Freedom's Sad Day - What is Up with the Meta?

What you're describing is a reaction to the last set. Meta before was very varied and had good options for most playstyles. The runner de joure hoshiko+turbine or ice trash, both force the Corp to win before the runner can set up. That's why they're playing so fast.

Your runner deck was probably not the right meta call.

You should try Reboot, if you don't like the current meta. All the Corps and Runners are super interactive and there isn't any gap between Tier 1 and Tier 2, the best decks often have difficult matchups against Tier 2 decks. It's 2015 Netrunner, but without broken AstroScript Pilot Program, Mushin No Shin or Midseason Replacements, etc. ruining games.
NSGrunner is a fine game, but it's just not some peoples taste.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, awildturtok. Clearly it's not the correct meta call. And I admit that this is a small sample size and it is all my subjective perception of the games.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that, in past card environments', a poor meta call resulted in a disadvantage. Returning to this tournament, not closely aligning to the meta created games that felt totally hopeless compared to my long career making similar poor meta calls.

And the idea of Hoshiko as a runner as the runner de jure, I think it's been more than just today or this meta or the last.

Not sure how to fully and correctly find evidence for these questions. Looking at what's realatively easy, we can check Worlds Overall Participation from Always Be Running:

Some consolidation makes sense as the pool of playable cards shrinks. But I think it's not just the actual runner IDs, but the playstyles.

Here's corp graphs, just for comparison's sake:

Again, not totally sure how to interpret this information. But excited to have the conversation and hear your thoughts.

Thanks again for sharing.

Fluffy, thanks for sharing that. I didn't start until 2018, so going back to Reboot could be fun. The biggest reason that I stay with standard is my Netunner player group at our FLGS are my best friends, and I worry about fragmenting an already tiny group.

But yeah, I should check it out.

Hoshiko has been dominant but the decks underneath her have changed over time. The turbine hosh rigs and the mulch archetype (that was just banned) are extremely strong. The hoshes at 2023 worlds were not nearly as oppressive because they couldn't set up as fast and reliable.

As someone that has been asking for a hosh ban before the DreamNet ban, I'd say it is not hosh that's the problem but the cardpool. If hosh is banned, it's probably only esa and janky loup decks out of anarch. The price or labor rights could be much more pointed hits to reign in the power level.

Ah, I forgot, turbine might also be a well targeted ban. Then it's takobi time which has gives the Corp more agency.

K2CP Turbine is really kinda busted from a econ perspective, it's like 4 and 1 for 2 bad publicity on ice. Given that Cleaver and Buzzsaw suck to boost, it makes Rezeki look lame, except in the versatility department. Which is kinda important. Though I might be biased from playing a version of the game where all Corps have ice. (Looking at you Thule Barf.)

Yeah, agree that card pool is a major part of the issue - and I think Hoshiko's card draw is an issue. It's a card for doing what you want to do anyway, and you can turn it off. (I wonder about a hypothetical version that charges 1c and gives card draw all the time. . . is that better or worse?)

Slotting a copy of Turbine feels like it lets aggressive lists *also solve the endgame against glacier. So they can have most of the benefits of early pressure without paying the long term costs.

On the corp side, placing advancement tokens is bonkers now. And there's so many versians (Seamless being the #1 culprit). But yeah, I don't know all the angles. Rashida seems like it should just be gone. It's too much recovery and boost and it only costs the slot + install.

I am concerned about a year of this powerful card pool without next cards / rotation, and I think some aggressive early pruning might help transition.

And yeah, Barf Thule lists shouldn't work. Just for the overall health of the game, these iceless fringe lists should be fringe successful. That's a value judgement about "what the game should be," but iceless suggests that things are wrong to me.

The thing with Hoshiko is that her and the companions are Anarch econ that never runs out like Liberated Account does. Anarchs never had access to this before Ashes, except in stuff like Scrubber and Datasucker, which are super limited. NSG seems not to believe in color-pie mechanically, just thematically. Like HB with tags is a big no-no, for example, and tutors cannot be in Anarch because they have so many high-powered situational cards.

Really sorry to hear about your experience. Corp decks are indeed miserable right now.

“Corps were basically locking up the shop with the win in turns 7-9. They felt tuned, powerful, and honestly my participation in the game seemed like a waste of time. I was an amusing sideshow to corp solitaire.”

I feel you here. It can be extremely difficult to disrupt corps these days and oftentimes when they get a good draw there is not a single thing you can do.

