Vibes Not Maths [6-2 & 1st @ NY Showdown]

So I'm usually much more of a shaper player, but whenever I lose a game on shaper I lose faith in the entire faction and consider quitting netrunner, so I decided to preserve myself before Dawn and bring the fun crim deck I'd been working on since September.

I ended up going 2-2 in swiss and 4-0 in the cut, with one of the best (maybe the best?) tournament results for a Ken deck, just a bit before he rotates, so I'm really happy with that decision !

Why Ken over other crim IDs

• I can only count to 4, Sable is too many clicks to track.

• Playing Zahya means I would have to cut 5 cards to be mathematically correct and I cant bother.

• I dont enjoy 419.

• I feel like Ken has a better chance at dealing with bad matchups, the extra credit not depending on making a succesful run is sometimes just enough to keep you in the game vs glacier.

• Ken is cool.

Some card choices and thoughts

• Privileged Access : Run event recursion that can charge Leech and make use of Cezve credits. It's main purpose is to bring back a program that gets destroyed, but when there is no rigshooting threat it's still useful to bring back a resource. That's also why there is a single Daily Casts in the list instead of another econ event, so you can chose to bring back draw (Earthrise or Class Act) or econ with it. I'm not a big fan of Bahia Bands, but decided to keep it in the list because of the praxis, clearing the tag with another run feels great.

• Mad Dash : Tech for Azmari and RH.

• Multi-Access : This is the part where I'm not satisfied. Only 1 Twinning means you sometimes don't find it for a whole game, and that can be rough. The Wake Implant has been really useful in a few games, but I mostly find myself not wanting to install it because losing a card and repeatedly running hq for singles to charge it feels like giving away a lot of tempo in most games (I don't think I installed it once during the whole of NYS), I think I will switch it for a Docklands Pass. Single Maker’s Eye because that's how you win at netrunner, never use it just to "see" cards, only if you have a Hermes down and feel like getting a bounce would have a lot of impact, to dig 5 deep with twinning, or on match point to close a game.

• Loads of singletons and 2 ofs : This isn't supposed to be optimal but to have some tools to adapt and a chance to win any matchup, if you wanna play it you should tune the deck to your liking.

How the tournament went

• LUCKY. Overall I'm happy with how I played, but I have to admit I got away with some games I had no business winning, praise Jackson for the luck on singles and my worst matchups getting agenda flood. But I guess that's part of how you win a tournament, getting wins when you're not supposed/expected to.

• Swiss

  • Round 2 : Loss vs Battle_fennec on Shoot The Moon Precision Design. Both of us on match point, on my last turn I had to run the hand 4 times to try and snipe the big deal or ikawah, but I'd ran the hand a bunch of times previously and not seen them, and my opponent put a manegarm on rnd. That was enough to bait me into running rnd instead and they got the big deal win.

  • Round 3 : Win vs diogenes on Loud PE. Lots of draw and bones in my opening hand allowed me to contest most remotes, eventually stealing a fujii. From there all I had to do was keep contesting econ while playing safe, and end the game on singles.

  • Round 6 : Loss vs AbyssStaresBack on Holo Asa. I kept a hand with no draw because it had econ, pinhole, and inside, thought I'd be able to contest early and draw some draw at some point. Got completely outpaced after a few turns, and a well timed purge wiping my aumakua completely took me out of the game. Mulligan for draw vs Asa.

  • Round 8 : Managed to dodge the Ag matchup in earlier rounds only to have to face Minstrel on it to get into the cut. He had an absolute disaster of a draw, I contested early and stole a nisei behind a single tatu-bola, that told me he was flooded so I contested again, stealing another nisei, bounced the hq ice and dirty laundry for a single, stealing a send a message for the win on turn 7.

• Cut

• I lost my corp game round 1, so had to win 8 games in a row.

  • Round 2 : vs Nykride on Empress Ag. He had a bad start and I was in a pretty good position, until I completely threw it by making 2 BIG mistakes early (forgetting pinhole is another server, and miscounting my cards in hand doing inside job on a server with an anansi with only 2 cards, at least I realised the mistake before encountering it) and one other big mistake later on (not realising I could go for doof after bouncing the hq ice and instead losing it to damage). Those mistakes tilted me a little and I would say this was my worst game of the tournament, but I ended up getting it on the last turn after time was called, the ending of that game was suuuuper tense, and winning it gave me a lot of confidence for the rest of the tournament, despite this being the one game where I'm really unhappy with how I played. stream link

  • Round 4 : vs Buachu on FA good stuff Ob. The one matchup where I was really confident. Opening hand had a lot of econ and curupira and that was good enough, I contested early and stole some agendas on r&d runs. No stavkas in the list allowed me to be very agressive, and by the time he scored his first agenda, activating the archer threat, I'd drawn a praxis and was on 5 points, so I kept contesting the remote and stole the last 2 points I needed. stream link

  • Round 7 : vs not_yeti on Azmari kill. Incredible singles luck. I stole 3 agendas off of r&d singles. stream link

  • Round 8 : vs OF15-15 on Holo Asa for the bracket reset. Neither of us had the explosive start that might be expected out of Asa and Ken, both of us mostly just setting up. They went up to 5 points, but that took them to 0 credits with essentially no board. After that the main threat was the biotic vitruvius for the win, so I did my best to keep their credits low while getting meaningful accesses and that was enough. stream link

Thanks to ManInTheMoon for organising and running an incredible tournament, I had a lot of fun, and to aksu and all the casters for the stream, loved watching the replay and cringing at all my dumb mistakes. I'm antsy to play some more competitive netrunner, I should finally be able to do some travelling for netrunner this year, and hopefully go to worlds !