Regicide Ob - 3rd @UK Nats '24 ("Worlds 2")

This is the corp list I piloted to a 3rd place finish at UK Nationals - aka "Worlds 2" - losing only to Chris Dyer's Lat in Top Cut (undefeated in Swiss)

(See also: my aruzan-inspired Arissana deck that helped me place 3rd)

Siphoning Brandon's Power

Why "Regicide"? The night before UK Nats, everyone's favourite monarch; Brandon (aka "The King") showed us his stunning one-of-a-kind Jakuza alt art Ob; a superheavy stone coaster.

I fell in love with it and nearly took his arm off when he offered to lend it to me for the event. I proudly presented it to all my opponents, explaining the backstory before every game, and I was riding high... until round 9 of Swiss... where I get paired against Brandon... as Ob. 😭

Beating Brandon with his own alt felt terrible, but I told him that he'd clearly given me something too strong, and it was "siphoning his power". I was gutted when I made the Cut but our beloved King didn't, but I hope I did this gorgeous piece of art justice and I'm glad it got to shine on stream in Day 2.

The List

This deck is very similar to @maninthemoon's Ob list from Worlds, and all the credit goes to them for making their brutally punishing list 💜 The main changes I made were:

• -3 Hearts and Minds, -1 Akhet, -1 Reversed Accounts — everyone knows to trash H&M, mitm's writeup even mentions it! so I cut these to slot in some other pieces I felt were vital to the deck (and with H&M gone, Akhet and Reversed made a lot less sense in the list)

• +2 Mavirus, +1 Drudge Work, -1 Marilyn Campaign — Mavirus has always been great for Ob combos, it gives you some fight against otherwise miserable matchups like Loup, Freedom, or Aumakua decks, and the single net damage is occasionally relevant, even as a deterrent on top of key assets or other upgrades

  • Drudge Work is fetchable from Mav to help fix flood, and it's a reasonable replacement for Marilyn Campaign as a "2c economy card" (if you squint hard enough)

• +1 Border Control, +1 Sandstone, +1 Ice Wall - the other primary thing I wanted to add was more ice to protect centrals from nasty runner tricks (and 3x BC is literally the first step to any Ob list, imo). Ice also sticks around on the board, meaning you still have some trashable targets against runners that go "scorched earth" on your remotes

• -2 Wall to Wall, +1 Extract - I hate drawing multiple W2Ws as it's unique (plus we've lost the Akhet/H&M synergy), and +1 Extract was a recommended change from Abraham, himself

Piloting

I won't go too in-depth, as the original writeup covers this brilliantly already, but there's a few key pointers if you want to try this list out:

We are not a kill/grinder deck! (at least not exclusively...)

Treat this deck like Loud or Built to Blast, where you can score out using fast-advance tricks, but you can also pivot and punish the runner if they step out of line.

You want to score The Basalt Spire in most of your games, even if it's just to recur your nasty kill pieces because the runner won't let you score in peace.

Play around MCA!

MCA Austerity Policy is crazy good right now - the Top 3 corps all played at least one copy, in completely different factions. It's vital to fast-advancing a 5/3, as well as taxing the runner by giving them less time to keep up with Urban Renewals and Oppo Research tags.

BUT: this puts a lot of strain on your Spin Doctors to keep shuffling it back into the deck multiple times, which is where Drudge Work shines as flood replacement (alongside scored/stolen Basalt Spire helping recur the MCA)

Special Thanks

• All the organisers, judges, volunteers, etc. — UK Netrunner is such an awesome environment, but turning around such a smooth event despite all the crazy venue issues was incredible ❤️
• The TAI Breakers team, as usual — from our Heathrow roadtrip, to losing my voice yelling about being "team mum", to endless rounds of braille shithead that nobody wanted to end, y'all are amazing and I couldn't have done it without you ❤️
• Of course, @maninthemoon, for keeping Ob weird and wonderful, and for trading me some stunning alt arts to use for the deck in San Francisco 😍