SHTR's FULL! (3rd Place at Canadian Nationals West)

I've been sitting on this list for months, intentionally not posting it because (a) it's pretty gross, and (b) I was going to play it at Worlds, but a sharky September CO and Crown of Servers saw it have lower-than-usual results, so I panic-switched off it the morning of Worlds for NBN: Reality Plus. (Note to self: never play your main event decks in COS again).

This deck came 1st in Swiss, 3rd overall at Canadian Nats West on June 15 in Calgary, AB, going undefeated in Swiss, and dropping one game all day to the inimitable Sokka234 in the semifinals, with his nearly-unkillable Lat (Aniccam, 3x Stoneship Chart Room, Lat: Ethical Freelancer: do the math).

Since Nationals, I've modified this to be:

-1 Charlotte Caçador

-1 Hansei Review

-1 Regenesis

and

+1 Neurospike

+1 Daniela Jorge Inácio

+1 False Lead

making the deck much better.

The kill lines are myriad here, with the on-table threats of Reaper Function, Snare!, and Gaslight, into three potentially fatal Operation punishments in End of the Line, Punitive Counterstrike, and Neurospike. Rashida Jaheem is something the runner also has to check for among the spammed, naked remotes.

You can usually get a good read on your opponent on their turn 1 after you've sent out two or three remotes, to see if they bite on anything, and can usually adjust your play accordingly thereafter. If they're checking everything, put the Snares on the table, and Reapers behind ice (if you have enough of it). If they're ignoring remotes, spam out the Reapers until you have the golden, killing number.

The classic kill here is obviously to stick See How They Run on a La Costa Grid into End of the Line, which happens more often than you'd think with Gaslight, and Seamless Launch helps get you there when La Costa isn't around, or buys you a click to throw in a Neurospike for good measure. Watching the blood drain from a runner's face when they realize the psi game outcome on See How They Run doesn't matter at all (since they'll drop to 3 cards, and die to End of the Line) is one of the more satisfying feelings in the corp meta-game right now.

Blood in the Water is the unsung hero here, often ending the game if the runner drops to zero cards, and Reaper Function and Punitive can help you do that if the runner stole an agenda on the previous turn.

La Costa Grid and Seamless help you score your despicable agendas, like a Fujii Asset Retrieval into Neurospike kill, which I've also found to happen a lot since Nationals, in well over 100 games with the deck.

The ice suite is meant to combo with the kill package, especially Anemone, which is almost always guaranteed damage, that you can hopefully leverage into a bad access, like a Fuji or Snare, or into low hand size when your next turn starts. There aren't many good, killy Code Gates at the moment besides Attini, which I tried, but didn't find too impactful for its high cost. Watching runners spend a click and 4 credits on a Buzzsaw against this is weirdly satisfying as well (can you tell I'm a sicko yet?).

Besides Lat, you're usually not pumped to see Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist across the table from this, though it is possible to tax their cards out enough if they decide to do their usual game plan and have a hand size of 5 or fewer. If they stick an early Marrow and decide to not use half their cards for their actual abilities, that might be a tougher game for you to win, though reducing their cards to mere hit points is also a boon for you against Esa's brutal disruption.

Steelskin Scarring is the other bogeyman for this deck, but if you think you can stick a kill, it's always worth the risk to try, and if you hit them out of hand, your next attempt might be fatal. Crim is usually the faction you're happiest to see, so long as they don't Diversion of Funds you too many times. With no real in-faction damage protection outside of The Class Act, blue runners are often fodder for this deck.

Good players have sometimes been successful at solving this, but it's usually fairly thinky to beat. Sokka looked fairly concerned in our semis game at several points, and if I'd gotten a better draw that game (which was terrible), maybe I could have found a way through his impenetrable green fortress.

There were several rounds at Nationals where this would win in the first 5 minutes of the round, and seeing the widened eyes among sitting players watching me get up to report the match that early again was among my favorite memories of competitive Netrunner. It's surprising how many runners die on turn 1 or 2 against this (read: satisfying).

In its 100+ games, the deck's winrate is somewhere around 85%, which includes a lot of Jnet casual games (so not a great indicator), but many in-person games against good players too. It's the most fun I've had playing corp in some time, though I, like most, will be glad to see Jinteki: Personal Evolution go when Dawn rises.

Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist was my runner deck for the event, a very similar build to my West Coast US Nationals-winning list, with a few fairly minor modifications.

Thanks to Phil for running a fantastically fun event, with a strong turnout of lovely players!