History of Swift Lat

I would like to start off with a bit of history on the Swift Lat deck, and how it eventually made its impact on Worlds 2024: 4 top cut placements and several more in high placing positions! This Shaper style of play definitely has seen an independent surge in popularity due to the strong card Trick Shot being released, e.g. coupled with Aniccam, but there is some additional history to Swift Lat Deep Dive decks that I think is worth sharing. To me it’s an aspiring story of sticking with and believing in a concept that teaches us the power of determination and refining in the deckbuilding process.

(Mar ‘22) The release of Deep Dive in Midnight Sun didn’t have much of an impact in standard initially. It was shadowed by several other high power cards, whether it was another quest like Apocalypse or another powerful shaper card like Endurance.

(Apr-Jun ‘22) However, it does see some showing in the Ashes+Midnight Sun startup meta. More typically seen in Sable or Ken with Swift. Ayyyliens, a Belgian Netrunner player experiments with Deep Dive in shaper instead, allowing to save influence costs by not needing to import it and enables the second Dive click with Swift. Overall, the deck is powered by the powerful Lat draw ability. He shares the deck with AlPi, at the time a new Netrunner player being introduced with the startup format. AlPi brings it to some of his first tournaments and has a respectable 2nd placing in both.

(Jan-Sept ‘23) Once Swift rotates in startup, AlPi opts to simply continue playing it in standard. Initially the other Belgian players think of it as a deck that will be abandoned for something else soon. But the opposite happens, AlPI keeps playing it and starts getting better and better results with it. AlPi eventually gets second place at Belgian nationals in 2023 using the newly released Bahia Bands. The deck only loses in the finals to belazor’s Asa.

(Oct ‘23) This really got the attention of the Belgian players, and we are so impressed by the results we consider bringing it to Worlds 2023. I was strongly considering the Swift Lat as well, but ultimately opted for a Aniccam control-focused Lat build. Both AlPi and ayyyliens do bring Swift Lat, getting amazing results of respectively 25th and 52nd place.

(Mar-Apr ‘24) During Worlds 2023, there was a rather big expansion of the TAI Breakers testing group. I was invited to join them and also mentioned this to AlPi who was also interested and recruited not long after. AlPi gets second place at two of the Fly to EMEA tournaments with the notorious PrisonMorph deck and an asset Nuvem, each time accompanied with his good ol’ Swift Lat.

(May ‘24) After the great performances of the deck in international tournaments and earlier Belgian tournaments, the Belgian meta is completely reshaped. A typical day in a Belgian CO anno 2024:

(Jul ‘24) Slowly but surely these great results start gathering some attention, especially within internal TAI Breakers testing. Of course, the deck is shadowed by an even stronger Shaper deck, World Tree Arissana. Because of my nerves of dealing with time in netrunner games, I do not bring the WT deck to EMEA but instead opt for the Swift Lat and end up 17th place, barely missing the cut on extended SoS. AlPi also brought the deck and made 33th place, going 6-1 as Runner.

(Jul-Oct ‘24) During continentals season, and afterwards while the World Tree ban is looming, we see the deck spread more and more across non-belgian players. Wenjong picks up the deck and goes undefeated with it in intercontinentals. Within TAI Breakers, AugustusCaeser also picks up the deck and gets 1st place in German, Swedish and Irish Nationals with it.

(A picture I took of the fallen Michigan Tree in Kings Canyon National Park in my roardtrip after worlds. I had definitely planned this meme usage ahead of time.)

(Oct ‘24) And here we are. Worlds 2024. Several of the other TAI Breakers are also impressed by Swift Lat and decide to bring the deck as well. But I, as the sole Belgian player attending worlds, want to give it my all while competing with the deck that traces its roots in Belgium. After some hard fought games, mostly taking losses on the Corp side, I ended up making it in the cut. To my surprise I see that besides fellow TAI Breaker Jai, two other non-TAI Breaker players have entered the top cut with Swift Lat as well. Which to me solidly confirms its presence in the current Netrunner meta.

