Iggy: Don't Achieve the Possible (3-4 at Worlds)

This is the deck I piloted to a very mediocre, losing record at Android: Magnum Opus last week, but I'm sharing it because, well, why not? It's not like we're going to have a ton of new (official FFG, at least) events to share decks from, so here's mine. I post for posterity.

Like many, I decided to get a Netrunner tattoo, and rather than link or a faction logo, I wanted something more obscure, a bit more personal to me, and something that would look good as an abstract symbol rendered in thin lines. So, I got an IG tattoo -- people have reacted with excitement, confusion, and derision at this decision, but I really love it and it's my arm, so just calm down, okay?

This, of course, necessitated that I'd have to play IG at Worlds. I'd had such a conflicted relationship with this ID over the course of the game -- it was one that almost drove me out of the game during the Museum IG period, but one I grew to love as a fun, more fair combo kill deck during the Hinkes IG49 run of 2016. The tattoo represented my ups and downs with Netrunner, so, yeah, had to give playing it one more go.

The basic idea here is the same as the IG49 Dan won GenCon 2016 with, mainly updated for current MWL and agendas. I was given a variant of the SF crüe's IG lists, one of which I believe Noah McKee piloted into the cut. You can find his earlier Bankers IG posted from July, and that's the crucial update to IG that seems to make it work again, as far as I could tell. This deck makes tons and tons of money (I ran out of credit tokens in one game where the opponent gave up trying to contest the money assets), and so it frees up slots that early IG49 decks used for Breaker Bay Grids, and also freed you up to play somewhat stronger ICE (2x Anansi).

I also decided to spice this accordingly, probably changing it quite significantly from any of the other IG decks (I don't really know what they piloted to be honest, so I think so?) In various iterations of this, I went with 3x SSL, 1x Bacterial or 3x Bacterial, 1x SSL, but eventually split the difference at 2 and 2. I don't think 3x SSL, 1x Bacterial is significantly better to this, as I regularly had plenty of money, just not the cards in the right order, and might go to 3x Bacterial, 1x SSL. At one point, I considered switching one 5/3 into two Chronos Projects, fearful of MaxX, heap breakers, etc., but, well, like, slots, man.

I know some IG lists were running multiple Drudge Work, but I really wanted the 1x Ark Lockdown in there in case I ran into any Levy-based Runners. I faced zero MaxX on the day, actually, but it was crucial in winning me a game versus a Geist (who I had to kill, slowly, through two On the Lams; value Ronin can actually be a thing). I'm sure more Drudge Work would have won me more games (especially the one where I stupidly forgot I had an extra SSL in Archives, but that's pilot error). The Ark did end up being useful in two games.

I had an extra influence and vacillated between Daily Business Show and Blacklist, and eventually went with Blacklist (vs. Levy, heap breakers, etc). This was definitely a mistake; DBS would have won me a few more games, I think, as flood issues and sequencing problems were really what lost me at least two games on the day. It's the first thing I'd change, but, let's be honest, I'm probably not going to ever play IG at a big event again, so, hell, go ahead and turn it into a Space Camp for all I care.

Finally, I originally had a Preemptive, but cut it, hoping that 3x Genotyping would be enough to keep me going. In general, they probably were, but I think I might have liked having the extra escape plan there. Instead, it turned into 1x Snare! which was included primarily as a psychological threat -- since so few IG run Snare! anyway, I figured once the opponent saw one, they'd be inclined to worry about more, and disincentivized to run centrals as freely. It did get me a turn 1 win on the day, which I still feel guilty about (sorry, dude).

Anyway, that was my spin on IG. It didn't win much for me, but I was only a turn away from killing opponents in two of the games I lost, so I think it wasn't too bad? Let's just chalk it up to pilot incompetence more than it being a terrible deck.

I'll miss competitive Netrunner as it's existed to date, with Worlds and FFG's supported game. But I very much look forward to playing in NISEI events down the road, and maybe if IG doesn't get rotated, I can bring this out again someday. Thanks for reading.