"You Can't Skip No Free Lunch" (Hermes Kit)

This is the deck I planned to play at Worlds 2024, with north of 100 practice games leading up to the event. I panic-switched off it to Hoshiko the morning of Standard, after having some bad luck against Ob/SDS/Holo Man decks in Crown of Servers. In one game, my Lobisomem was killed twice with this combo. The rig is fragile, but against non-Ob decks, it usually feels pretty powerful, with a great matchup into Haas-Bioroid: Precision Design especially, which I predicted there would be a lot of at Worlds. I wish Sacrificial Construct was still legal; it'd definitely be a 1-of include here if so. No Free Lunch pulls similar weight into a horrific Public Trail/Self-Growth Program outcome to bounce both breakers (or just gives you 3 emergency mid-run credits in a pinch), so you can't skip it.

After COS and my recounting the SDS woes to a Snare Bears & House Hippo teammate, they unironically said to me, in their singularly brazen way, "Dave, your deck sucks." Between that comment and the deck's underperformance on the day, I opted for something I thought would be more resilient and reliable in Hoshiko Shiro: Untold Protagonist, making it my seventh Worlds playing Anarch, the only runner faction I've ever played at the event. Another House Hippo tried to talk me down from switching, saying there would be way less Ob in Standard, that the COS meta was way different than Standard, and they were right, with only 12 showing up (a lowly 5.9% of the field). Cue the endless "what if?" hamster wheel of what might have been with my only Shaper appearance ever at Worlds.

Anyway, the main plan here is to set up a big R&D pressure system, with “Pretty” Mary da Silva, Psych Mike, and Hermes online, then apply a ton of run events into the central to steal points and unravel the corp's board with Leela the Console, all while making money in the process with Mike, who makes you feel like you've DJ Fenris'd into Zahya Sadeghi: Versatile Smuggler, which shouldn't be allowed (and isn't).

Turning Jailbreak into a free The Maker’s Eye that draws you a card and pays you back 3 credits feels unreal, plus it helps you pressure HQ if you suspect there are agendas in hand. Trick Shot is obviously the best card in the deck, and when paired with the engine, feels completely cracked. I tested 2x Burner for a long time, but found I wanted one more R&D multiaccess event, and The Maker’s Eye paired with the engine to get you in for 4 cards and credits was the winner.

An ideal opening hand is econ and a Spark of Inspiration, which hopefully hits Lobisomem on the 50/50. Drawing your breakers is unideal, so only draw if necessary to find your Sparks, and then once both breakers are down, you have unfettered draw for days, fetching your econ and run events. If you do draw your breakers, you can overdraw to throw them in the bin, then use Compile to get them out and back into the stack, then Spark for them. This is sometimes inefficient, but necessary, and Compiles are there to help in the aforementioned Ob Superheavy Logistics: Extract. Export. Excel./SDS Drone Deployment matchup, which is winnable, but obviously sometimes fraught. The bouncy NBN: Reality Plus or Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center lists are also unpleasant for this deck, especially if they can stick an unclearable Oppo Research and then Self-Growth your programs (again, this is why you can't skip lunch).

This deck is the most fun I've had playing runner in some time, despite its tendency to trip on the odd backpack.