The Midnight Mission (3-0 and 3rd, ICC '23)

Prelude

In the 24 hours before Intercontinentals, my confidence was at an all-time low. I'd just come out of an 0-6 testing session and had lost all faith in my beloved BladderwoR+ archetype. Just about the only good thing to happen that day was that Daddy Bezos came through and finally delivered the first 3 volumes of the Moon Knight comic I'd ordered:

When I set my eyes on the title of the first volume, I knew what the plan was gonna be. Intercontinentals would start at 8pm local; if I could just make it to midnight alive, I'd be satisfied with my performance.

I still didn't know what corp I was going to play, but I'd be damned if I wasn't gonna show up repping my all-time favorite ID. Even if I bombed out, I'd do so while showing what R+ could do on the world stage. So I pulled up sadstug's CanNats 2nd place list, slammed in a set of Marilyns (among other things), and prayed to Khonshu that it would be good enough.

Gameplay

Tbh no one actually knows how to play this deck

Daily Business Show: It killed me inside to shave the 2nd and 3rd copies, but the deck is a lot more econ hungry with 4 5-cost ice and 3 FA Regions, and there was literally nothing else to cut. Telling Time is still amazing synergy though, and you'd have to pry the final copy from my cold dead hands.

Your Digital Life: R+ triggers and Federal Fundraising are amazing for pushing to exactly 8 cards in hand after mandatory draw to get max YDL value without having to discard. I never got to YDL off a Rashida fire, and I don't even think the deck needs that particular synergy to justify the include.

B-1001: Moon Knight himself. Each copy basically only gets to fire once per game, but each time is usually game-winning. The closest thing this deck has to a must-trash asset, other than FF (my beloved).

49 cards?!: If the runner steals a Beale in a 44 card deck, you now have to score every other non-Bellona agenda in the deck to win the game. 20 points gives you some extra wiggle room to bait steals into Oppo, and more importantly gives you 4 more much-needed slots to play with.

Most of the rest of the cards are covered in sadstug's excellent writeup; if you have any questions go check it out!

The Event

in which I discover my real name is Jai

(No offence taken, DeeR; I thought it was pretty funny)

Congrats, of course, to @rongydoge and especially @maininthemoon for their podium finishes this season - can't wait to see what Worlds and the SBL will bring! (#banhoshiko)

This deck went 3-0 on the day, beating styx's Hoshiko, Sokka's Tao, and rongydoge's Hoshiko - replay links embedded where applicable. If you're interested in looking at practice replays, sorry, those don't exist; only 3 runners were harmed in the making of this decklist, and all those were on the day itself.

My runner deck, as you might infer, went much more embarrassingly 1-3 on the day, although 2 of those losses (against both finalists, appropriately) involved catastrophic pilot error on my part. Especially check out the VOD of my elimination game vs rongydoge if you have 3 minutes to spare and need a good laugh.

Shoutouts

@mendax and @sadstug: If I see far, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Privileged to be able to draw on your experience and insight.

@kyraWNY: The weight of this season would have been impossible to bear without your support. Thanks for being a peer.

@augustuscaesar: My guy in the chair. Any group would be lucky to have you as an analyst. Someone hire this man

@nbkelly and @bking: As ever, my rocks. No words required.

@anzekay @Baa Ram Wu and everyone else rooting for me at the end: Apologies I couldn't carry the torch further - but at least I went out with a bang!

In Closing

As always, anyone looking to chat about Netrunner or just hang out can just slide into my Discord DMs; I'm always down to clown.

As many people have asked, I likely won't be able to make Worlds this year, so this marks the end of my 2023 competitive season - and I'd like to think I've done pretty decently for myself this year, but complacency is defeat and there are always more heights to climb!

And one last thing before I sign off for the season - in the spirit of Moon Knight, I'd like to leave you with this meme, which popped into my head fully-formed when I awakened from my post-tournament slumber:

ABR friendos

Jai out