I am excited to see what the future holds for the Swift Lat deck. Will we see some changes in the ban list to curb general shaper dominance, and what will Dawn + its rotation do to the deck? One thing I know for certain, is that as long as Swift, Lat and Deep Dive are legal, AlPi will find a way to make the deck work.

Deck Playstyle

I would classify the deck as a control/combo playstyle. Where you try to maintain control of the board until eventually you are able to push the game forward or even finish it on the spot with 1 or 2 Deep Dives using the extra clicks from Swift and/or DJ Sable. While playing the deck you constantly need to think about whether you continue controlling the board and when you have to shift gears to land a Deep Dive to attempt to close out the game.

When I mention shift gears, I really mean it. There are times where the game slips out of control and you really need to draw a ton of cards to find your way out, overdraw be damned. I can't count the times where I won barely, in a game that felt I really should have lost and realizing this fact early on was the key to being able to pull it off. Whether that is finding the right cards to land that last clutch Deep Dive, double Deep Dive with DJ Sable, or money up enough to do a few last effort runs. The game is never over for the Runner until the Corp has actually put down the last advancements to score to 7 or played the last card to flatline you. Of course, recklessly doing this every time is definitely not the aim, Deep Dives can and have whiffed. In many of the board states you can stay in control, and landing the Deep Dive is simply shortening the length of the game.

Games Overview

(Round 1) Vs milimil on PE. She is able to score a Regenisis+Fuji naked from the board. Usually I would be checking the board a bit more aggressively, but I had kept a DJ in hand that I hadn’t installed yet and didn’t want to commit it to the board yet. From an earlier Sting score, she is now on 5 points. I am definitely sweating a bit, especially since the time on the round is running out as well. But from this point I am able to control the board really well after dealing with the Prana+Warroid remote and lock any further scores and eventually find enough points to win.

(Round 3) Vs Ghost Meat on R+. Here I end up probably misplaying a bit due to keeping a tag around and tanking an SGP. I had stolen an ARES from the remote earlier, but do start to feel the game slipping a little. There was an F2P on R&D and an unknown ice on HQ. I run HQ, where an Enigma gets rezzed. Knowing the board composition bides me just enough time to click up to credits to install Unity and prepare for the Dive. I got a gracious takeback from Ghost Meat after running the known F2P R&D and forgetting the tag clause on F2P, which meant that I had to run HQ first otherwise my Unity gets bounced before I can break Enigma. I ended up Diving and stealing 2 Degree Mills. I ended the game with an empty board, no credits, but 7 points in my score area.

(Round 5) / (Round 8) Vs YucaBEAN on R+. / Vs hams on AgInfusion. These games I don’t recall the details too well. As far as I remember these were somewhat regular games of the control combo playstyle: keep the remote under control while drawing up to finish with Deep Dive. (Sorry if there was something interesting to share, the games are a bit of a blur in my memory. Please do tell me if you have something interesting to share here!)

(Round 10) Vs Nykride on Asa. This was an interesting matchup and the first time I saw the MCA Asa. I end up clearing one early and I contest the board a bit to keep the Corp down on credits. I end up stealing an early agenda and try to set up a Deep Dive from a low amount of credits. Here I ended up missing being able to Deep Dive due to me forgetting about a Tatu-Bola putting a Manegarm into play with the swap. It’s something that wasn’t on my mind but should’ve thought about and Overclock’d the known Tatu-Bola on HQ to play around that. A Deep Dive afterwards whiffed, and Nykride ends up scoring out with Audacity.

(Round 11) Vs Joevovich on Pravdivost. This was a bit of a crazy match. Joevovich is a bit starved for money, but does bait me in a server with a Gene Splicer. Joevovich is struggling to find tools to set up, while I am simply only drawing money, at one point I even ran out of my credit tokens to count my money. Eventually I set up to finish the game with Deep Diving, while there is one advanced card in the remote. The first two Deep Dives don’t find enough points to win the game, all while there is still this 5+ advanced card in the remote. I had seen several traps in the Dives, but also a False Flag. I decided to simply leave the card alone guessing it is a trap, which ended up being correct as it was a Checkist. The third Dive, which I got from DJ Steve, ends up finishing the game.