The midrange game is the funnest game. I think (I hope) once Turbine Hoshiko gets hit by a ban of some sort, those corp decks can exist again

On a different note, I think the slower version of netrunner from the past was likely more fun than the current. I really think Offworld Office was what changed everything. I, along with many others, really didn’t like the idea of a “tempo-positive” agenda. Before Offworld, scoring an agenda meant the corp was spending clicks and credits and it was a tempo-negative turn. Since the creation of Offworld, runner decks (and likely runner cards during playtesting) was forced to keep up. Anything too slow would get out-rushed by the tempo and efficiency of PD with Offworld. That became the baseline and hence eliminated all the slug-fest space that some people knew and loved

freedom has been too slow for quite some time. like, the only reason people are playing hoshiko now is because maxx rotated.

maybe just play like vincent d'onofrio in law and order: criminal intent, and rigorously explore every angle of the meta until you find something that speaks to you. a lot of weird decks have become popular in this meta, which i think is extremely good for the game.

i think if you're not enjoying the game as a mid-range player, you can always try to improve your playing or deckbuilding skills and adapt to the meta. i just don't think it's fair to blame the card pool. it's certainly still very corp-favored, but i feel like there are enough viable runner IDs right now where you can find something you like that fits your playstyle.

if you're willing to try.

Yeah, I think the problem is the corps, not the Hoshiko. I mean, corp decks these days are so fast and basically like saying "Oh you got no free draws? OK YOU LOSE". That's why we're forced to use Hoshiko, Lat + Annicam or some boring draw engines...

BUT, I don't think this Freedom deck is supposed to work smoothly after that Knobkierie ban.

Devil Charm + Arruaceiras Crew combo was already pretty tight to land (even with Hoshiko draws, I think.), and another medio hardware set added to this list just to cover that Knobkierie 3 mems.

@Sokka +1

Yeah, the fact that Corporate War is good in the much less rich Reboot pool, where it only takes 5 to be able to get the 7, shows how ridiculous Offworld Office is even in a world where corps are much richer. At least Bellona was dead, it should never have been printed even with just the 5 to steal text. Maybe with some bans of the broken stuff, and if NSG will just make a design rule of not printing support for archetypes that are already dominant. Like, Hoshiko was already so good, why do we need The Wizard’s Chest, for example? I also think a way to make non-Hoshiko Anarch better would be to print a new Eater in Dawn. It could be reworded with breach or something to justify renaming it, like how Amped Up and Running Hot are literally the same card. Since Hosh triggers off of accesses, this could really open up a new (old) Anarch playstyle that synergizes with Stargate and helps block Oppo Research and the like. (HHN worst mistake ever btw, allows the Corp to hand the Runner a ridiculous dilemma even if it's not in their deck. Oppo is somewhat better, but blocks you from playing around it with lots of money.)

I continue to appreciate the quality tone and content of this conversation. My concern when posting was that I'd be written off as someone just complaining about losing. which wasn't the goal. My gratitude for those engaged in the chatter.

As for the corps / Hoshiko as the problem - I wonder about the chicken and the egg nature of game design space. When NSG team is working on new cards, do they consider the current cards for level setting? If so, then the baseline that Hoshiko sets is pretty tilted and corp design may get a +1 anticipating it. Again, I'm not looped into these chats, but I think that the power of Hosh and other lists that can hang with corps is what keeps the perception of balance / fairness going.

Then, after the design period, the SBT gets the game. If there are a handful of runner decks that can hang (Hosh, Fast Crim, Skinsuit Lat), then are things balanced and fine? I think this probably opens up a whole other conversation about the purpose of that team. If it's creating balance, even if that means there's only a few viable runners and a narrow range of styles, is that OK? They have achieved balance, after all.

@Sokka Thanks for the post. I agree about Offworld, and I also think that Seamless is an issue, too. The efficiency and ability to never advance is fun, but the low cost (1 credit and 2 influence) have shifted things. You can score out while making money and somehow clear the remote and reload the remote because you placed additional tokens through Seamless / never advance.

@Shishu Think we might just have to agree to disagree here. You're right that I don't know what's going on in the meta, and that I can and certainly should adapt to it. Where I remain unconvinced is that the card pool isn't part of the problem, or that it's "not fair" to blame the card pool. Power creep, what feels like designed alignment with deck types, click / install efficiency, and search / tutor / install effects all intersect to make corps faster and more consistent. This narrows the viable running space down a ton, which I think is a loss for the game and something that can and should be corrected.

