Runner Nor-deck 2018: Turbo Bird 47 STKHLM RMX

Paired with this deck (where you can also find more impressions about the event itself). Placed 25th. ************* this father**************** ID meta ;-)

A bit of a "best of" Frankenstein's monster which I was happy enough to bet half of my performance of.

Some card choices:

• Indexing over Maker's Eye, because I hate traps in R&D.
• Patchwork over Career Fair, because it works for all types of cards and saves influence.
• Two copies Levy AR Lab Access, because I don't believe in my luck.
• Rebirth, because I do believe in my luck.
• The Shadow Net, because I was expecting more Sportsmetal out there with 1, 0, and -1 pointers.

Since this deck is more of a "run of the mill" Anarch these days, you can find its progenitors and more gameplay tips here, here, and here. It's meant to be fast and let you play your Corp game (usually more mentally taxing) in peace.

Why 47 cards? Because as MaxX you mill yourself quite a lot - apart from dying or winning really early, I have always reached the bottom of the deck in the remaining games, so those 2 extra cards were not wasted or breaking the deck's efficiency. I think I can safely say that both losses on the day were player mistakes, not the deck underperforming.

Being one of the 15 MaxX decks on the day, I quietly hoped not to run into Anarch hate... Which was not what happened, of course :)

Still, I had an absolute blast playing against a varied set of opponents (even all the Jinteki IDs were different) and all my opponents were nice, friendly, and relaxed (more than me). Take a look at the complete playing field and results here, if you're interested.

Score and match ups - 3-2 versus:

Round 1 - Weyland Skorpios (Mikael) - win

A very fast and painless game, as I hit the singleton Rebirth in my opening hand and Mikael was agenda flooded. Still, he played with a perfect poker face, but not much could have been been done against the wrath of the RNGesus. Took me a while to realise what was going on and that Mikael's not getting away with it (even though he tried really hard to turn it around and was on a good roll) and score all that was needed.

Round 2 - H-B: Architects of Tomorrow (Benjamin) - loss

Not the best match up out there for an Anarch and a brilliant meta read by Benjamin (who went on to making the top 8). The two glacial towers of absolute pain were rather hard to scale, and I fell into the "playing the Corp's game instead of my own" trap. I don't recall scoring a single agenda, either. Lesson learned, game lost, onwards!

Round 3 - Jinteki Palana (Peter) - win

I was a tiny bit late for this game (local pizza place took a good 40 minutes to serve us food, argh) and got my First Ever Warning At A Tournament Event (tm), so I was a bit shaken at first and needed a good few minutes to chill and get into it. Plus, Peter was playing Jinteki and red Corp cards are my Kryptonite... I managed to snatch two agendas, luckily - and then PSI-win a The Future Perfect. A sigh of relief (but I am still not a fan of winning via PSI games). Huge thanks to Peter for his understanding and patience with me during that game.

Round 4 - Jinteki Personal Evolution (Marie) - loss

Have I already mentioned that I hate playing against Jinteki, because I can't handle the ruses and the pressure? Early in the game I faced a potential never-advanced Chronos Project (probably the most popular 3/1 agenda of the day) that would eat some key cards I had already MaxXed out into the heap, so... Guess who faceplanted into a Psychic Field, lost the PSI game and then got their brain Neural EMPed? Marie was mercilessly ruthless as the Corp and careless Anarchs die easily, so that was the fastest game of the day.

Round 5 - Jinteki Mti Mwekundu (Markus) - win

The last round felt the best, paradoxically - almost no fatigue and a feeling of calm. Must have been the coffee finally kicking in and Markus being a super-chill and friendly player (like everyone before him). We both had nothing to lose, so we played to win and have fun while at it... and it was a Jinteki again ;D I haven't had too much practice against Mti's last-minute icing shenanigans, so I was happy to have the time to take it easy and try to play optimally. Fishing out what was needed when it was needed, I got to the sweetest 7 agenda points without dying too much in the process. A good way to end the day as a Runner.

I will definitely keep playing Anarch, but I want to give Criminal a go. Falsified Credentials is such a beast! Not only is Geist damn good, Lisa and 419 are definitely interesting options I should learn to play with and against - and Leela is making a strong comeback. No idea what I'll bring to the Belgian Nats, just yet... Maybe a Shaper? ;D