I've never done this before, but I'm writing this report because I want to celebrate this first tournament in Münster since the FFG era. @sciurus_vulgaris did an amazing job preparing a location, providing snacks and drinks, advertising the event with new and established players, obtaining awesome prizes, running the tournament itself and scouting for places for regular meetups. Cheers to him for putting in all that work and growing our amazing community! Also thank you to everyone from around the area showing up to play and teaching the game to new players!
The event was a casual tournament consisting of six rounds of single-sided swiss. There were 13 participants in total. We had many new and returning players in attendance, including myself. There were plenty of snacks and drinks for everyone. In fact, there was more than we could hope to eat, so maybe come visit and help us with that!
I've been playing Netrunner since around the release of Honor and Profit in 2014. With the end of FFG, COVID and then the unfortunate shipping situation in the EU the local Netrunner community disappeared. I kept following the game, occasionally playing with friends and incessantly gushing to strangers about my beloved game. Only in recent months have I heard of people looking to play in the area on the german Netrunner discord server. Fast forward and all of a sudden theres a tournament in two weeks and holy shit I have barely had time to play, no to mention get comfortable with a deck. This is why I picked this deck.
The deck is COREHURT GUIDANCE PROGRAM. When I saw the recent trend of core damage HB I was in love. However, I also have a soft spot for installing lots of things, so thankfully I was able to find this list, which does both of these things! It served me very well on the day, scoring in at 2 wins and 1 loss having never played it before. The one loss I was later told I had all the tools ready to turn around. It was my lack of familiarity with the deck and the card pool holding back this beautiful pile of cards.
The runner deck I used can be found here.
Matches
- Round 1: WIN vs Lat - I held a good hand, but was quickly agenda flooded. I struggled to keep HQ safe while establishing remote servers, which the runner exploited mercilessly. I tried drawing for anything to get my game going, but only found even more agendas and Nightmare Archives. Desperate to divert her attention I installed those into remotes, but eventually had to overwrite them again as she continued assaulting HQ relentlessly, quickly ending up on game point, while I only managed to score a blank Project Vitruvius. Despite HQ always holding plenty of agendas she kept whiffing, but I was kept on the edge of my seat throughout the game. At one point she ran Archives where a Spin Doctor was hiding 5 points and encountered two Nightmare Archives from earlier there. Since she was on game point she took the 2 core, followed by a third from Salvo Testing the next turn. She took a turn to set up econ when I topdecked an Ontological Dependence and was able to score it out for the win. This was the first tournament game I've played in probably a decade and it left my heart pounding.
- Round 3: WIN vs Mercury - The runner playing very aggressively, stealing 4 points, but also eating 2 Nightmare Archives. He forgot about the core damage on one turn, ending on 0 cards in grip. I happened to have a Djupstad Grid ready to score an agenda, flatlining him without even intending to.
- Round 5: LOSS vs Deep Dive Sable.
I manage to get Cohort running quickly, but struggle to find ICE to protect centrals, which nets Sable 4 points. It also nets her three Nightmare Archives resulting in a total of 3 Core damage and -1 points by late game. I'm unable to shore up centrals and score out quickly enough, and they finish with a Deep Dive and a good mark.
Later it was pointed out to me that I could have prevented the DD with my Ablative Barrier rez into Manegarm Skunkworks, but until they played DD I completely forgot about its existence. The deck could have easily carried me from there with an Ontological ready to be scored on a Djupstad.
I ended up placing 3rd on the day, and was lucky to be gifted a Cat's Cradle playmat by the event winner, who already owned one! I was overjoyed! Thank you to everyone attending! I had a great time. Hope to see you all again soon in Cologne, the Ruhr Valley or the next time in Münster!