the friends we made along the way (1st @ sheraton toronto)

i got lucky and played well enough at the 2018 canadian netrunner nationals (~55 players) to win.

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2x Career Fair - great for installing expensive resources. // shoutouts to josh for building this deck, and for always giving me lists when i beg for them.

2x Dirty Laundry - this was okay, even though asset spam did not have much of a presence at this particular event. // shoutouts to peter and greg, who built and tested my corp deck (s/o to ellen and jason, who tested it out with them)

3x Employee Strike - instrumental in all of my wins, and better than film critic for this particular tournament, where i faced a lot of weylands. i never touched an obokata in my grand finals match against steven's PU // shoutouts to the comrades group, which has the most fun practice games that i get to spectate. dan and kenny kept practicing an aginf that josh couldn't beat, so he threw this together.

3x I've Had Worse - always great in anarch decks. // shoutouts to all the erics who made the top cut; we almost made up half of the field. trying to finish as the top-placing eric motivated me more than actually winning it, tbh.

3x Inject - another good anarch card. // shoutouts to jason who did a tremendous amount of work before and during the event to make the live stream happen. it's important that a well-attended nationals has a live stream, and in an ideal world, he would be compensated for the time/money he puts into traveling and streaming.

1x Mad Dash - works well with find the truth. // shoutouts to vikk, dien, kenny, and eric g for commentating during my streamed games, helping make it more entertaining for the viewers and dissecting our plays. i'm relieved eric g didn't call me an idiot when i realized halfway into our second game that he was playing argus and not skorpio, and that i didn't know how standoff worked.

3x Mining Accident - these were okay, though i pitched them often. i don't have much practice playing anarch lately, so i might not have used them as effectively as i could have. // shoutouts to the people at home who watched the stream. i'm sorry i missed most of my find the truth triggers on day 1. i practiced this deck only three times before playing at nationals, and only once in a real life game.

1x Rebirth - it's the card that turns you into omar. i turned into kim once against eric g's skorpio, and lost that game. // shoutouts to dien for always being positive and awesome. he made sure our group felt welcome in canada, taking us out to dinner and even bringing his real family in to meet his netrunner family. this meant a lot to me.

1x Retrieval Run - i never used this, but it's good if you lose your mimic or rng keys to inject // shoutouts to alex, who played hq trivia with me the night before nationals, then played against me in the critical last round of swiss. he probably would have sneaked into the 8th spot of the cut instead of me, had the access gods shown him more favor on his omar runs.

2x Stimhack - i wished i had three stimhacks more than a couple times, as i'd make the mistake of pitching or losing one. // shoutouts to the SWORN crew. they're a fantastic and friendly group, and i'm proud i was able to keep the canadian trophy in ohio lol.

3x Sure Gamble - yup // shoutouts to the michigan and toledo players, who always show up and are threats. our local groups always have to compete against each other, but i like to think we're on friendly terms by now.

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1x Turntable - drew it too late almost every time // shoutouts to my wife alexis, who doesn't mind when i spend a weekend to go to these events, encouraging me and cheering me on.

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3x Daily Casts - almost always happy to see this one // shoutouts to dan, who bet on me to win even though i didn't play well in swiss. i was always under the impression that he thought i sucked at this game lol.

3x Earthrise Hotel - you need this to draw your money // shoutouts to mathew, who i always love linking up with at these events. we had the most pleasant dinner at momofuku with ellen, peter, and jason.

2x Find the Truth - works great with rng key. i kept forgetting my triggers on the first day because i didn't practice enough // shoutouts to sungho, who served as the judge and pretty much ran the tournament. he also made sure i didn't DQ myself out of the finals.

1x Gbahali - this saved me in at least two games, breaking excalibur and the last archer sub. this seems a little better than aumakua if you are expecting few open servers and a lot of ip blocks // shoutouts to the toronto and montreal groups, especially the metropole grid folks, who record and produce standout tournament videos. i'm looking forward to their VODs on these matches.

1x Ice Carver - good for news hounds and random five-strength ice // shoutouts to FFG for providing the prizes. the textless reina is sick. it would be nice if i could get the hook-up on a Worlds flight like the US nats winner..

3x Liberated Account - i needed a lot of money for games like the ones i had against eric g's argus // shoutouts to rules god jacob, who gave me the pro-matte eclipse sleeves i used for my azmari deck (available at this convenient link).

2x The Turning Wheel - you need to multiaccess somehow without any indexings // shoutouts to kenny, who once thought pasta grew on trees.

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2x Black Orchestra - breaks code gates // shoutouts to tony, who made and gave me my custom valencia id and tokens.

1x Mimic - really need this against komainus // shoutouts to my boy dannel for introducing me to netrunner and clearing up all of my timing questions.

1x MKUltra - breaks sentries // shoutouts to stimslack and all of the people who congratulated me after the win.

2x Paperclip- breaks barriers // shoutouts to everyone who listens to the scoopscast, and to ve from the source podcast for making the awesome playmat you saw on the stream. kenny let me borrow it, and i'm happy i gave the mat a lot of screen time.

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2x Datasucker - these are important. // shoutouts to jc, who always takes care of our site tiny cartridge when i disappear for these tournaments

2x RNG Key - this is a vital part of the deck that helps make your central pokes efficient. // shoutouts to steven, who could have just as easily won this, had he gotten luckier in his draws. i was happy to see him at an event again (since he seemed to have stopped playing for a bit), even though the rest of his crew were cowards who stayed home.

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i always forget how much fun i have at tournaments. i wanted to skip this one since i never travel this far for non-worlds stuff anymore, but josh convinced me when he told me, "who knows how many more of these we're gonna get". i'm grateful that i got to spend time with my friends, and that so many people were happy to see me do well.