A Bird in the Hand at UK Nationals [Undefeated, 1st@Startup]

This deck was based on a fundamental thesis: Saci Woppo is the most fun thing you can do in Netrunner. With 9 influence locked up, the rest of the spend should be fairly obvious. Physarum Entangler because it's the best safety net an Arissana player could ever want, and Botulus to help cook a 10 strength Pharos or heavily advanced Logjam.

• Round 2: Win vs Snoobs on kill PE to Trick Shot
• Round 4: Win vs Gironetrics on fast advance Epiphany to Conduit
• Round 5: Win vs Simili on Reality Plus to Conduit
• Finals: Win vs Lap on Weyland Consortium: Built to Last to Trick Shot

This deck is very fundamentals driven. You want to figure out where the corp is weakest and establish lock, either R&D (with Conduit, Trick Shot, and “Pretty” Mary da Silva), or their scoring remote with Botulus and surprise economy (Saci Woppo).

Very frequently your scoring pattern should be to score 1 agenda out of a remote by pulling access out of thin air early (physarum, slap vandal, or muse for breaker). Another out of remote when they think they have a scoring window through Saci Woppo, then a final agenda off of R&D with Mary + Trick Shot.

Early game you should be forcing rez as often as possible, slamming into every ice to find their weak point. If they rez something pricey, keep an eye on their credits and save the Saci Woppo combo turns for when it looks like they will not be able to afford the re-rez, or where it will hurt them excessively to do so.

It's also perfectly valid to use Saci Woppo as a pure econ play. In the finals vs Lap I Saci Woppo'd, and Lap rezzed expecting to tax me the credits I gained on breaking, I simply bounced off the Logjam instead with my +5 credit econ play and forced rez.

Overall, the event was extremely fun, and I am very glad to have both had the opportunity to play in it against so many other excellent Startup players, and been able to convert it and take home the bragging rights!

• Corp List