(Round 14) Vs Whiteblade on AgInfusion. This was a strong opening on both sides, Corp gets Rashida into Rashida. The Corp does install advance, which I run and is a Charlotte. Then install advances again, which I run again and steal a Nisei. At this point the Corp is starting to get a bit lower on money and I have a Dive in hand so I start to run centrals to bait the AgInfusion ability. Earlier in the game Whiteblade had discarded cards and the Spin Doctor is still up. I run Archives which is a Tatu-Bola, I bounce to keep the Corp low on credits. I run HQ and see a Bacterial, the Corp rearranges 7 cards. Then with a Trick Shot on R&D, getting a Swift click, and running Archives, forcing the Spin Doctor pop, I do a Deep Dive to close the game.

(Top Cut Round 1) Vs RotomAppliance on PD. Rotom is setting up a very strong scoring remote in the beginning. My experience with this is usually that you want to contest the remote atleast once to force rezzes, ideally with trick shot for great value. However, the way Rotom was setting up his board combined with a very ideal draw on my side for a Double Deep Dive and an early agenda steal, I decide to go for that line instead. I end up being able to set up the Double Deep Dive, but misplay by miscalculating a trash on R&D to being able to end up stealing an Ikawah of the Deep Dives. However, ultimate grace was given to me since in the turn afterwards, which would be the last turn in the game since the winning agenda is in the remote, I run R&D and see the Ikawah on top, and I do end up stealing it in the end.

(Top Cut Round 3) Vs Jai on Asa. I keep a hand with Paricia aiming to take control of the board. In the end Jai is able to build a strong server to chain Rashidas from and score with Holo Man behind an MIC. I didn’t find an SMC or code gate breaker, possibly due to me focusing on the board control too much and not drawing enough. I am locked out of Deep Diving or contesting the remote and Jai takes it.

Guest Comments

An interesting aspect of the Swift Lat deck is that the shell is almost entirely within Shaper cards, except of course for the Swift. This allows a lot of freedom to tune the deck to personal playstyle or specific metas. I have gathered placements of other Swift Lat players at worlds, and some guest comments on their particular version.

DeeR (2nd place). On breaker suite and econ options:

As a template I used Sokka’s Lat deck. I wanted to tweak it for the Aginfusion matchup, so I wanted a real, but cheap, barrier breaker that had good numbers against Bran and was cheap (Gauss) and a real sentry breaker that had good numbers against anansi (Echelon). I knew I wanted Swift, so I needed to cut one influence slot — that was the Hannah, since Swift does a similar thing. For the Aginfusion matchup, I was fine sacrificing a bit of power for consistency, so I replaced a Sure Gamble with a Telework and a Diesel with the Dr. Nuka. Stoneship is better than Diesel in Lat because of the kill matchup and because it gives you hand size control (making it essentially diesel 2/3 of the time). Every other econ card is better than Sure Gamble because Lat can sometimes get poor. I swapped Unity with Euler, because I think Euler is better against Aginf, breaking M.I.C. and Vampy for free on the turn it’s installed with K2CP. Unity also basically guarantees you will not be getting through a gatekeeper in the early game, which really messes with the tempo war. With the bonus slots given from dropping 1 console slot and Hannah, I added a third overclock and Bahia for Swift synergy (and Swift Bahia does a fun Hannah impression against kill decks).

