Game Loss Simulator [9th, 16th @ American Conts]

Pictured: what it feels like to pick up a deck like this for the first time and try to not do something illegal.

This is the deck that fellow Muntal Bost-er (Muntal Boste? Munta Boost? The lore deepens) Eli (@ThatsNoMun) and I took to 9th and 16th place at American Contentals aka Cascadia this past weekend with an overall record of 7-3. I'm giving this one the treatment of a proper write-up because A) I need deckslots and B) it felt extremely rewarding to refine this list with the team -- especially to have Sam's (@Radiant) literal 11th hour suggestions that were huge on the day. Refining this list for multiple hours the night before was so much fun. However, before continuing I have to give immense credit to @Jai for pioneering the list at APAC. We tested with it a bit, felt like it was busted already with an even higher ceiling, and rolled with it.

The List

The core of this list and the inspiration for the title is the combination of effects that a rezzed Daily Business Show and Federal Fundraising generates. Jai's writeup has an extensive description of the combo and why it's so insanely good, so instead I'll talk about some interesting cases we discovered and what we changed.

On the gameplan:

You always want at least as many FFs rezzed as DBS, or else you can lose some of the insane control. Let's say you have two DBS and an FF rezzed. You arrange the top three cards of R&D, and then you must draw all three of them (regardless of if you use the FF draw and mandatory draw, or just your mandatory draw), keep one, and bottom the other two. You no longer know what's on top of R&D.

However, once you get a second FF into the mix you're back in (even more) business. Provided at least one of the FFs can draw you a card (i.e. is not protected by ICE), you can use that one to arrange the top three and draw all of them, send 2 to the bottom with the 2x DBS, and arrange a brand new top three with the 2nd FF and safely mandatory draw without leaving an agenda on top (as long as the second FF only shows you one).

Sound complicated? See the deck title. Provided both players know the list (and therefore do not call the judge to issue a game loss), there is also a convenient shortcut with 1 of each rezzed where the R+ player picks up all three, puts one in their hand, one on the bottom, and one back on top of the deck.

We also briefly toyed with the idea of threats other than Bladderwort but quickly went back on that. Bladderwort does several things at once that make it perfect in a deck like this:

• It makes money and is relatively annoying to trash at 3c.
• It plays well with a game-plan that wants to scrap around on low credit totals for both players.
• It's negative tempo for the runner; every card pinged is another card draw action the runner might need to take (steelskin notwithstanding).
• It can snipe crucial pieces; combined Eli and I probably pinged 7+ Simulchips from hand that were huge in match-ups where we were staring down clot.
• It's menacing; something about Bladderwort makes players play worse, which is great news for you.

On our changes:

We identified a couple of weaknesses that we thought could be exploited, and changed around a few slots that all pulled weight in various matches during the day.

• -2 Freedom of information, +2 Project Beale
  • This was suggested in Jai's original writeup. Basically, in practice it can be hard to stick a good player who is sitting back with the tags necessary to fast-advance an FOI. Beale however can be FA'd directly with a SanSan which both helps you close and demands the runner deal with SanSan (and likely tag themselves in the process).
• -1 Shipment From Vladisibirsk, +1 SanSan City Grid
  • The core premise of the deck felt like forcing the runner to take tags by trashing must-deal-with assets. I definitely had one game where I really needed to dig for the shipment against a runner who went tag-me, but we felt like you NEED to get the ARES scored asap for the deck to work, and made this change as a result. We waffled a lot on this one and still aren't 100% sure.
• -1 Virtual Service Agent, +1 Starlit Knight
  • I will admit, I thought Starlit Knight kind of sucked on release. However, in testing we realized that a shaper player going tag-me and setting up clot lock while waiting to dig R&D with a Conduit or Deep Dive was pretty much doom for the deck as it does not close quickly. Starlit Knight being an expensive end-the-run sentry with a relevant face-check seemed like a natural fix to begin to address this.
• -1 Predictive Planogram, +1 Market Forces
  • Speaking of runners going tag-me, we decided that we needed to include this as a way to deal with it effectively and that the deck drew enough and was solvent enough without the plano. Had either of us made the cut, we also thought having it in the deck would be useful in an open list situation.
• -1 Marilyn Campaign, +1 Malia Z0L0K4
  • Thanks again to Sam for convincing us to include this -- it pulled major weight on the day. I won my last game because the runner managed to scrounge back to six credits and put down a Liberated Account click one -- only for it to lose all game text immediately. Like I said earlier, the deck generally is okay for money and this can be a back-breaking hit for a runner if timed correctly.

On the day:

The deck beat Hoshiko 3x, 419 1x, Arissana 1x, Tao 1x, and Lat 1x, and lost to Freedom 1x, Arissana 1x, and Lat 1x. Each loss was to a deck packing clot, which has us wondering about Mavirus but as far as we can tell the slots might not be there. However, the losses all felt close and the wins felt dominant. We still think there's room to refine this archetype and are excited to see where it goes.

Closing thoughts

I am immensely grateful to Sam (Radiant), Eric (Whiteblade111), and NSG OP Staff for pulling together such a sick event. The room felt insanely stacked with talented players, and even though I missed out on the cut by an SoS gap of 0.02, this was my best placement ever in a major event and left me feeling so energized about playing NetRunner. I met so many people in-person for the first time, and every single one was wonderful.

See y'all next year.