With thanks to psk and all the judges and j.net devs, and everyone else involved in the smooth running of another massive online tournament.

And to all the NSG designers, devs and playtesters, for, I think, absolutely nailing Automata. <3

Love to unband for continuing to be just a great group of people to play netrunner with.

Results

5-2, 36th at EMEA Continentals 2023

Wins against Hoshiko, Arissana x 2, Tāo and Sable

Losses against Hoshiko and Esâ

Individual match reports from the tournament are at the end of the write-up

Tournament Afterthoughts

The list is solid.

If there were another tournament tomorrow, I would change Architect Deployment Test for Project Vitruvius, and leave everything else as is.

Why should I play PD?

Because it plays pretty much exactly the same as it did last season (and the season before that).

Because it has reasonable matchups across the board.

Because it rewards good play, and challenges the runner to anticipate our outs.

Because a 44 card list, and a handsize of 6, makes it very easy to track where the agendas are and to manage that risk. It also means that we can play a 8 card agenda suite with only 2 x 5/3 in it, and still expect to score one of them.

Matchups

All our matchups are fine.

We have an ICE suite carefully curated to deny early central pressure from criminal.

We have Seamless Launch to help play around Hermes.

We have multiple copies of Anoetic Void, and multiple ways to recur them, to mitigate Pinhole Threading.

We have Ablative Barrier to play around Stargate.

We have Mavirus (and multiple ways to recur it) to defend against Conduit.

When all else fails, we can play the never-advance game in the remote, and invite the runner to make a costly mistake.

Piloting

Against criminal, we ideally want to ICE centrals before building a remote. This is challenging, because we probably need a rashida fire in order to draw into that ICE. Focus on winning the early game, and the late game will take care of itself.

Against anarch, the important servers need to be double ICEd (against Hippo and Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga). We can't double ICE all servers, so pick whichever one has the agendas in it. Hold Magnet and Ablative Barrier for the outermost, if possible.

Against shaper, rush to 4 points, then slow right down and build a doom remote (skunk, void, MIC). We then need to defend R&D until we find an Ikawah to close the game.

playing against PD

There's no particular tech card that we need to slot when playing against PD, although Pinhole Threading helps, as does Imp or Maw, but they are not at all necessary. As long as we play a runner deck with solid fundamentals, and take good lines, it should be a nice close game either way.

One piece of advice I would give runners going against PD is that PD really doesn't want to rez ICE early, so running ICE turn 1 is a good line. It's a little tricky to play around both MIC and Ansel. Something like event, event, run click 3, is probably the most balanced line. It limits the MIC facecheck, while leaving us a click to either click through Ansel 1.0 or tidy up a Drafter install.

Card Choices

I've been pleasantly surprised by Ikawah Project. It defends itself pretty well behind an MIC (both in HQ and in the remote). If I could swap it for Global Food Initiative, I don't know that I actually would.

Your Digital Life slots very nicely into a list that wants as much econ as possible, and has an increased maximum handsize.

At heart we are a rush deck, and, especially towards the end of the game, anything that decompresses our clicks can be clutch. In testing, Greasing the Palm became my go to target for Spin Doctor. It is also a good way to get back down to handsize when we have overdrawn for YDL value.

Vovô Ozetti offers us value, plus a Tranquility Home Grid trigger, plus bluffing potential. Vovô is great. Big fan of coffee, big fan of systems administration, big fan of Vovô.

Because of the lack of a facecheck, Bran is difficult to play in the early game. But it is a real pain for most fracters to deal with. Beware of setting up a board that allows Curupira to charge.

Ablative Barrier is fantastic defence against Stargate, and can make for some clutch plays in the late game. However, it is terrible until then. We can play 2x, but if we see both on our opening hand we are going to be very sad. Alternatively, we could play 0x, and improve our early game, but at the cost of losing one of our late game tricks. I, personally, think 1x is the right balance here.

Notable Exclusions

Gatekeeper is fine, but so is Magnet. Maybe we could play 1x to keep the runner guessing.

We really don't need, or want, the 3rd Spin Doctor.

Alternatives

Hand on heart, I think Project Vitruvius is better than Architect Deployment Test. ADT is great for our rush plays, and I love knowing the top 4 cards of R&D, but having a Vitruivius counter allows us to double seamless an Ikawah with only one Seamless in hand. Plus, the flexibility of being able to score it as a 3/2 that triggers the PD ability should not be underestimated. This is the one change I would make to this list without hesitation.

We could play a 2nd mavirus (and a Border Control instead of the 2nd Anoetic Void. This would, obviously, improve our Aumakua matchup, but I went into the tournament unsure that all criminals would even be playing aumakua (does Sable play Aumakua?)

