Low Sensory Room Meta (17th/22nd @ Worlds 2024)

DEVELOPMENT

This is a list developed by Snare Bears and played by Whiteblade and myself at 2024 Worlds in San Francisco. It is based off Sokka’s and various others’ glacier Ags decks, primarily crafted by our teammate cablecarnage. Whiteblade copied it and made some weird choices, then we smoothed out the rough edges together.

I piloted it to 4-3 on the day with a couple heartbreaking losses. I clearly needed a few more reps in paper despite my love of red glacier. By the end of the tournament I finally felt confident in the deck.

photo by faxolotl

PLAY PATTERNS

Like PD, this deck can run at a few different speeds. In some matchups, you can rush out a couple Nisei Mk. IIs and beat the runner on tempo, in others you plant a Charlotte and a La Costa in a remote and grind the game to a halt. This was the primary strategy I used throughout the tournament, utilizing Sprint and Spin Doctor to manage the flow of agendas to my benefit. The occasionally Bacterial Programming score only furthers the corp’s control of the game, acting simultaneously as filtered draw, defensive reordering, and tempo-forward planning. AgInfusion has the benefit of stuffing powerful run events like Trick Shot and Diversion of Funds, as well as the ability to leverage huge ice for multiple awkward encounters.

The only difference between my deck and Whiteblade's was the 1x Sprint for a 1x Crisium Grid. Both make sense to me, but having been a traumatized Pālanā player, I'm pretty obsessed with a tidy HQ.

TOURNAMENT REPORT

ROUND 2
RotomAppliance (Lat)
Things got real immediately for me when I was paired on stream against friend and fellow Snare Bear, Patrick (RotomAppliance). We had tested a lot of AgInfusion and Lat leading up to the event, so I was pretty confident in the matchup, if not in my prospects against a former world champ. I must have been pretty shaken as someone in the chat noticed I missed two (two!) mandatory draws. The game played out pretty normally for the matchup, Ag leaking a BacProg early that sets up a scoring window for a Nisei Mk. II. The problem is Patrick knew that the most important card for him was the humble Fermenter, which he must have popped four times, twice for ten (ten!) credits. With an early Turbine, even my M.I.C.s and Brans were mild roadblocks. Unable to draw Voids or Bio Vaults, I floundered a bit, trying to force bad runs and clean up HQ to prevent big Cupellation plays. With infinite time I probably still lose this, but I think I still played too slowly and nervously to take it.

ROUND 3
BrainChipsAhoy (Kit)
Kit is an interesting matchup for Ag which is actually kinda challenging. An early Lobi prevents the aggressive lines of an early Nisei, and they have effective tools to blunt your economy. In this matchup, I had to weather the barrage of NSG-sanctioned shaper bullshit from Trick Shots to Cataloguers, to Burners. The game began miserably for me after the mulligan with three agendas and a single ice. By turn two I had to naked install a La Costa Grid to save face and pretend I wasn’t completely flooded. Luckily I was able to Spin and recover with a Hedge Fund shortly thereafter. A couple turns later, after a Compile to find the 1x Lobi, a Spark showed me literally every card in his deck, which was vital information for planning out the rest of the game. Only a Harmony AR Access provided recursion, and he had no solid drip solutions, so I decided to hunker down and grind it out. Slow and steady won the race, but not before he got to game point on a couple clutch steals.

ROUND 6
yucaBEAN (Lat)
I was so ready to prove myself against another Lat after the RotomAppliance game. I resolved to give nothing up on R&D, create three impenetrable servers, and run this shaper through the wringer. Then he installed a Hermes. I knew from playing against crim that I needed to slow roll agendas through Hermes lest I open up weak points in my defenses, but this also opens you up to getting agendas bounced, costing you multiple actions of tempo. The money wasn’t really there early, and I probably pushed too early, so I made the mistake of giving him early R&D accesses. Consecutive singles on R&D gave up five points of agendas, bouncing both of my central ice and putting me back to square one. A couple turns later, after I snuck out the requisite early Nisei, he made a modest run on my single iced HQ. Unable to rez the Saisentan after the score, I had to decide whether I wanted to continue to dig myself into a hole of wasting clicks and resources by popping the Nisei token right there, or to just let him take the 1 in 4 for the win. Deciding to play to win the game, and not to not lose, I let him in and he touched his third agenda in three accesses. Then everything went dark.

INTERLUDE – THE LOW SENSORY ROOM

After a minor freakout where I simply walked away from the table (not my proudest moment), I came back, apologized (my opponent was gracious and understanding) and headed directly to the low sensory room. This is a new space this year where the lights are dim and talking is prohibited. While it sounded like a nice idea, I didn’t realize it was a perfect remedy to the intense stress and commotion of a major tournament.

I was able to reflect a little on the lack of agency I felt in the last matchup and the daunting prospect of tanking the rest of the tournament, one I had spent a significant amount of time prepping for in the past month. Every year or so I run the math in my head about the value of competitive Netrunner in my life: Why am I unable to accept the variance inherent in card games? How much time am I “wasting” on a hobby that rewards me with frustration? How valuable is a “vacation” to a beautiful city like San Francisco if I spend all three days relegated to the dank nerd basement the hotel wants to hide us in?

The low sensory room answered with silence. This was honestly a very helpful response. Instead of validating my spiraling logic, I was able to address the key issues. Variance is part of what makes card games exciting, but there is such a huge amount of skill expression in Netrunner that, even eight years into playing the game, I’m only starting to explore it. My time isn’t wasted if I do my best and stay positive, regardless of outcome. This vacation is excellent because I am able to spend time with some of my closest friends who I rarely get to see in real life.

I spent some time texting my wife, who was at home in New York, diligently shoving pills down the throat of our ancient cat, who had been sleeping downstairs every night waiting for me to come home. I put things into perspective, and I returned to the clamor of the tournament to kick some ass.