@Two_EG Thank you for joining the chat. I hear you about the corps dictating the game's tempo; perhaps my frustration is misplaced and the fast Hosh lists are merely keeping up the appearance of balance. I also don't have the overall data on Corp / Runner success. And yeah, the Freedom lists isn't supposed to work great, and I understand that. But there used to be a difference between mixing it up with a suboptimal list and just getting *rocked* because I didn't get a bunch of free draws / installs / money.

@Fluffy1 I'm not tuned into the design space, but I would love more from NSG about the design process. Mostly I'm interested in what's going to happen during the next year of card release doldrums. Dawn has a lot of water carry if it's replacing the whole of the FFG list.

I think I made this point a few times in the screed-length message above, but I want to reiterate my gratitude for the folks keeping the game alive. It's easy to complain and scream into the void, and I know I've done a fair amount of that kind of whingeing above.

But the overall post really does come out of concern for the state of the game and a desire to see it thrive. I accept that adapting to new metas is inevitable, AND I think it's important that the folks designing the game and maintaining the competitive balance lists hear earnest feedback about the state of the game.

I personally think Seamless Launch is a symptom of a much wider problem, as when I look at it from a Reboot standpoint, it's just a Rebooted Astro token but it costs 1. But I just played a game with it out of Asa Group, and the amount of extra tempo it gives is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Infinitely recurring it out of PD to chain Offworlds for a net 4 every score is like a face-down Oaktown Renovation that is a 3/2. It's kind of like how Archived Memories got banned because of all the crazy assets you can recur. Also I notice that Runners these days don't have as much central pressure, and instead are mostly just remote-lock Shapers with Anarch or Crim sprinkles on top, with the exception of Zahya and Mercury. Mercury is bad design, imo, as he demands that you avoid playing Netrunner, the whole game is built around breaking ice, and he says not to do it. Cloud Eater makes it look like we are going to to see less and less interaction with subroutines in the future, but hopefully this is just a Liberation thing. I do find NSGrunner more fun than I remembered back in the day, though, but Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga is just free Inside Jobs that damage you every turn. Ice should matter, though not necessarily what the subs say. Rant over. I'm gonna go play better Mercury nrdb.reteki.fun

Reading over your post and all the comments has been really interesting.

I'm personally a really big fan of this meta and feel like NSG is doing a really good job over all with both design and balance. With that being said I think this is an extremely difficult and punishing meta to play in from both a deckbuilding and execution perspective. If you're not prepared for your opponents game plan from turn 1-2 you can easily just get swept away. That makes it really hard to break into top tables without a vast amount of meta familiarity. While this has always been a large part of "netrunner skill" I can't think of a time when it's been this important. The best deck and good fundamentals are not enough right now, you also need to know exactly what your opponent is trying to do and how to stope them before they can do it and you usually have to be doing this before you submit your DL. As a very competitive player working within a team of other competitive players I throughly enjoy the complexity of this challenge and the skill required to win events.

But with all that said I think the game should be fun and approachable for players of all skill and commitment levels. I think it's great that you took the time to share your perspective. And though honestly on the first pass I read your DL write up as complaining the discourse in the comments has been really pleasant and encouraging to read.

As far as Hoshiko is concerned, my two cents are she is just easy to play in a very very difficult meta. I don't think Hoshiko is the best runner and the diversity on both sides in the ACC cut was really exciting! I think the last ban list was amazing! Thanks you SBT <3 A lot of my thoughts from last august are still relevant.

Note for comparing metas I think looking at Cut diversity is better then "all players" in an event.

Personally I do think big rig Turbine decks with fixed breakers will end up being a problem in the long run and hopefully we can weaken that archetype before worlds, but after 6 months of doom rig mulch something different for a little while seems fine.

Ps: You "picked" some really good players to play against 😁 ACC was a very competitive field and you paired some extremely strong netrunner players.

More thoughts for what I said about comparing metas. I do think analyzing the whole event can definitely be relevant and should be done, but when you look at what decks rise to the top it can sometimes tells a different story. For example worlds 2021 had 10/16 players on Maxx. Of the other 6 runner IDs there were 3 Adam, 2 Steve and one Hoshiko. When we compare that to the recent ACC event we saw 7 different runner IDs in the same sized cut with and the highest representation being Ari with 5 of the 16 slots. I think that speaks really well for competitive diversity. And though ACC had >35% Hoshiko total in the event only 2 of them managed to climb into the top 16 players taking 6th and 15th.