Match Report

R1: WIN vs Sokka234 on Hoshiko (7-6, T9)

R1 unband pairing against the world champ. This is fine. I rush out 5 points behind a 3 ICE remote while leaking 6 points from a relatively open R&D. Fortunately, I also draw into 2 of the remaining 3 agendas, which means that I can leave R&D open and shove.

R2: WIN vs mr_pelle on Arissana (6-4, T13)

I rush out 4 points behind a double/triple ICE remote, but ADT shows no Ikawah in the near future, so I have to slow down to push the 2 x offworlds in my hand. Runner goes broke breaking into the remote to trash skunk, which gives me breathing room to find seamless so that I can play the never advance game. It takes longer than I would like to close, but we get there.

R3: LOSS vs Rustryder on Hoshiko (8-5, T12)

Another unband pairing. I mulligan into a hand with no ICE, and the 1 x magnet I do draw into gets promptly hippo'd. I build a very early skunk/void remote with Bran in front of it, but instead of relying on skunk/void to defend itself (which would have worked fine) I go broke rezzing the Bran and everything is terrible from there on. Dreamnet even gets Rustryder the credit they need to trash the void once they are in. Terrible misplay by me.

R4: WIN vs Suipe on Arissana (8-2, T13)

I rush out 4 points behind a double ICEd remote, and use MIC on HQ to deny a Deep Dive (there are no agendas in HQ, and the remote is set up with skunk/void, ready to jam anything that I draw into). We find a luminal, jam it, install a rashida... no agenda. Install another rashida... no agenda. R&D is only 9 cards at this point, and 4 of those 9 cards are agendas. I stick another void in the remote, triggering a draw action off tranq grid, which finds me the ADT. I shove and reinforce R&D. An ablative rez on HQ gets me a skunk on R&D, and while I'm a little short on credits, Vovô Ozetti has me covered.

R5: WIN vs Nicky3.0 on Tāo (7-6, T12)

Slightly weird opening with enough ICE to keep me going but no econ (and lots of agendas). I shuffle back one agenda while waiting for hedge fund. I score a luminal, Tāo moves the rezzed MIC onto the remote, which means I can jam an offworld and use it to recur a hedge fund (that's the economy problem sorted). HQ fills with agendas, but I defend R&D against conduit anyway, hoping that Nicky3.0 focus his attention there. It sort of works, but he does take one HQ snipe which gets him to 6 points. I push Ikawah with a relatively open R&D, 1 agenda in 19 cards, and conduit on 2 counters. Fortunately, Mavirus is also in R&D.

R6: WIN vs G0li@th on Sable (8-0, T10)

G0li@th goes for an early (T1) aumakua play, but I mulligan into a hand with 3 x ICE and a hedge fund in it so I'm able to quickly shut that down. With all centrals ICEd, I just have to carefully managed my credit level and weather the storm for a bit. I draw into 3 more pieces of ICE, which means I can double ICE HQ before building a remote. Vovô does great work by moving between centrals. Rashida finds Mavirus, which compounds G0lia@th's problems (although he doesn't know it yet). I jam 5 points, bringing shibboleth down to str 1. The turn I push the 2nd Ikawah, I'm able to use Mavirus to deny a Dirty Laundry, and that's p. much game.

R7: LOSS vs ReinaMorada on Esâ (7-2, T6)

2-4-1 game that, I think, would just about have put me into the cut (if I'd won).

There are two lessons from this game. Lesson 1 - trust your gut. Lesson 2 - play Vitruvius. I'll summarise the early game, but deep dive the losing turn (because I keep playing it over in my head). You might have seen it on stream.

I protect HQ, but leave R&D open while I jam an agenda. ReinaMorada steals an Ikawah out of R&D, but whiffs on sabotage. I cover R&D with a Drafter, ReinaMorada responds with a Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga install.

It's 3-2. I have ADT, Seamless and Drafter in hand. The remote is MIC into Bran into skunkworks. ReinaMorada has a decoder and a bankhar, but no other breakers in play.

I Install-Advance the ADT, so that I can get back a seamless from the bin next turn, and have 2 x seamless for a future never advance Ikawah score. This is a mistake, because 1 x Ikawah has already been stolen (so I am most likely scoring 8 points this game).

My gut tells me to install the drafter on R&D, where there are 5 agendas in 22 cards. But, I also figure that there is a Running Hot line that, with bankhar, gets ReinaMorada into the remote. I figure bankhar can only get into R&D once (and only steal one agenda), and ADT will let me control R&D for the next turn or two beyond that. Plus, I've telegraphed the agenda in the remote by advancing it, so I ignore my gut and add the drafter to the remote.

Finality core damage sabotage mills one agenda, and the fourth card of R&D is the other, and that's game. GGWP.