Engolo Freedom - 2nd at Worlds 2020

My favorite runner style is old-school headlock where the runner is poor but is keeping the corp poor and everything is a grind for both players. The runner is running like crazy, taking single accesses where they are available, and the corp is fighting to create scoring windows while keeping their servers protected. Sadly, those days are behind us, but Freedom comes pretty darn close to them.

About the Rig

The first thing you may notice is the omission of a killer. This meta is light enough on sentries that Engolo and Turtle felt sufficient to me.

Your full rig is really powerful, but even at the 4mu limit, there is a lot of flexibility with the different combinations of programs you can have installed.

1. Yusuf / Engolo
2. Engolo / Sucker / Turtle
3. Yusuf / Sucker / Turtle

About Rebirth

Rebirth was added maybe two or three days before Worlds. It was originally Hunting Grounds, then No One Home. Against glacier you don’t have enough viruses for Freedom’s ability to do much more than save you a few credits each game on NGOs and Rashidas. I rebirthed to Omar four times during Worlds, and each time it was game-changing.

Spooned?

I had 1 Spooned for most of my testing, but ended up cutting it when I decided I needed a 3rd Yusuf for the ASA matchup. It could definitely swing games by blowing up big ice that was safe from Hippo (especially Anansi), but it was overly niche and awkward with Zer0 compared to the other potential cuts (Virus Breeding Ground, Stimhack, and Trickster Taka), and rebirthing to Omar is a stronger way of dealing with big ice anyway.

Congrats to Limes on your victory. Thank you to the entire NISEI team for organizing the event.

Also shoutout to my testing/deck building teammate Crunchums, who has spent many hours helping me prepare and refine these lists.