Thanks for sharing, @ ManintheMoon. I've learned a lot hearing for a variety of players. I can see how a meta that feels technical and fast appeals to "very competitive player working within a team of other competitive players." And I am genuinely glad that it is there and accessible for you.

Your suggestion about comparing cut diversity vs all players at an event brought about a flash of insight for me, but perhaps not as expected. There are thunderstorms of noise in the data, but I think the overall consolidation of runners into a few types / styles that can hang with corps is what I see in the overall entry charts from 2019-2023. Because for me, I'm much more interested in a game that allows for diverse plausible winning play styles than I am in conquering the meta. Lemme see if I can follow that line of thought through.

Gonna make some arguments here that might seriously outpace the evidence, but I think it is useful to put the thing through it's paces:

Cut diversity shows the best players and decks.

Total entry diversity shows the community's belief in the number of competitively viable identities.

The notion that Hoshiko is the easiest runner to play in a difficult meta feels right to me. The overwhelming favorite in terms of total entry percentage, Hoshiko was proportionately underrepresented in the cut. I suggest this strengthens your claim about Hosh not being the best, but being the easiest or most accessible runner ID.

But back to the dearth of second tier runners. Just looking at the world's charts, and it seems most year's there is a favorite or popular community choice. Then there's a runner up in another faction, usually some Anarch / Crim 1-2 combo.

Where I get concerned isn't the top cut, because that is not a space I have inhabited or aspired to dwell in. Instead, I'm concerned that the groups of folks bringng B-tier runners seem to be gone away in the last couple of worlds, and I'd argue from the large tournament meta as a whole.

Why is this happening? It could be because the community is sloughing off the hardcore casuals like me, and the critical mass is mostly competitive players. It could also have something to do with rotation and the fact that there are fewer IDs overall.

In addition to those reasons, though, I'd argue that the technical and unforgiving nature of the meta and the speed and consistency of the corps have made B-tier runner lists basically competively unplayable. And that, I think, is why so many people just play Hoshiko or don't spend time trying to make other IDs work. The feeling that you have to literally burn with fire and tbe tuned to the max to compete, much less win, reduces incentive to experiment with the sub-optimal runners.

And there's part of the rub, I think. The highly technical, time intensive meta that is rewarding for competitive players feels a bit joyless and inaccessible to me as a denizen of the midtables. I used to play a lot of Adam - before it was meta - and I knew there were matchups where I had at best a 2-10 shot. But I was favored in some other matchups, and the lack of consistency and speed on the corp side meant that there was a bit more room for chaos. That same chaos made drawing into rogue decks a pain for the competitive set.

Again, it is fiendisly difficult to agree on what's happening, much less exactly why. Thanks again for contributing.

All the competitive runners feel like different faction skinned versions of the same thing

I felt that. It's something I've had my mind on for some time, with runners mostly trying to achieve the same level of pace and playstyle (becoming "anarchized"). I used to blame NSG for that initially, now I'm not entirely sure it's their fault. I've been playing for a long time and remember people playing all sorts of unoptimized decks at tournaments, with varying degrees of results. I agree they are definitely in the minority now and I think there may be a few causes that haven't been mentioned yet:

1. People have become way better at the game. Deckbuilding is way more refined now, almost all players have quick access to resources that indicate how to build efficient tournament machines, with a good mix of burst econ, clickless and efficient draw, drip and a plan. This became self evident to me when a few players started playing the Reboot format and building differently compared to how people did in the past. I think players back then just had less experience, hadn't conceptualized some things yet and weren't able to push decks like we do now.

2. The pandemic influenced the game by forming a single meta (to some extent). Many online testing group formed around that time and people shared lots more ideas and decks online, quickly available for everyone to see, forcing pretty much everyone to be able to respond to every possible great deck. Suddenly your local meta stops having clear preferences and you have to deal with the best decks, whether they are glaciers, wide, kill, ... as players don't have to reinvent the wheel to try something new. Not many runners can deal with everything at once, meaning the number of safe runners is lower. Most people don't see themselves as deckbuilders, so instead of going to a tournament with something they made, they'll pick up something from NRDB instead.