ROUND 7
snowbie (Zahya)
After three games against shapers, I was due for some more favorable matchups against criminals. AgInfusion excels at denying value from run events, and the criminal breaker suite doesn’t always measure up well against the big purple ice. My opponent expressed some skepticism about the matchup, but I thought they played it well. I just hyper-turtled and let a Charlotte cook for a half-dozen turns before I was safely able to push. Never having an agenda in hand thanks to Sprint and Spin, I was unafraid to see him multi-access HQ every single turn for WAKE counters and Zahya bucks. R&D ended up pretty stacked, as usual, but a tower of ice, a Nisei token, and a facedown innermost ice completely invalidated any prospect of a WAKE dig. The game almost went to time, but I was able to score out, having drained the runner of most of his resources.

ROUND 9
plural (Hoshiko)
Seeing Hoshiko on the pairings felt like a punch in the gut. One of the reasons I chose AgInfusion was because I expected few if any Crew Hoshes. Despite playing the deck to great success at NANPC Boston and East Coast Nats, I completely forgot about the threat of DooF and was zeroed on turn one. To make matters worse, Plural slammed an early Stargate to lock me out of ice and agendas. I was lucky enough to sneak a Rashida out of the mess and recover slightly. My opponent was rolling in money through Patchwork>Steelskin /Strike Fund, so I was flailing to cover all centrals. An early Mavirus stopped the aggression for a time, but he was able to set up a Crew and was ready to poke centrals. Turtling up and purging took a few turns, so his stack was actually getting quite low. A Boto fire was good enough to knock out his last Labor Rights from hand, so I thought I had a shot to deck him and glacier up for the win, but his final Crew/Charm destroyed the loyal Boto on R&D, revealing 5 points on the Stargate for the win. I was feeling defeated, and I knew I would have to win out to have a chance at the cut.

ROUND 12
iherdn3rfz (Ken Tenma)
As day two began, I was at the bottom of Swiss in rank and strength of schedule, so I imagined it would be an uphill battle. I lucked into a very favorable matchup against Ken Tenma, who is not only a criminal, but a criminal who relies on run events. Aside from Carpe Diem, it was incredibly difficult for my opponent to get value from Swift. I went extremely slowly and let Charlotte do her thing. Unlike Zahya, who could at least get some passive income from her ability, Ken had a finite number of resources. I used this to my advantage, waiting until the stack was quite thin and the clock was low to start pushing. I was indeed able to score out before time thanks to Sprint and Spin cleaning up HQ and a giant stack of M.I.C.s protecting R&D.

ROUND 14
kysra (Lat)
For the final round, I was paired against sebk, and of course the re-pair gave us a Snare Bear teamkill. Kysra had been ripping up Swiss all weekend but was coming off of tough losses to RotomAppliance and tzeentchling. I had doubts at the beginning of the day that even 3-0 on day two would make the cut for me, but we were sitting at Table 7, so I had to try. I prioritized protecting R&D early with big ice and boopables for Trick Shot, so early scoring was tough. They were running pretty aggressively, denying a bunch of my econ, so I leaned into it and tried to bluff my way through a lot of their resources. I eventually got a Charlotte to stick and was rolling in cash, which allowed me to hyperglacier and secure a Nisei Mk. II. Time ended up being a factor, and I was incredibly nervous, so I started shaking a bit and rushing near the end. Without enough money to fully break everything on R&D, kysra allowed a Saisentan to fire on HQ. Because I don’t actually understand how cards work and was playing frantically, I assumed that the extra damage ability would fire off the extra damage and flipped the fifth and final card from their hand, which honestly should have been a game loss. Down two scores at that point, they knew that getting in once (I was still sitting on a Nisei counter) wasn’t going to do it and conceded at time.

I had won my last five games in a row, fighting for my life to make the cut. When the Top 16 was posted, I found my name at 17th with a record of 10-4, almost an entire point of SoS behind jan tuno at 16. Of the nine 10-4s, only maninthemoon and I bubbled out. I was devastated. The Shakespearean tragedy was complete. Not only was my effort in vain, my hubris punished, but I had knocked out my metamate, teammate, and friend.

Over the next couple days I thought a lot about my experience this year. Ultimately, I’m proud of what I achieved, having beaten myself up (something that I’ve done a lot throughout big tournaments over the years) and then worked through it. I think I am starting to see the value in playing and testing with friends, spending more time collaborating and playing in person rather than frantically jamming online. I also experienced my fair share of humility. There are some amazing players out there now; this is probably the richest field of talent Netrunner has ever had. This past August I turned 40, which is basically geriatric by card game standards, but I’m excited to continue to grow and find the tiny improvements in my play to stay competitive with the young whippersnappers.

SHOUT OUTS
Shout outs to all the Snare Bears for responding to my annoying pings for practice, especially DeeR, kysra, rongydoge, RotomAppliance, tbu3k, and SUPER shoutout to cablecarnage who always was there to run wild matchups conveniently scheduled during my breaks at work (and very occasionally during class). Shout out to Andrej and ysengrin for pulling double duty as teammates and making 2024 Worlds an incredible experience.

Shout out to shiiuga for again running an excellent Janksgiving which I was proud to attend and 0-2 drop after talking incredible shit about my decks.

Shout out to Whiteblade for developing the list, believing in it, and providing me with a sense of calm and perspective throughout the tournament. The young man who ordered 35 chicken nuggets on Sunday night in the middle of the street in San Francisco has actually reached Netrunner enlightenment.

Shout out to Andrej and rohit for pulling out an amazing run in CoS and for having amazing taste in board games.

And finally shout out to NSG for keeping the best game and best community alive. See you at Worlds next year!