Biotic Biotech (6th @ Hiveworld GNK, undefeated)

This is the deck I played at the Hiveworld GNK. It went undefeated on the day, winning four games and finishing one tied in time. It is based on powar's Worlds List, Pinoy Brew, but modified quite a bit. I hate to play against Mushin with a passion. Nevertheless, playing it is a nice alternative to Real Netrunner™. But when I do that, I want to do it more aggressively. That's why I went with their build containing Ronins and Bio-Ethics as a starting point, instead of the other two decks that focused more on Obokata and the scoring plan. I played around 25 test games on J.Net with this deck and scored out once, all other wins were flatlines.

My changes to the deck:

• I swapped the economy around. This deck doesn't really care how much money the Runner has, so I replaced the Hedge Funds with the remaining two Medical Research Fundraisers and an NGO Front, which is really neat, because it can function as another trap/agenda (I would even advance it to four if the Runner leaves it on the table) and can also enable sneaky kills when the Runner checks traps after diverting your funds (didn't happen in testing or the tournament, but the possibility is there).

• Also, I cut two Archived Memories and replaced them with the third Preemptive Action and a Biotic Labor. The Preemptive Action is cool, the deck can lead to long and grindy games and being able to reshuffle stuff is very handy. But the Biotic Labour is the star in this deck. Besides some neat tricks (like Install Psychic Field versus 419, then ID flip or play Clones are not People to remove a strike and then flip) it is mostly played to use your ID ability and a Ronin in the same turn, which kills the Runner unexpectedly a lot of times.

The playstyle is relatively simple: You Ice centrals and create a minefield of advanced and unadvanced Remotes, waiting for the Runner to make a mistake (which, as with all Mushin decks, can be either running or not running). The Ice is cheap and taxing. You can swap around a little (I thought about replacing the Lockdown with another Mind Game, for example), but it is definitely workable. The most important thing are the three Kakugos and to stay cheap with it. This deck doesn't have a lot of money, so don't go overboard with big Ice (like Komainu, which would otherwise be a fine choice). The only change that I would definitely make is replacing the Back Channels with another NGO Front. The NGO is also money and I don't like to remove charged traps from the board, since their presence alone pressures the Runner. The only situation where Back Channels is good is to recycle traps that have been exposed, but that comes up too rarely to warrant the slot (and the NGO helps there too, since it is another advanced thing lying in wait that will maybe eat an expose effect).

Tournament Report:

Game 1 against Malte on Morning Star/Laamb/Surfer Gnat: Our first game took quite a long time, so we didn't finish this game. He played around my traps well, I couldn't exert enough pressure to force him into checking things, so we tied the game 0-0 (although I won 3 Future Perfect psigames, so it could have gone another way quite easily).

Game 2 against Thorsten (hlinks) on Smoke: Thorsten spent some time setting up and didn't check my first Install-Advance-Advance. I advanced it twice more, he still didn't check it. I installed two more cards, he didn't check. Then he went down to three cards in hand and died to Bio-Ethics and Ronin (with a topdecked Biotic Labour in hand to use my ID if necessary).

Game 3 against This is Gereon (spacehonk) on MrEhjiwurths Worlds Wu: I drew the absolute nuts. Turn one, Mushin and Advance. Turn two make some money and install an Asset. Turn three I killed him from five cards with Bio-Ethics, Ronin and Biotic Labour into flip.

Game 4 against Rainer on Engolo Maxx: Rainer checked everything, which made the Ronin kill impossible. But luckily this deck has traps in it. Unfortunately I didn't see an Overwriter (well, besides the one he trashed from R&D) and he was very careful in checking the traps and making sure he didn't die on them and also never got into flip range. But the game drew on longer and longer and the Maxx mills started to grind his deck down (even after Levy), while my traps and Kakugos eagerly helped. In the end he was down to one card in hand and died the death of exhaustion on a Snare!.

Game 5 against Nimer (5n00p1) on Tag-Me Liza: Nimer was very aggressive and got punished when he facechecked a Cortex Lock with four cards in hand and a Paragon installed.

All in all the deck was quite fun to play and pretty relaxed, since all you do is sit back, install stuff, shuffle agendas back with Preemptive Action and Drudge Work while waiting for the Runner to make a mistake and kill them.