3. Design may have not pushed enough more niche engines or ways of winning the game (but honestly it sounds hard). The balance between control and aggressive decks isn't perfect, but at least both exist to some extent (see Tree Ari vs Esa for example).

I'm not 100% convinced these issues make "janky" decks not viable, but it definitely restricts the pool of reasonably effective decks. I also think you happened to face a very specific type of corps during the tournament (almost exclusively rush), which should not necessarily be indicative of what's going on in the overall meta.

@ Koga - Appreciate the contribution and thoughts. I have been thinking about a couple of versions of these ideas, esp. about people becoming better at the game. In my mind, there's a solid comparison to basketball. In the last 15-20 years, pro basketball players have largely recognized that long 2-point shots are not valuable compared to layups / dunks or 3-point shots. This insight has changed the way teams approach shot selection and players train for the game. This feels somewhat related to the "one-meta" pandemic observation and the impact of a high percentage of players sharing an online meta. We all see the success and see the blueprint and commentary on NRDB and Always Be Running.

One aspect that we haven't touched on a ton here - and I'm super curious to hear your take on it - is what many bemoan as the end of the "color pie" or faction-based mechanic restricted design.

Your recent and excellent and super creative Steve list is a good example, I think. Jet Ski looks like a riotous amount of fun and I am sleeving if up for our next game night here on in KC. Scanning the list, it also seems like you can spend the influence to import the Anarchization of the Crims (Zer0s, Steelskins, and Strike Funds) because you are happy with the in-faction options for all three breakers and mutli-access.

I'm not the most seasoned player, but it seems to me that there was time when Crim would needed to import their Fractor (Corroder, Clip, or the like), Decoder (Gordian, Engolo, or the like) and RnD mutli-access (feels like Turning Wheel is the better comp for Wake implant than RnD Interface, but it was also inf).

I do recall past lists where folks would play all in-faction breakers, esp. Bin Breakers, but it was unusual and with significant downsides. Now that one can seemingling build either a competitive list with in-faction breakers and RnD mutli-access, you can afford import the Anarch lifestyle stuff like Steelskins and Strike Funds and Zeros.

Curious to hear your thoughts on this angle.

Quickly, since I'm rezzing triple-advanced Pharos-level walls of text:

• The relationship between the good, versatile decks and janky decks feels like it has more to do with older jankier styles trying creatively solve deckbuilding restrictions. If you can just afford to include good in-faction cards and import the out of faction stuff, then there's little incentive to explore odd design space.

• NSG does not (and likely cannot) create the large card pools that FFG did, so they seem less likely to spend design and testing space on probable binder fodder. Makes sense, but also contributes to honing the pool.

• Agree about the sample size for IDs I faced in the tourney, and apologize for saying so much that it diluted the message clarity in places. I think the biggest shock to me was how resilient and consistent these decks seemed. PD doesn't feel that rush-y, but was both fast and secure for the corp (variety of good ice, defensive upgrades, low density, self-defending 3-pointers).

My gratitude for the reflections and insights.

@Agasha first of all, I'm flattered by your comments, really. In my mind the list isn't too wild in the sense that all the influence is from the same package and tries to solve a very specific problem: "smoothness". Criminal has a few problems compared to other factions imo, meaning that solving every problem at the same time is really, really hard. I'm not in love with Shibboleth, I would definitely be happier if I had something like Fermenter over Jackpot (which could eventually let me cut Pennyshaver for Hermes) and multiaccess is not great. Whiteblade's Zahya shows a different avenue of building that also works but suffers from some (different) issues. There's still room to try solving problems creatively like here and [REDACTED]. I would argue the various Mulch archetypes (and originally Hivemind Maxx) were also born out of pure experimentation and near-jank deckbuilding that turned out to be really strong and solved some hard-to-solve problems. Even Stabby Maxx, one of the coolest and very wild runners I can remember, was born to solve a very specific problem in the meta at the time (early 2019 MTI).

On the topic of "color pie", I don't think I have a fully formed opinion. I know that, in the past, heavy characterization of factions effectively lead to imbalance between factions. Criminal always had terrible draw, meaning other factions (esp Anarchs) ended up using their tools even better than they could. NSG seems to be approaching things differently, trying to give every faction everything (in their own specific way). I'm purely interested in seeing how that goes. Shaper seems to be flourishing after their ~2 year drought, hopefully we can reach a state where all factions can play multiple styles and seem pretty balanced. I think I'd like that. If Esa and tagme Zahya were equally viable, for example, we'd have two very different hyper aggressive runners with different weaknesses and strengths.

