Getting Hit for Self-Defense (Top Criminal @ UK Nats, 11th)

"So most tag-me decks are playing Counter Surveillance, and this deck...Is not." - extrac

"Crim is when you wait for the corp to let their guard down, and then you punch them in the face over and over and over again." - Ams

"I 100% thought it was hot garbage, but like...it's Quality Time except it also makes a run." - Fi, on Joy Ride

"Criminal is not the worst runner faction, you're probably just bad at playing criminal." - Whiteblade

"You just fuckin' get em" - AceEmpress

I still can't really believe this is happening.

For the uninitiated, I have been testing and refining Self-Defence for a year and a half now. Last year I took it to 2023 UK nationals and it won a single game. A year later I took it back to Nats and it went 4-3, being the only Criminal to make it into the cut and winning on-stream.

How the hell did this happen?

In short, I got really, really good at playing Crim. I've already talked at length about the particulars of Self-Defence (I even wrote a whole-ass guide about it), so today I want to focus on two games in particular. Neither of them will be the cut game, which you can find here and is expertly commentated by Baa Ram Wu and Extrac. Instead, I want to talk about two games that happened during swiss that I think are indicative of how I play this deck.

First up, round 4 against Snoobz and PD. I'd lost my first runner game round 2 against chordgang's fantastic Ob play, and all 3 of my games so far had gone past 30 mins. In short, I was exhausted.

I won in under 20 minutes. Self-Defence isn't just a deck that can beat HB, it's a deck that can beat HB quickly. In a longer tournament, this is super important. This quick, confident win got my energy and optimism back, which I was able to carry into lunch and the later rounds. Now, I'll be the first to admit this deck has rough matchups, but it also has really good ones, and that's a great thing to know you have in your back pocket. Seeing PD in the pairings makes me relax quite a bit, which is lovely during a stressful day.

Okay, so it's now round 9. I am currently 6-2 with a second loss to J0hnald's Ob. My SoS is really bad, but if I can win my next game I can ID the final round to guarantee me in the cut. This next game might be the most important game of netrunner I have ever played in my life. The pairings go up, and...

I am against AgInfusion.

To give you some context, I had genuinely thought that the Ag matchup was unwinnable for most of Self-Defence's life. Saisentan is an awful facecheck, Anansi hurts like a motherfucker, and unlike other Jinteki decks you can't just run elsewhere once you see them. I'd made a bit of a gameplan after I lost to a turn 1 Saisentan facecheck against theRealLap at Aldershot regionals, but all it did was turn a 0-10 matchup into something like a 2-8 or 3-7.

And yet, I get off to a remarkably good start. My opponent ices centrals and plays Sprint, and I draw a Joyride click 1 with Swift in hand. I decide to fire it, figuring that if my opponent does bankrupt themselves rezzing Saisentan I can just tank the 6 damage thanks to the Steelskin in my hand, then draw a new hand of 5. Instead they rez cheap gearchecks on both centrals, which almost bankrupts them. I use this breathing room to set up some decent economy, and miraculously draw Carmen as my first real icebreaker. With Carmen down their Saisentan on R&D gets a lot less scary, and I'm able to put enough pressure on that they're forced to rez even more ICE, a pair of Brâns on R&D and the remote.

By this point a lot of my cash has dried up, as I can't fire off hot pursuits with an unrezzed ICE in front of HQ. However, I see an opportunity, Jailbreaking R&D, full clicking through the Bran and breaking Saisentan to steal the first agenda after 20 mins of gametime. My opponent fires back by scoring Send a Message out of the remote, but I use the time they gave me to cupellate their Mavirus and farm turtle counters. A purge wastes even more time, and I get another 3-pointer in the scramble. Finally they install in the remote, and an Inside Job seals the deal. I beat Aginfusion for the first time ever with this list.

I am so incredibly thankful to everyone who helped me with this list. Everybody at QEH, you are all wonders and I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be part of such a wonderful community. Everyone I played with, joked with and kissed at Nats, everyone who cheered when my name was called for top 16. Everyone who sees this list and thinks "I guess I'll give crim another go". Thank you all so, so much.

~King Solomon