Rustryder’s Apoc Maxx [1st at Brno GNK]

This is an exact copy of Rustryder’s ‘Last Minute Changes’ deck he came 4th at Worlds with. Classic Unband Apoc Maxx, but teched against CtM with Deuces, and going down to 2 copies of Apocalypse in turn.

Any likes are please transferred to his decklist, yet I wanted to reflect on my interesting games in Brno, hence the writeup.

Round 1 [Mildesorte – Bouncy PD aka Sportsmetal Glacier]: Win

I first encountered this deck in Warsaw, Matuszczak rocking a similar suite, with the idea being that Sportsmetal can reduce the swingy-ness of Precision Design builds by giving you a bounce-back from having agendas stolen, while also meaning that you have less explosive agenda-scoring chains by recurring your Seamless Launch. Knowing what I was up against after seeing a few cards, I had a decently easy game, ALTHOUGH an unexpected Ark Lockdown on my 2 remaining copies of Paperclip turned an otherwise easy post-Apoc win into a race to mill barriers with Stargate and steal enough remaining agendas before my opponent could lock me out. Fortunately they did not find the required barriers in time, allowing me to steal enough points to win.

Round 2 [Cucin – Mwanza AGInfusion]: Win

This was a really long game – 50 minutes perhaps, and boy, did it test my Apoc Maxx skills. An AGinfusion laden with copies Ganked! (and I was afraid of Snare! too, but later found out my opponent did not run any), I had played some games with Odol’s ‘Yellow AG’ build, and knew roughly what to expect. Knowing I had to be surgical about my Apoc timing, I waited until they double advanced something in the stacked remote, and used my OOTAs to force rezzes, trashes and broke Anansi on HQ roughly three times. If I had not dripped to 60 credits, I likely would’ve not had the required credits, but as it was, I somehow managed to wipe the board, and from then my opponent could not recover.

https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/6b647977-2f7e-4b85-8c0c-b0b7022e7d48/ganked-is-right-card-for-agi-3-0-at-gnk - a former build by Cucin.

https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/f9961def-4633-48b5-8e0a-8ef576727d6c/yellow-infusion - Odol’s streamlined version.

Round 3 [Kubik – Mwanza AGInfusion: Snare Edition]: Win

If the former AG build was a puzzle that forced my runner skills to the edge, this was it’s nightmare twin that likely dropped the already low win-rate into the 10-20% bracket.

Knowing my opponent enjoyed Sokka’s streams, I expected a ‘Tower of Death’ kind of deck, which led to me never running the stacked remote (turned out it was Data Loops and Border Controls, ah well). Focusing all pressure on centrals and thinking about Apoc, I milled down to ‘Labor Rights’ level territory, stacking my hand with IHW, keeping one Apoc in the 2-card deck to allow me to Apoc post-Snare! in HQ, which I was destined to run into.

With points being 3-2, time being called, and my opponent IAA’ing an agenda in the remote, I went for the Apoc play – only to find an Obo on R&D. Lucky, since if I hadn’t found it, HQ would’ve obliterated my hand with the requisite Snare!s and Ganked!s awaiting me.

I do not enjoy winning on time – after all, it feels like too often you cheat someone out of a deserved victory. In this instance there was something poetic about both Kubik and I winning off the Hail Mary R&D access in a board state that was otherwise unwinnable. Play to your outs, I guess.