The size of the cardpool can be an issue, but I think there's always room for more. The best thing people can do about NSG and their Design team is just to voice their issues honestly. Make yourself heard about what you feel is missing from the game, I plan on doing something of that sort very soon myself. As a great example, I think this discussion is great and I hope they start happening more often in community spaces, as I find them incredibly interesting personally. Maybe it's time to put on my streaming hat and organize something of that sort...

Thank you so much for starting this great discussion, I have enjoyed it a lot and hope it may have softened the sad game-related feeling, at least on some level.

@kogaI think what you're describing is a lack of color pie due to Anarchs getting too many cards that should've been blue, as well as much too low influence values on blue cards.
This is my personal non-exhaustive list of color pie rules:

• Crims can't have burst draw like Quality Time, but they can have Express Delivery-type stuff. They may not have good decoders. They must have good killers. No R&D multi-access.
• Anarchs may not have tutor effects or drip econ. All draw must be weird like Inject or Wyldside or even Steelskin Scarring. Bad stuff happens if you make tags anything other than a cost or consequence, c.f. Red Sands nonsense. Must have best fracters.

• Shapers cannot have econ denial tools or "burn the Corp down" effects. No good killers, decoders should be excellent.

• HB really shouldn't care about tags, and can't have too many 3/2s, but should be a viable faction for FA.

• Weyland should have End of the Line or equivalent, but no good tag tools in faction. Code gates should be weak. No strict defensive upgrades like Skunk Void, only indirect non-ice protection.

• Jinteki code gates should be good, barriers weak. Shell-game is only allowed here. Bad stuff happens if they ignore scoring totally.
• NBN can't have kill cards in faction. Ice must be porous or very expensive, but taxing.

Also, archetypes should be somewhat fun for both players. The usual response to a new deck should be interest in what it's up to, not disgust at arbitrary things like pool or deck size becoming the most important thing in the game to the detriment of others, like CTM or Jinteki: Potential Unleashed.
Dang, now this reads like a personal lecture to Koga.

Koga is right. This is a worlds level event online. I'm sorry that you had a bad time, for what it's worth, but I do think that coming out of retirement and expecting to do well in one of the premier events of the year is quite naive.

I'm also not sure that airing grievances publicly on nrdb is the best look. In the words of a previous netrunner celeb, sometimes you just need to "Lock It Up"

At the risk of belaboring the point, I don't mind taking the Ls. I've been losing at Netrunner since playing Netrunner. What I found shocking was the complete and utter control the corps had in these matchups, and I genuinely wanted to know what was up with that.

Also, it's nothing to brag about, but I did fine on the corp side (with an admittedly gimmicky gotcha list . . .). I ended up somewhere in the low 50s/94 for the tournament overall, I think, which is fine for me as placements go. I'm not upset with the results, but was outright shocked at the mechanical efficiency of the corps. And again, wanted to know what was up with that. And yeah, I was salty in the game by game diaries. That's on me.

All that said, as for the airing of grievances being a bad look: I'm not sure where else in the community to share feelings and concerns about the meta. Is the correct place "nowhere"?

Sometimes we might just need to lock it up, but on Saturday after 10 hours of confusion and frustration, I needed to let it out. I didn't expect everyone to agree, and they don't. But it seems some people have had similar thoughts or concerns (unless they are just being absolute sweeties and placating me. . . Which I guess is possible because the Netrunner community is really the best, but I doubt it. Decency has it place, but meta assessments are serious business.)

The most valuable thing I've taken from this thread: my own personal takes and feels are now moderated quite a bit by hearing from others. That's esp. true from those who feel much differently and dig the current meta, like ManintheMoon. Knowing that community is out there helps me remember how much of this meta and nature of the game discussion can quickly drift into personal taste yuck vs. yum.

Adding another thought upon further reflection: I wonder how much SSS format might have shaped my experience. This was my first time competing in a large event for SSS, and I did very well with my corp deck and poorly with my runner deck.

So, perhaps some of the whipsaw feeling was winning with corp, then getting paired up and smacked back down with runner, and the cycle repeated itself.

I'm not a maths fellow, so I allow those with the skills to assess the validity of this claim. But it occurred to me that I might have better "found my level" for the runner if I was getting paired as a result of both my games as opposed to pairing after each side.