Looking back at an amazing 6 months [5th at UK nats (lol)]

Oops...

Apologies everyone, this one took way too much to get out, between some personal stuff and flying back to Italy for the holidays, I couldn't quite get back into the writing mood for a bit. Now, I hope you are having a great holiday period and lets get to business.

The deck 🃏

Yes, this was just Deer's Swift Lat, but I added a 3rd diesel. Talking with Theo in the top cut, I was happy to see he made the same choice, though he did something that differentiates good players from me: he cut the Nuka, as it’s probably the worst-feeling card in the deck, while I just rocked up looking smug with 46 cards: adding card draw doesn’t really count as bloating the deck size, right?🤡

Other than this, not much to report, Lat good. I only deep dived(or is it deep dove?) once the entire weekend and it was the swiss game I lost against Theo on jukebox, just casually playing 5-7 click turns usually gets you enough value to just win through shaper bullshit.

Edit: this took me so much time to write the deck got banned in the meantime lmao.

Now, back to our scheduled programming of telling everyone in this community how amazing they are...

You might be confused if you didn't read the beginning of my story.

Madrid, netrunner and I 🇪🇸

After my amazing Netrunner experiences in Seattle, I came back to Spain wanting to finally get to know my local scene:

Memes aside, though it’s a relatively small group, I instantly felt welcomed. Even though I could only really speak English everyone was extremely accommodating, cracking jokes and being good sports all around.

Here's a list of amazing people from the Madrid scene in no particular order:

• Cristian : if it wasn't for you scanning the discords, I would have never found the group to begin with, thanks ❤️ Also, you're gonna be cooking us alive once Dawn's around, already having the practice of playing without any FFG cards for god knows how long!

• Cesar: You helped me both getting good at IRL NR, as well as getting some extremely needed Spanish conversation practice, I'm looking forwards to walking back to Sol chatting many more times in the future❤️

• Tres: You are by far the best player in our group, and getting my ass kicked by you was always a pleasure. You were also the person who helped me get my hands on my first proper batch of cards for deckbuilding IRL, so thank you for getting me from the casual end of things and dropping me in the deep end of the pool. I can't wait to spar/chat with you again, here's to you getting better in 2025 ❤️

• Fran: The real anarch of the group, I think your students wish they could be half as rad as you are. Playing games with you were always the most fun, I feel like I spend more time laughing and joking around than playing cards❤️

While we don't get as many games in as I would like, any time I'm in a room with any of you, it's always a grand time, and thinking about the next time I would get to play with you got me through some tough weeks at work.

Becoming spike-curious 👀

Between Seattle and Madrid, getting a taste for more serious play got me hooked on the idea of "getting good". Unfortunately, this was easier in theory than in practice, as I would grind hours upon hours on Jnet, only to still lose games without understanding what was really going wrong.

I was playing the game as if it were any other digital card game, simply 'jamming' games in hopes of naturally picking up on patterns. While this might work in Hearthstone, the decision tree for a game of Netrunner is so huge that this approach doesn't work at all, and this was getting me frustrated.

Thankfully, I saw there was an AMT coming up, I didn't really know what to expect, but I signed up still, getting ready to show people the truth about ES.

Playing in that first AMT quickly made me realise something about myself: I am TERRIBLE at giving myself a break for misplays, as I would not pop a spin to dilute RND and then continue to lose to a multiaccess run. I would proceed to be tilted and down on myself for the rest of the tournament, ensuring a bad time for myself.

It got so bad that I ended up calling my partner, overwhelmed by the emotions of punting game after game and not knowing how to parse all the frustration going through me. Thankfully my partner was incredibly understanding, and after going for a walk with her in the beautiful Retiro park in Madrid I felt much better.

Looking back at the replays though, those games were so much better both to play and rewatch than the average game I "jammed" usually on JNet. It might have been placebo just doing its thing, but I used those first AMT games to take notes on big gameplay mistakes I took over the course of the tournament, and tried applying those learnings in my more "jammy" games.

Having identified my main pain points as a player (some of which I still struggle with to this day), I was ready to give my best in the next tournament, which was only a week or two later...

Showing up for the showdown

Again rocking my personal FA-ish EarthStation brew (didn't end up ever posting a list couse I was not happy with it by the end of the tournament), I rocked up to the biggest event of anything I had ever played in with a smile on my face and ready to cause some mischief.

I have lost the notes from the rounds unfortunately, but I do remember getting pretty damn lucky in some games, such living through like 2 cataloguer runs from a fully setup kit while playing ES or sabotaging 4 points t1 as Esa, you know how it is, average good player moments.

