In the two years I've played, I've observed that a lot of players treat Netrunner like a euro game — they play decks with the maximum raw value (reg Hosh last season, Lat right now), and try to win by having more money, more cards, more clicks than their opponent. But that's just not Netrunner.

What is Netrunner? To me, it's staring into someone's soul and knowing, without a shadow of a doubt, which card they jammed into the remote. And then, Inside Jobbing it, bouncing the ice on R&D, seeing 3 off the top, and dabbing on 'em.

Criminal has the least money and the least draw. But, it's also the faction that is best at setting up and capitalizing on soul-reads. You can force ice rezzes early with Bravado and Hermes for information, and you can punish your opponent with Inside Job or Pinhole Threading if you can read them.

There's something truly beautiful about high-level crim play — you pressure from multiple angles, walk the knife's edge of what risks you're willing to take, and unless you're constantly reading your opponent's mind, you don't stand a chance. You can't outvalue your opponent, you can only outthink them.

It's just honest Netrunner.

The deck

Assemble Exodia and go commit honest crimes.

It's very similar to Whiteblade/Solomir/rongydoge/RotomAppliance's Bankroll Sable lists from the past year, tuned to the current meta.

-3 Diversion of Funds: The saddest change, but couldn't call this deck honest if I didn't cut DoF. Unfortunately, econ denial is too weak into the majority of corps right now. With the prevalence of YDL, Tranq Grid, and R+, corps can recover or play comfortably with minimal credits. Plus, I was expecting lots of unsuccessful run effects like Crisium Grid to deal with Deep Dive, and you can't DoF past an Ag boop.

+1 Pinhole Threading: I hate this card, but adding a second one felt right since we expected Azmari to run the middle tables.

+1 Forged Activation Orders: After extensive testing with Winston (Thomas Haas), an AgInfusion wizard, I found a line that made it possible to not entirely lose the matchup. Forged makes Pinhole playable, lets you challenge econ early, and prevents an Ag boop at a critical moment. It's also great against NBN, by turning off on-rez effects of Ping and Tsarevna, and can find a VSA so you know to install Unity.

+2 Daily Casts: Also sort of a tech card for AgInfusion. You don't have enough uninteractive econ in the deck without it.

-2 Stoneship Chart Room, +1 Steelskin Scarring: Stop being cowards, y'all. Steelskin opens up aggressive lines against punitive decks and Jinteki (especially with Hermes down) and gives you a Twinning counter on a turn where you can't run. It's probably less consistent than Stoneship, but way more fun for the reactions when you gut your opponent's kill combo. Won me two games in swiss.

-1 Echelon, +1 Carmen: This was core to the line we found against Sokka's Ag. Install Carmen as the first breaker, and then with 5 credits and a click you can safely run anything, allowing you to get your run-based value. I've even had games (just imagine!) when Bankroll and Info Bounty paid out.

While this deck can hold its own against Sokka's Ag, I learned while sitting across from The King that it completely fails against builds like Empress Ag. I lost to Brandon in swiss (this deck's only swiss loss) and in the cut, because I don't have enough money to break Cloud Eater enough times (because of Carmen's bad breakpoint), or deal with taking tags from it. Cloud Eater was rezzed on R&D within the first 3 turns in both games (I think?). I tried a more extreme tag-me line in the streamed cut game (now knowing there wasn't tag punishment) since the usual gameplan failed in swiss, but it was still miserable. I don't see a way this deck has a shot unless the corp misplays (and Brandon played both games solidly, as always), so tell me if you see a strat I missed. This deck's only other loss all tournament was to our NEW WORLD CHAMPION @aruzan's R+ list, where I took an unnecessary risk and fell for Alex's clever fork. I've learned now that the insanity of the cut is that you need to deliver peak performance after ~24 games of netrunner in ~60 hours, when you're sitting across from @aruzan with a False Lead scored.

The feels

It's truly incredible to make it this far at my first worlds. I owe so many thanks to so many people.

tzeentchling: For really teaching me how to play Netrunner and for keeping the local scene alive after COVID.

CTZ and Winston: The criminal masterminds, the kingpins, the geniuses who taught me how to stare into someone's soul and crush it with a well-timed Inside Job.

Tak and Winston: For helping me be a deliberate, rational, responsible Netrunner player, and for being joys to spend hours with, testing or not.

Unnamed West Coast Testing Group: @pj20, @pengguin, @StephenE, @tmoiy, @dezigerator, @Tak, @winstoneternal, and @tzeentchling: For everything. When we started the team this was more than what we could hope for, but we really made it happen. 4 players in the cut, and a 44% cut conversion rate feels incredible just a few months after we started. Can't wait to see us continue to level up.

NSG: Too many people to name, but thanks to Ysengrin and the whole team for putting together the coolest event I've attended in my life. It was truly electric to be in an environment where everyone was so passionate and dealt with every curveball to run such an incredible, high quality event. Can't wait till next year.

To my opponents: Thanks for the incredible games, and for handling the result graciously, win or not. Your positivity is what makes competing at Netrunner so fun.

SF Bay Area meta: Thanks to everyone who's been coming out, I've learned a lot from playing with y'all, and you make Thursdays (and when I can make it to Berkeley, Tuesdays) the highlight of my week. If you're in the Bay Area and haven't come to our meetups, please do! We've got free alt arts, Irish beer, Indian curry, and a bunch of cool nerds who love Netrunner. Check out millenomi's Netrunner in SanSan North website for more info, and join our Discord server!

Aksh: To my lovely fiancée, who's been so supportive while I procrastinate on wedding planning to play a children's card game.