Jai (7th place) on breaker suite:

The different Lat builds that emerged at Worlds showed that there was no strong consensus on the optimal breaker suite - though that is a question that might be best answered by examining your local meta! We chose to go with a simple Cleaver Turbine rig, though other options like Buzzsaw and Gauss also appeared and had their own various appeals. I almost panicked and threw in a Hush on the morning of the event! The eventual mitigating factors were - only being on 2 Simulchip, and floating 1 random inf after reverting Cleaver to Propeller. I could stomach a 46 card deck, but 48 after Hush+Chip+Pinhole/Bahia was too much for me to contemplate. Even though I did face Sokka's BTL in Swiss, I didn't end up needing it, which was a relief!

tzeentchling (8th place) on keeping Turbine in the Unity/Echelon/Propeller breaker suite and Inside Job (AlPi approves):

Turbine is really the 46th card in the deck, and mostly there for specific matchups where S5 Echelon is useful. There is value in making Revolver S3 and Propeller S2 to save money/power counters, so it doubles as an econ card. Using a single Propeller to get through two Bran in a row without having to Simulchip it can be fairly significant. It also let me break a S12 Logjam against Sokka using Propeller and Stoneship for only 3 credits. Inside Job is, imo, the superior 3-influence Criminal card to splash over Bravado. Bravado is 3 , maybe 4, net credits, while Inside Job can get you past a big piece of ice/an ice with on-encounter effect on a crucial turn where money isn't enough. Corps don't often expect it and so they'll mislayer their defenses. I usually save it until later in the game and it's great on Deep Dive turns to force corps to rez multiple pieces of ice trying to keep you out.

xdg (19th place) on Bahia Bands:

I chose Bahia Bands over Cupellation because I found that yellow decks were giving me trouble and I found Cup dead in hand too often. Combined with Swift, Bands gives me a tempo positive way to kill must-trash assets, or clear a tag, while preserving real credits.

aureates (32nd place) on Hannah:

My headcanon is that Lat is incredibly boring and only wants to hit central servers and that Wheels is this bad-girl type who dropped into his life and is trying to get him to branch out, have fun and actually run remotes. Gotta have the ubereats power couple in the same deck.

Wenjong (46th place) on influence, breaker suite and Hannah:

Ever since I switched to the Propeller / Revolver rig from the Turbine rig, I’ve found Cleaver less and less necessary. This leaves 5 influence for tech programs or fancy events. The choice between Inside Job / Bravado / Raindrops comes down to how troublesome ice might be to me. More and more I feel ice is never a problem but draw speed / assets are, so I opted for Raindrops. Then it leaves the funky problem: how do we ever break Pharos? The choices are: Turbine, Pelangi, and Pressure Spike. After some testing, Pressure Spike didn't even feel that good, since it still takes 7 credits to break an unadvanced on before threat 4. Turbine vs Pelangi is a bit of a toss-up. I like the aggression which Pelangi allows with Revolver and it is cheap to set up. But Turbine would definitely have done work on the day as well. I have to admit Hannah’s inclusion is to no small part playing London on jnet against his BCP R+ which a few steel city folks brought to worlds and did really really well. Overall Swift Lat is a value pile with a constant yolo threat to me. A really lean rig and Hannah feels complimentary to that yolo threat and allowed me to play a bit closer to a crim playstyle than a shaper one.

AugustusCaesar (62nd place) on Mystic Maemi:

I personally consider Maemi core, with a personal preference for 2x. The credits you get off it might not be flashy, but it buries the corp in inevitability and makes play much smoother. Even in fast matchups like PD, a Maemi draw early almost single handedly ensures you have enough money to pressure for remote steals while retaining the threat of landing Deep Dives.

Gathzen (75th place):

I chose to go with xdg's version as I really liked the Bahia include for the value it provides in asset matchups (since we are not running Paricia), yellow specifically and also the click compression in general. They can help you pull off Deep Dives on turns where you are not fully set up.

Thanks

I know I’m not the best at showing excitement irl. But I really appreciated meeting everyone at the event! Thanks for everyone that I was able to hang out with, play games against or meet otherwise. And if we didn’t meet, I hope we’ll get an opportunity in the future to do so! It continues to amaze me how nice the Netrunner community is and it’s wonderful to be able to be part of it.

Great thanks goes out to all the effort that went into organizing the Worlds event itself. It is always such a joy to be part of them, and this one was run amazingly well!