fun time, but you come back for the adrenaline fix." - Mahatma Gandhi

It had been a long time. Almost two years. The Chairman had seen the company grow in the double digits since. Since then the torishimariyakkai had had their way with the company, funding successful expansions in Africa, India and even on Mars. The business for clones was booming.. so why was he feeling like none of it mattered?

It was HIS company. He built it on proud principles that have now given way to... efficiency. The word left a bad taste in his mouth. It is like those that suggest the most important feature of ICE is the 'tax'. Not the fear. Traitors among the ranks. What happened to Zaibatsu principles?

Remembering the words of his mentor: 'If you are becoming the enemy, is he not already winning?' Indeed.

Little did it matter the Jinteki corporation had gotten better press than ever, investors flocking to the scraps of the Palana division and new types of clones being designed at the AgInfusion facilities. No surprise the Runners were flocking more than ever. Filthy vermin.

What did it matter as long as he allowed it all to continue and took a back seat? Traitors will not take long to sense weakness. They think he is old and breakable. That he will give way, step down. He needed to show them, all the doubters, that principles, not credits, were what mattered!

It was time to blow off some steam. He lifted the dusty cover of his deskjack, he had been idle for too long. Ignoring the safety precautions he booted with physlink directly to his cortex, it was the only way to minimize reaction-time, and he needed that now more than ever.

There should be plenty of bugs to squash. Hiro was back in business.

Recently got 2nd place in Stockholm regionals using this list. It is very much a new take, and iteration on, my old pre-rotation PE. The deck went 6-1 (5-0 in swiss) and really carried me as the run-based econ runner i brought did not perform as well against the many glaciers..

The tournament was 34 (?) people and represented a surprisingly broad amount of different opposition. After taking a hiatus from the game during the 'bad times' i still feel like i have a lot of attuning to do to the meta, but overall the game seems healthy and fair now with some very few exceptions.

The loss in the top 8 was due to my opponent playing a Sunny-deck with Guru Davinder and money. Against that kind of tech this deck does crumble as your outs quickly dissipate, so watch out.

Overall the changes are some good, some bad, but the basic principles still apply. The deck plays very differently from 'real' Netrunner, and is not for the faint-hearted, as you never win without taking huge risks.

ICE: Still experimenting, lots of interesting tools.

Operations: Enforced Curfew is a god-send. You kill them by building to a boarstate when you can empty their hand, this is a click-free damage for the kill-turn and clears E-strike. Genotyping is anti-Clanarch tech. When facing that you need to move your threats to advanced remotes. Punitive works extremely well with Obokata, but is still only a mid-game plan, not your main gameplan.

Assets: Nothing new really, some rebalancing. NGO is nice as leaving them out can trip off runner-maths. Especially for Punitive. Went down one Ronin due to Show of Force.

Agendas: Chronos Project wins you games in this meta, but in other metas go to three 'Show of Force' and Project Kusanagi instead. Obokata does not really compensate for the loss of Fetal AI, but it seems to work out relatively well. It makes it easier to execute some game-plans.

Thanks to all opponents! The Stockholm meta is a happy and friendly bunch :-) It was a fantastic and well-organized (although hot) tournament that was finished in the pub, due to the venue closing ;)