Technically making the cut is still making the cut - 2nd Aus

Technically making the cut, it turns out is the best kind of making the cut!

This deck and my Adam deck took me to 9th place in the swiss at Australian Nationals 2019. Fortunately for me 7th place (thanks mike!) had to drop day two to return home, moving me into 8th in the cut on a technicality. During deck checks it was discovered that 1st place in the cut had a list that was different to the deck presented, giving Adam an automatic win in first round of day 2 (thankyou to the rules gods for technicalities!!). Going into the tournament I felt that this was the stronger of the two decks and had done extremely well in testing against Crim and Shaper. I was expecting to play mostly Crim on the day.

The build:

The basic game plan is to build a lockout remote with bio, nisei and border controls so they cannot really contest it. Keeping Anansi on centrals for taxing (and occasionally a surprise kill). Chyishai usually goes at the top of the remote or on HQ.

MCA is there for tax and to FA out a SSL or Nisei. I tried reduced service in testing and it was ok. I think that MCA forces the runner to respond more than reduced service.

Divert power is there to be able to rez Chyisahi if the runner refuses to run or has some shenanigan. It also helps to reset all the cheaper ice to use for ID triggers once you’re ready to go.

Miraju is a pain for the runner.

Swiss

Round 1 – Corp Split against Leela. Both our runners had fairly one-sided games where we couldn’t really contest ice. I had good money early and then set up quickly with a lockout remote before Ben could really get set up.

Round 2 – Sweep against local from my meta ☹. Jesminder faceplanted into Chiyshai and then used ability to boop two more times for a total of 27 credits, at which time Gareth couldn’t really recover. Scored out shortly after.

Round 3 – ID with Opponent, we ended up playing for funsies and it was a split.

Round 4 – Runner split. I was playing against Mike’s super gross Freedom deck with Trypano, Trope, Clone chip, progenitor and hive mind. I had centrals fairly secure, but he kept destroying the remote making it impossible to score out. Between trope and clone chip I think I lost 11-12 pieces of ice. Mike eventually managed to trash preemptitive with ID ability, which I drew late in the game and ruining any real chance of winning. Mike won by me decking myself a few turns later.

Round 5 – Apoc val. My opening hand was celeb gift, revealing and installing a Chyishai (and a ‘come at me bro’) before eventually being wrecked by apoc mid game. I didn’t manage to rebuild board state and get close to getting the remote back up, but not before he stole 5 points in agendas putting me on the back foot. Luke eventually snatched the winning agenda out of a flooded HQ.

Cut

Only corp game I played day 2 was in the final. I mulligan a no ice, no economy hand into 2 agendas and ice. I had four agendas in hand by turn 3 or 4 and poor econ. I managed to build a board state with decent central protection and a rezzed Anansi on HQ. I used an MCA behind one unrezzed ice at one stage to keep the apoc threat off the table and eventually had enough money to use divert power to get a Chyishai rezzed on archives right before he rebirths into Omar and already on 6pts. I then didn’t really get enough economy to be able to afford to build and use a remote before he wins. At one stage after Ryan got to 6pts I had porous HQ with four agendas and a celeb gift which wasn’t helpful. I didn’t play the gift. He managed to hit preemptive with hacktivist and some other key cards with the shard, which helped to reinforce his dominant position. We then went to 2nd game, which I also lost.
I was flooded early, had awkward draw and never really got into a good position to really contest the game. It didn’t help that Ryan didn’t make a single mistake all game and played well.

Given the ‘dorm room computer incident’ of Aus Nationals in 2018 and my sneaky win against his CTM a few hours before as runner, if I was going to come second to anyone I’m glad it was Ryan. Congrats on the well-deserved win and for finally not being 2nd at something!

Big thanks to Luke for hosting the event and being an all-around fantastic human being.

Thank you to the Aus Netrunner community for all being generally all around good people and to the Sydney crew for being such a fun and welcoming community.

Lastly, congratulations Ryan on your win! Enjoy the plastic crown, the fame and glory of being Australia’s king of dead card games

Adam deck list - https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/57951/the-steven-bradbury-effect-or-how-to-come-2nd-at-nationals-