The Thug Brained Runner (14th @ American Continentals 2024)

"That's not a knife. That's a whale-wolf."

When Rebellion Without Rehearsal released, Whiteblade111 shared two different runner decklists that he felt might make a splash at the upcoming NANPC Vancouver event.

Those two lists were a Spark of Inspiration PPVP Kit and a Jeitinho Sable.

Turns out they were pretty good in the fresh meta.

About a month later, I went to a CO in Seattle and encountered a Spark of Inspiration PPVP Padma deck. The gears in my head were turning. If the Spark + Lobisomem/Orca package could work in Padma, could it work anywhere else?

My boy Steve Cambridge is always my first stop when building PPVP decks. He made a good showing at the weekly pubrunner, but on my way home, I was struck with two thoughts:

Spark of Inspiration costs 3 influence each.
The Wizard’s Chest costs 2 influence each.

So why spend 9 influence to cheat out these expensive icebreakers when I could spend 6 influence instead?

With the resurgence of Sportsmetal at NANPC Boston, I felt that this Jeitinho deck would be well positioned to take advantage of their linear gameplan and beat them to the finish line with a trio of knives. Syd7's performance with Jeitinho at NANPC Vancouver also was proof of concept that it could beat a wider variety of corps than one would think at first blush.

This deck had 3 wins by Assassination Plot (that's actually what JNet calls it) against two Sportsmetals and one PD. Two losses were both to Neurospike Azmari.

Special card notes:

• DJ Fenris for Quetzal as non-program barrier breaker to help against the corp trying to tax out Lobisomem counters.
• Malandragem is a flex program slot to help in the overall gameplan. This deck doesn't run the risk of Sparking into the wrong program since Wizard's Chest gives a little bit of choice on targets.
• Legwork was left in the list when transitioning away from PPVP Steve. I never played it and finished the tournament feeling like I'd be happier if it was the third Window of Opportunity or any other card.
• Credit Kiting for cheating out the icebreakers if they end up drawn into grip.

Thanks go out to Alec, who hosted me and several other Vancouver players for a tournament party for the Swiss event, and thanks to Ryan for lending me his laptop so I could play on JNet away from home. Getting to play an online tournament in the same room as friends made the whole day feel much less lonely.

Also I got to pose with Alec's cool knife collection after making top cut.