Euros Like It's 2019 [Top half Euros/African]

Despite popular opinion, 2020 keeps happening and in an attempt to counter this, I decided to play an ID that I played at Euros 2019.

I do love me a Punitive Counterstrike list and after experimenting with versions in The Outfit, I hit upon this retro runner idea and played the EigenHarpoon Drago won with at last year's event. The meta has shifted an awful lot since then (although Freedom surprised everyone a year before the Asia Pacific Continentals) so a few untested tweaks were made very last minute.

With currents gone there were a number of extra slots available. Engram Flush replaced Slot Machine with the aim to remove I've Had Worse from Anarchs and programs from Criminals if they were careless early. Two Cyberdex Virus Suite replaced the previous upgrades to counter Aumakua and Tapwrm without losing a full turn.

The spiciest card was a single Wake Up Call which I learnt later caused a lot of confusion on the stream as to its purpose. It did its task exactly once, destroying a Citadel Sanctuary to turn on the Punitive kill for the rest of the game, ultimately leading to a win. It was beautiful and I may weep openly.

The deck went 4-3 on the day playing seven Criminals, although four different flavours. It beat Az, Iain and two 419, losing to another 419 and two Leela. The deck is too reliant on finding a big ICE like Orion or Chiyashi early to get the money rolling. Also, the biggest change of the meta that I didn't appreciated is that the best Runners are not scared of your ICE early doors, using Bravado to get early accesses and waste your turn with Tapwrm. I would like to play around with ICE suite a little, Mausolus didn't really do enough, but I was very happy to give this list another run our.