But Not For Thee (32nd at Worlds 2024)

I got to play SanSan in SanFran, not a single regret.

This deck was thrown together 12 hours before I was supposed to board a plane for San Francisco by my metamate and dear friend @coldlava. I'd forced him and @NotAgain to suffer through me complaining how I was losing left and right with on-meta decks that they were seeing some success with. Lucas threw together a list for me knowing two things: I like Fast Advance, and I like my Reality Plus alt-art by Jakuza. I shifted some slots around, lost two games with it on jnet, discounted it, but still brought some cards for the list with me in case 2 a.m hotel madness struck and I needed an outlet for it. Jumpcut to 2 a.m after CoS, and my Plan A Corp hadn't performed well enough. Giving up on my hopes of placing better than I had in Barcelona, I sleeved this up and figured it'd be fun at the very least.

On the day:

Round 1 - Loss vs. Hideyoshi on Jeitinho Sable

As soon as the knife dropped, so did my heart. I knew it was going to be an uphill battle, and I was only on maybe 4 points when they scored the third knife. That knife had been in the bin most of the game, and I had to somehow score a lot points all at once to avoid being at Threat 3 for too long, and couldn't swing it.

Round 3 - Loss vs. Banknote on Bankhar Steve

Not much to say here, Conrad played well. I installed a Beale in a server when I shouldn't have which proved to be an easy steal, and never managed to recover from the DooF's/pressure he was able to apply. If I recall, the game ended with only maybe 1 or 3 points in my score area. very tough match, but fun to play against a friend.

Round 5 - Win vs. Toron on Hoshiko

Meeting Ben was a pleasure, and learning about the antics/rivalry between the various cities in Texas was funny. The game itself also felt tight, but I'd managed to use both MCA and SanSan to sneak points out faster than Ben could find them.

Round 8 - Win vs. Brianna on Hoshiko

Bri dropped a Maw somewhat early and was diligent about trashing Amani's, so this match was a little bit of a nail biter. I sneak some agendas out naked on the board, FA some others, and survive a terrifying Finality+ Twinning run, where I know the majority of agendas are in R&D, but the deck has mercy on me and hides the points deep. A pleasure too meet Bri, and thanks again for the alt-art!

Round 10 - Win vs. Coldlava on Freedom

Round 9 had managed to be my most tense runner game of the weekend, and this was my most tense corp game. Coldlava is a good friend and metamate who made this list for me. We'd played Asset R+ into Freedom a few times, and the takeaway was that the runner was greatly favored. The two of us know this, and we both knew that the winner of this match would progress to Day 2. We sit, and we play. I do everything I can to distract Lucas, I install random cards, I hit MCA, I push threats when I have nothing to score. He never finds his Stargate which feels like a hard-counter to this style of play, and I score points out from under his nose, including an ARES. The final turn comes down to me installing the final agenda behind a Funhouse + Ablative Barrier server with a B-1001 in the bin. He looks at all the ice, moneys up, and runs last click, only to be surprised when I rez Ablative for the first time that game. We both laugh at his shock ("That's in the list??" "You gave me the list!") and shake hands. I was nervous, as there were six points in Archives had he thought to check...

Round 13 - Win vs. Harp on Akiko

Harper floored me by telling me that she'd only been playing this game for two months. Her level of play and assessment of lines felt like they were coming from someone with experience, so I wasn't sure what approach to take or how much to gamble on my choices. The game wasn't an easy one, but after multiple ARES scored and a few point's FA'd, I'd managed to create a good B-1001 remote and secure the win. Congratulations on placing so highly in your first worlds Harper!

Round 14 - Loss vs Maninthemoon on Freedom

Deck dies to Archives getting checked! This was a very tense match that I'd walked into a little disheartened, believing my win against Coldlava to have been due to good luck. Abraham did an excellent job trashing Marilyn whenever he could and keeping my money down, but Marilyn kept reappearing to keep me afloat. This was the game where I said the most out of all on the weekend "Rez Marilyn for net neutral...". It was hard fought, with Abrahams Freedom going low on cards from Amani/Degree Mill and low on credits due to tags, but getting to 6 points in the process. I'd also managed to get 6 points, but didn't have the resources ready to score the only Degree Mill I had left on the board. Time was about to be called. Abraham doesn't have enough cards on board to steal or the money to install more, so he runs centrals, hitting HQ multiple times. He chooses his last run to check Archives, and finds an ARES I'd dropped in there turns and turns ago when I'd had four agendas in hand. With no Spin found in the intervening turns, it was a sitting duck. A very tense game, with the deck putting up a much better fight than I could have expected.

I finished the tourney 4-3, and with some piloting errors that could have been avoided, I believe the deck could have done better. Despite this, I don't actually think it's very strong into the meta, so if you got this far, you shouldn't feel the need to sleeve it. There were other, cooler R+ lists to come out of World's!

Mushy part

This weekend felt surreal throughout, and I have many people to thank for supporting me. It's taken 4 Worlds, but I finally have a placing that I can be proud of. Thank you.

gggg - jamming games, sharing lists and trash talk, love u all

boston crew - jamie, jeff, ben, ian, dhairya and the old panda crew, I wouldn't even be playing game casually if we'd never met, thank you for giving me a community when I moved to a new city. There are many more names I could put here from the old days, just know if you played at Panda circa 2016-2018, I probably died to your Punitives too fast and made you read the text on Award Bait.

NYC crew - Kysra for your countless hours sunk into keeping the scene alive, putting together events for a bunch of nerds who can't show up on time. Teo for getting me my first pack of cards from NSG and giving me a reason to try to meet up with people when I moved down from Boston. Kurt and Patrick for the banter, games, smoked meats and German accents. rohit/xdg/cado for being excellent in general and showing the old heads that the new gen have moves. y'all are gems, love you all

NJ crew - Alex, Ray, Dave, Alvin, Mike, and Justin(s) - driving hours to come to CO's, meetups and hangouts in person when we could just do it online. I value the in person aspect so much more over jnet, and for people to put in the effort screams love for the game. I can't wait to play more with y'all! P.S Get those CBI invites so we can CBI lan party please! (Justin(s) we miss you!)

@groundhog/@jaypumpkin/@NotAgain - thanks for being excellent teammates and putting up with inane questions, need a new name for next year

jeff - taking NSG OP on and bringing the game to a new level. I'm glad that we met back at Shux '17 by chance and I convinced you to come out to weekly meetups, we'd be living in a worse world otherwise! thank you for your service, much love

ian - keeping me sane by mirroring my madness, love you buddy

lucas - for actually creating the current NJ scene from the ground up. I might not be playing at all right now if you hadn't put in the work to get people together post-pandemic to jam. You've been a great game partner, and it was a pleasure to crack Day 2 with you. To many more, lets keep killing it.

And a huge thank you to all the volunteers who took the time to make this years Worlds a reality. The amount of work and love you put in is recognized and I hope you can feel it magnified back you when you see us all gathered in a basement to play this silly game we love. See you all next year!