Too many breakers - 1st place ANZ Asynchronous Competition

This deck was what I piloted in the cut to first place of the ANZ Asynchronous Competition. Some information about ANZAC is below the deck information that follows. Technically this deck only won 1 game.

A brief history

I like playing Andromeda. I hate Skorpios. This deck is a testament to both of those facts Around the time Terminal Directive dropped, I slowly had to start attuning to the fact that Runner was weaker in this meta. Specifically that it couldn't handle beating Skorpios, Sync, CI and Moon at the same time. I was playing Magnum Maxx up until that point, and was doing fine, but Skorpios gives that deck a hard time. Looking at what people playing these top decks are saying, they think that Siphon Whizz beats them all, so I decide that this must be the best deck.

Cue training montage with Siphon Whizz during the week before the ANZAC cut. Oh wait in montages you're supposed to get better, not lose game after game after game. I couldn't win. What's worse - Jinteki.net didn't have anybody on the top decks. I'd even go into casual room and play against obvious jank and still either lose or barely scrape a win. Definitely not feeling comfortable with the deck at all. I try a few decks. Regular Temujin Whizz gets beaten by gear check a lot of the time, as his breakers are kind of combo intensive. Magnum Maxx is okay but doesn't have an easy time against Sync and has a tough time against Skorpios. Eventually I try Andromeda and stuff just starts clicking into place. My plan against Sync? Plascrete + Aaron. My plan against CI? Employee Strike + Siphon (+ Mammon). My plan against Moons? Desperado + Sec test + Temujin. My plan against regular corps? Temujin + Special Order. My plan against Skorpios? Employee strike + too many damn breakers.

So I'm feeling pretty happy with Andy. She's not superb across the field, but she has game against everything. Most specifically, I had been playing a lot of Moon ETF, and I also wrote the cookbook to CI7, so I felt like I was able to understand both decks and use that to prop Andromeda up in those matchups, which are the most key.

Almost as soon as I lock my choice in, @shmeguy wins the London Regionals with a similar list, so I'm feeling good. The main difference being, he has way less breakers (Also Aeneas Informant, but I'll get to that later). I start asking around, and its starting to become clear that I was waaay over-assessing Skorpios's presence, and also that this deck didn't need so many cards to beat it, employee strike was enough. SO here I am, with 9 cards dedicated to breakers instead of the standard 5. I've cut Daily Casts and even a dirty laundry to make it work. Obviously a bad call. And worst of all? Not a single Skorpios in the top cut. All that tech.. wasted.

Info on card choices

I think most of this is self explanatory from a RegAss Andy build, so I'll talk about what's different here:

• Rebirth - When Leela was the main rebirth target, this wasn't worth it. You need Leela early or she's not that good, and Andromeda is just better because of the huge momentum she gives you with her massive hand. Now that Steve exists, this card is back to good again.
• Employee Strike - Most Andromeda have a few of these, but I'm saying 3 is a must. I think this is mostly standard too now, but still worth saying.
• Legwork/Career Fair - Ideally you want 2 and 3 of these, but again.. too many breakers!
• Plascrete Carapace - Making sure you don't die to Sync, as they don't score a lot of agendas and you don' always find Aaron before they do.
• Kati Jones - 100% a clutch card for any regular glacier style Netrunner. Its very easy to find yourself unable to play your Temujins easily (especially after cutting a Career Fair) and this tides you over when you're stuck on no-running.
• Security Testing - I think this is probably the most controversial choice made here that I'm still going to stand by. A lot of people might be asking "Why not Aeneas Informant?", and honestly I think Aeneas Informant is a good card and its a good question. One issue is slots, as Aeneas Informant takes up all 3 which slows you down a lot. But the main reason is checking which part of the game they're good for. Both cards are mainly there for the Moon Matchup. Aeneas informant is legitimately incredible once you have 3 of them down here. Sec Test on the other hand, is always "okay", even right at the very beginning. My approach for playing Moon is to contest their asset economy as much as possible, so the edge that Sec Test gives you at the start is super important, and I 100% defend this decision.
• The Turning Wheel - This was just what I spent more spare influence on. I can't really defend this at all, as Film Critic is probably better. I was feeling reasonably confident about my ability to contest the Moon board state when I decided this swap, but if I was so committed to not playing Film Critic I should've gone with Career Fair, Dirty Laundry or Daily Casts. I got tunnel vision on making sure I used all the influence.
• Abagnale - Gordian Blade might've been good here, but then I have no room for rebirth and datasucker. Abagnale is mostly alright, but it definitely ended up costing me more over the course of the tournament.
• Datasucker - Given that I have Abagnale as well as Mongoose, this seems good, however it is worth noting that my decision to include Abagnale over a Gordian is based on requiring Datasucker, which is a bit of a Chicken and an Egg situation. I think Rebirth makes the Abagnale choice better, but I'm not married to it.

Australia and New Zealand Asynchronous Competition

The ANZAC was a slow rolling online competition between 80 players across the world, predominantly from Australia and New Zealand. It was played entirely on Jinteki.net, and unlike most tournaments, deck lists were not fixed from the start.

That does mean that this deck was not what I took in Swiss rounds to make the top 8.

Cards up to Station One Legal.:

• First round was Magnum Maxx vs Cybernetics Division (InterDan). Win.
• Second round was Magnum Maxx vs ETF (Netrunner.Snow). Win.

Cards up to Terminal Directive Legal:

• Third round was Magnum Maxx vs ETF (basic.channel). Win.
• Fourth round was an earlier version of this build vs Skorpios (@divadus). Lose. Funny story about this game, right before the game I swapped Vamadeva for Mammon, but jinteki.net didn't make it stick. I end up locked out of all the servers by having both my Abagnale's trashed and a Vamadeva in hand, unable to get through Enigmas and Hortums. cry
• Fifth round was TemuWhizz vs PU. Faceplanted a Fetal with 1 card in hand. Very fast lose.
• Sixth round was an Intentional Draw against Vicarin.
• In testing, we tried Siphon Whizz against his ETF, and I lost.

For the cut, the deck was locked in, and is what is described here. Cards up to Earth's Scion were legal:

• I was 3rd seed after Swiss, but @divadus dropped out from top seed to help solve some SoS based mistakes. This put me in 2nd place against @ddoy2277. I went corp first, and he was playing Lock Hayley. Win.
• Next I was against @cyberewok who had also played corp, so a dice flip was made and I was runner. My Andromeda was able to beat his Penguin CI deck, although partially because he failed to notice an Employee Strike on the board. Win.
• Then I was against @Vicarin, who swept me in the final round of swiss, so I was worried, but I had made adjustments to my corp deck since then and felt it was better matched, and I also had a much better start. Win.
• At this point I'm top seed and guaranteed at least second place. @Vicarin beats @cyberewok in the loser's bracket, meaning I have to run against his corp. I lose this game, having trouble making money against a glacier deck with lots of cheap efficient Next ICE. Because I'm top seed I have one more shot. Moon ETF against his Andromeda deck. Win.

Recorded videos from the cut should be uploaded shortly.