It's a Grug Kit list! You know what Grug Kit does! Play cards and break ice for cheap and make the corps sad!
In the run up to the event, I was terrified about how many Azmaris I might see on the day. Not only is it an incredibly strong deck that continues to win, but I was walking right into its home town, I couldn't not be prepared for it to find me and give me a really mean arm burn.
So I took Dan's most recently published version of his very good lists and just stuffed more tech into it. Out went an Aniccam, a Burner and the Rigging Up, and in came two more Stoneships and the last Nuka. Draw is good, we want cards. All of the cut cards felt like they could have been useful though, and I would put them back in if I could.
I did briefly consider some more substantial changes, like a Taka (for Maemi and Bands) or even a Light the Fire! (for Debbie), but ultimately decided not to over-complicate things.
I didn't play against Azmari all day until the cut semi-finals (whomp whomp), but I was still terrified to finally see it. Somehow I managed to scrape a win out, which I'm still slightly in shock over. Despite potential death coming by, like, turn 4, the matchup feels strangely about patience. Don't waste your clicks on unnecessary runs. Think carefully about whether to use a Pinhole yet. Save Burner for when you really need it. Dig, dig, dig and find those breakers (or breaker-equivalents). If you can't stop the kill threat from appearing (which is very likely), be prepared to deal with it.
It also beat some other corps, which was cool.
On a personal note, at the start of the year I'd set a small goal of actually trying to get a bit better at Netrunner, and my main concrete goal was to make the cut at a decent sized, in-person event. I felt like became more and more of a nervous wreck as the day went on and I continued to sit around the top tables. Surely someone would expose me as the fraud I actually am at any moment now? But I did it! And it was fun as hell!
Thank you to every lovely opponent I faced on Saturday, all the wonderful people who helped make the event run smoothly, and to everyone in London I get to play with every week. You're all great.