Spark Nisei **1st Place - Element Games SC - UK**

SPARK NISEI - 1st Place - Element Games SC - UK

This is the deck that I took to the Element Games Store Championship in Stockport, England (PRE-MWL). In truth, I'd thought I'd try something new - I'd think a while about the expecting metagame and take decks that lean heavily in the direction of beating that archetype. I was expecting plenty of PPVP Kate and NoiseShop with a splash of Eater/Keyhole Anarchs.

Hunting around Netrunnerdb, I discovered a Spark deck using Caprice Nisei. Well, you don't see that around much! This was enough to pique my interest, props to @ryanbantwins for the original deck, I only changed one copy of The All-Seeing I to a Sweeps Week. Caprice Nisei was incredible in the deck and caught a few Runners out when they were expecting to be met with a Product Placement at the end of a server.

Click Here for Event report on Acoo

SWISS

• Andrew Bogie - Gabriel Santiago

It's round one. The shop is pleasant and there's plenty of space. Hayley has just taken a savage beating after being baited into a four deep scoring remote turn after turn before I could get fully set up and I felt like my head wasn't in the game.

To make matters slightly worse, the game went on for so long we have like eight minutes to try and finish this one. My opening hand is two Agendas, two ICE and a Sweeps Week. I protect HQ & R&D and Andrew opens up with a Sneakdoor Beta stealing two points, a few turns later he scores an NAPD Contract from an open R&D (to try and pull it back I've made a scoring remote of Wraparound + Caprice). In the meantime I score out a Beale from the scoring remote and pop an Astro in.

Time is called on my opponents turn, he can't find a Corroder so Femme Fatale's the Wraparound and we play a Psi game for the win. We both have a fair amount of cash and Andrew extends a closed fist, hovering over the centre of the table. My intial instinct is he will be bidding zero so I pop two credits into my hand. Then the doubt sets in...I don't want to be responsible for my actions!! I pick up a dice and roll it a couple of times (identifying which results I shouldn't pick, don't ask) and the dice demands I bid one credit.

Fists spin with a flourish and open, my bid of one to my opponents bid of two. Thanks dice! Timed draw is enough for one prestige.

• Cliff Orme - Noise

Round two I get to play against Cliff - he's from my local area in that he makes it to the odd GNK in Preston. Nicest guy ever and always a pleasure to play against. The game is fairly short however as I score two Beales under the comfort blanket of a Caprice. It's a really nice Agenda to overscore when time is of the essence and you're R&D is avalanching into your archives. HQ as very secure and fairly flooded so I wasn't too worried about the mills. As it happens Noise failed to deliver the goods this game and Spark nets me two prestige.

• John Buston - Kate McCaffrey (PrePaid)

Another local(ish) player and an absolute gent to boot. I helped John when he first started up with Netrunner, suggesting a few decklists and always making sure to have a catch up at local tournaments. Using FastroBiotics he had just schooled my Hayley deck despite Clot being present. I'll confess I missed the first Astro when he used Shipment from SanSan on a SanSan City Grid. A Cyberdex Virus Suite nestled in R&D prevented my Clot from sniping the second Astro and it was curtains from there.

This loss did tilt me a little - purely because I thought I'd now taken three losses and my breakers would be pretty poor. Added to this it's four rounds of swiss for a 32 player tournament (FFG's latest Tournament Rules update suggests this). Then again, after shuffling up, it eased the pressure to know I was just playing for fun.

This is the game where the ICE suite really started to shine. As I recall I had a pretty impressive remote (Caprice Nisei, 1x Tollbooth and some other ICE) while R&D had six ICE (featuring double Tollbooth, double Archangel, Pop-Up Window and Turnpike) due to R&D Interface showing up. Due to the ongoing Spark Tax (which was pretty heavy this game) he simply didn't have enough credits to install something over D4v1d to bring it back and get through anywhere. Two prestige more for Spark.

It's at this point my girlfriend, @Shanodin (who we're fairly certain has already Top 8'd going into the last round) points out that I had a timed win in the first round and a double win will guarantee a top 8 spot. Fire re-lit, time to get this done!

I then received a text from a family member with potentially devastating news. I might have jumped to conclusions a little but I just shutdown. I showed the message to @Shanodin and just talked a little to try and release some of the panic and upset I was feeling. I had my face in my hands, breathing deeply trying REALLY hard not to cry as I could feel my eyes welling up. After a few reassuring words from @Shanodin and a small hug I realise I probably am overreacting and jumping to conclusions and I push it all to the back of my mind for now. Damn emotions getting in the way of this tournament, lets win this thing! But seriously, thanks guys for being there, you know who you are...

• Iain Ross - Kit (Surfer/Paintbrush)

So, after that rollercoaster I've just managed to beat Iain's Blue Sun deck. The Agenda's were very few and far between, but Hayley managed to grab 'em. Iain starts popping down some Ghost Runner's, Refractor and some other stealthy goodness but in the end is too slow to set up. A surfer hits the board just before I manage to fast advance the winning agenda. Iain admits normally the deck sets up far quicker than that (and he did draw a lot of cards before it turned up), luckily for me it didn't! I'm happy I've top 8'd but there's still a while to go...

TOP 8

• Ryan Umbral Billington - Leela Patel

This was the first round of the Top 8. Ryan absolutely ruined me the other week at a GNK so I wasn't expecting this to be easy. The game starts of and I feel I can risk scoring an early Astro with only one ICE on HQ. Fortunately it pays off and he can't find a Siphon! Luckily I had quite a bit of economy going at this stage so it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but still...The Special Offer goes back down on HQ to ease the sting if a Siphon does turn up and I slowly start double ICEing HQ and RD. I use a Caprice as leverage against Leela by slowly advancing agenda's to stop her ability from being so disruptive to the board plus I couldn't Caprice HQ at this stage due to the Sneakdoor Beta Ryan has started using liberally so she goes down into the remote where she stays until I score out.

• Final Daniel Sargent - Maxx (Eater/Apocalypse)

This game was crazy. I'll let the video do the talking. Starts at the 12 minute mark Click Here for Twitch Video

Disgusting! Hence the image at the top (Steve Fleming from 'The Thick of it').

Lastly, I've never been to Element Games before, but the prize support was good, great atmosphere, great staff, and a great TO. They even made a custom trophy, much nicer than the FFG plaque. Excellent chippy nearby too.

I'll post the Hayley deck up later today/tomorrow. Hope you all enjoyed the write up.

Tally-Ho!