The day kind of flew around me, but by the end I had somehow made top cut of an event with almost 90 people! I was so happy having met my goal that I spent the rest of the evening and the morning after just having a good time exploring Madrid with my partner.

It was now, sunday afternoon, player meeting for the top cut. I was sleepy as shit having eaten enough paella for two people for lunch, but with a monster in my hand I was ready to give it my best shot!

...

I lost ALL my games instantly.

Relatively expected, and with some bad luck tossed in for good measure, but it still felt really bad dropping 0-2 without putting up a good fight.

Still, making top cut gave me that final push over the edge, I had so much more fun competing than playing casual games on Jnet, I realised I wanted to get serious about getting better, and that meant finding people to practice with.

Where can one "git gud"?

So I started messaging people I knew where in testing groups asking if they had space for someone wanting to get better. I quickly got back responses from all saying that they were at currently at capacity, but that they wish me well in my endeavours.

I'm gonna be honest, this was very frustrating. All the best players—the people I look up to for inspiration as a scrub—were all playing with other good players in their secret discords and Jnet clones while there I was playing into traps PE and BtL all day in Jnet Casual.

I just wanted a way to play in a scenario that fostered getting better together in a fun and welcoming way, and was struggling to find a way to find that, when I decided to step up and put my money where my mouth was.

Instead of being sad about the exclusivity problem in NR groups, I was going to do something about it.

One scrub, two scrub, I'm a scrub, you're a scrub

If you comb through some GLC chats from just after the showdown, you will find me venting a bit about the stuff discussed above, as well as looking for people to get more regular practice with. The first person to offer to play some games with me was the awesome StrawberryPuding, they encouraged me towards getting more people together, as well as getting a little discord server going.

Soon after I messaged a couple people who also placed well in the showdown and that were not already in testing groups (Snoobz and Chonky Seal, who are also both amazing people), as well as getting a couple PMs from people who saw my messages on GLC (Knack, who is both a lovely person as well as our first across the pond member).

As our numbers where already growing, we needed a good name, or at least a good placeholder name until a better one could be decided.

For the last week or so, I had been consuming more and more NR content and was beginning to realise just how bad at the game I was, so when I had to describe myself as a player the word "scrub" kept popping up in my head.

I felt like it could be a good way to cement the attitude I founded the group for, the "I want to get better at the game" feeling with a "here to have fun and kick butt" attitude. So after a short brainstorming session about good acronyms, the testing group was born:

SCRUBS: Semi-Competent Runners Using Basic Scripts

A Scrub's life

In it's first week of existence, SCRUBS grew with the addition of many other amazing people, and regular practice sessions were quickly scheduled.

Two things quickly became clear:

1. I was, to put it charitably, not very good. Everyone else at least double the time playing the game I had, I could feel the skill and experience gap between me and the others.
2. The practice was GOOD. Watching the replays, co-piloting decks against each other, talking through lines and brainstorming decks, it was a whole new stream of game knowledge that I could tap into to expedite my growth, and I couldn't get enough of it!

Hometown blues (getting my ass kicked in Turin)

Just as the group was getting started, I had to fly back home to Italy for my sister's graduation and to spend some time with family. While I was chilling at the airport, I randomly decided to check if there was a local scene in my home town of Turin.

And guess what! A bunch of great players who I look up to were from my very town (some of them living so close to me it's weird I didn't bump into them randomly over the years), this was both amazing and kind of scary, as I was sure I was going to get my ass kicked...

And kick my ass they did. The first evening I played with them I think I went a very solid 0-4 for the night, but I feel like I learned a lot. This was also where I first realised that if I wanted to get better I had to stop playing "wierd" decks (EarthStation, Esa) and focus on fundamentals (Lat, PD).

This newfound aim to get good at netrunning fundamentals will indeed prove to bear fruit in the coming months, but I'm afraid I will have to keep stalling for time some more...

The story continues...

Hey everyone, thanks for reading my silly decklist stories. Reflecting on this year as it comes to a close, I can confidently say that discovering netrunner was the best thing to happen to me in 2024 by far.

I love this game and every single one of you who plays it with me.

Hope you have a great period and here's to an even better 2025.

Much love,

Fabio

P.S. The scrubs saga will continue with the new years showdown decklist posts, I will try to be a bit quicker this time, promise.

P.P.S. Keeping my money where my mouth is, if you are someone that wants to get serious about getting good at NR, and would like to join a group of like-minded individuals, feel free to shoot me a PM, I'm Baserton on GLC as well.