Came back for more (8th at Worlds 2020, 8-1)

lostgeek 3514

What's this?

At Euros I decided to put personal things before Netrunner things. This time I planned more carefully and managed to have enough time for everything and go for a second shot at a big tournament. This is very similar to the Euros list and went very smoothly through the entirety of Swiss and the cut with a final record of 8-1. Shoutouts to all of my opponents and especially to @percomis for a nail-biting meme-filled in-house cut match.

This deck has a lot of meaningful decisions that help you either play safely or go all-in depending on what the situation requires. If you feel your opponent, doesn't have the speed, just go on rush-mode with your tempo-neutral Cyberdex Sandbox and just keep scoring. If you have to play a more control-y style, just score the Nisei MK II and prepare undefeatable servers with Border Control and Bio Vault. Whatever you do, do not score the Obokata Protocol first though. Your HQ is safe... -ish... -er than you think. Put an Engram Flush and Slot Machine on there and people will not be able to check it often. Anansi go on the remote and will get shifted around with your Thimblerig, when able. And just play your outs and don't fear giving away accesses on centrals. Your centrals are your friend and are taxing the Runner enough.

Card includes

The changes to the list compared to the Euros list are:

-1 Macrophage, -1 Cyberdex Virus Suite

While Euros saw a very strong Crim presence, I expected a more diverse meta this time around, so the virus hate was cut down to the minimum level in this deck. Macrophage still is a very good piece of ice once one Sandbox is scored and incredible with two and CVS helps taint Archives as always.

+1 Thimblerig, +1 Vanilla

With Aumakua being hated very much out of the meta, the deck now can play Thimblerig number 3 and 4. While putting a turn 1 Rashida behind Engram Flush or Slot Machine is totally fine and still a positive interaction for you overall, even if they do run, being able to really protect Rashida is worth more. Notably I'm not playing Enigma in this slot, as I believe that the facecheck penalty of Engima is not enough to warrant it over the incredible versatility of Thimblerig and the economic advantage of Vanilla.

-1 Preemptive Action, +1 Snare!

The Preemptive was a preemptive include (hah) to fend off any form of ice destruction that might target my Anansis, but wasn't very well tested and thought through. This deck rushes more often than not and putting back 3 cards for 1 click is not the type of interaction that wins you the game. Snare on the other hand was a very spicy include. It was me convincing myself that I am indeed aiming for the top cut with open decklists, where it would shine the most. I did not expect to get any kills out of it in the Swiss rounds (although I lost one match because I decided to chicken out of the potential Snare install kill), but more hoped that the information about it would leak out (and was very happy to get streamed with a Snare hit). I found that just disregarding Engram Flush and just playing all of their cards to then throw all their clicks on your centrals early often lead to leaking 2-4 points.

4 comments
12 Oct 2020 Ghost Meat

Congrats on an amazing performance, @lostgeek!

12 Oct 2020 Council

Congrats on making the cut @lostgeek!

Looks like other people weren't so successful yoinking the agendas out of the remote and dodging the Snare!

12 Oct 2020 qvm

Congratseru!

15 Oct 2020 percomis

Your HQ is safe... -ish... -er than you think

For me this was the big lesson of the deck that often an Engram Flush on HQ is enough to protect the one or two Obos you have in there and you'll be pushing the rest anyhow.

Great deck, great player, 9/10 would play with and against again <3 (9 because I should have been playing literally anything instead of the 3rd Celebrity Gift)