rise of the skateboat trick (14th at UK Nats)

It's the same list I've been playing for months of a slightly modified facet Ob, just with an Armed Asset Protection cut to put the Crisium Grid back in the deck. My runner was just Swift Lat.

This deck did me so well, riding it to 4-1 in Swiss before getting beaten out of top cut with immediate losses on both Corp and Runner. It still feels very odd thinking about both how successful I've been and how much further I've got to go - I'm incredibly motivated to make this result even better next time. Stick to your favourites that you've practiced at length! Don't give in to the last-minute-changes demon!

Gameplay thoughts:

• I am increasingly not being able to get Eminent scored searching Archer. It came up in I believe two of the games that I played? Helped swing the game to a win off of an FA from Holo Man against Hoshiko, making the remote significantly larger after Cleaverturbine made Sandstone irrelevant. In my first topcut game, had I not made a heartbreaking un-take-back-able turn order blunder earlier in the game, it should have been able to turn around the game in a chainscore line (where I just lost on centrals the turn after scoring instead). I am not sure if this package needs to get cut to focus harder on FA tools such as Slash and Burn - I've been down on the card for being hard to score and not good defensively, but it's worth trying out at the very least. The biggest pros for it is it's excellent at protecting Holo Man and Tranq grid, and that when I do get it off and put it on R&D it massively helps against Trick Shot.

• It is so much mental pressure having to handle the finicky optimal start of turn sequencing, remember mandatory draw after all that, and also play with the clock in mind. I simply need more tournament practice, particularly with this deck. It's a trial by fire and I admittedly did very well with it but I had a constant loop of "play slow due to pressure and complexity > realise this > play too fast and make mistakes > slow down my game too much overcorrecting > repeat" going on through most of my games, including on my Lat.

• It is incredibly tense seeing if at any point in Swiss my opponents are going to get wise to me only having one Tranq Grid in the deck and just eat the cost of trashing it to cripple my econ for a few turns. I had a fun game vs Augustus where I had the most money ever due to him mostly just ignoring my assets including Excavator - this ultimately came to nothing thanks to effective centrals pressure and the Cleaver-Turbine rig. I would tell any other player to trash the Excavator as a priority.

Deckbuild thoughts:

• MCA Austerity Policy is an appealing card to try and maybe fit into the deck. However, our influence is extremely tight. I cannot justify any cuts to myself in theory. This will come out in playtesting.

• I could easily justify another Audacity to aid in scoring Eminents if I am keeping the Eminent/Archer package.

• On runner side, I slotted in Hannah into DeeR's Lat as they recommended due to being shitscared terrified of the BCP deck, having played into it exactly once and gotten crushed. Nobody brought that seemingly, but it served me pretty well in a critical game against the Snare Bears' NBN deck in Swiss.

Preparation thoughts:

Play with your friends, play with them repeatedly. That's the only way. Huge thank you to:

• Alice and Trucy who formed ESA, who I practiced a ton with when I was remedying my huge runner-side weakness.

• Mallory, Magpie for being extremely welcoming at the Scottish Regional that was my first tournament experience, and getting me fired up about going to Nats in the first place. Particularly thank you for being very supportive when I was feeling Bad about my top-cut losses on the Sunday.

• snail emoji seen via microscope for being an extremely positive presence and believing in my abilities so hard, and being someone to excitedly bounce ideas and thoughts on playstyle in facet against. You helped a huge amount getting me out of the "just crying on a bench outside" stage on Sunday.

• AceEmpress, Fi, RoseKolodny, Cobalt, chord gang, Diamond for hanging out and being lovely.

• All of my opponents for playing very well and creating extremely interesting games.

• the TOs for making the entire thing happen and also supporting me needing a separate room for tolerable noise levels - I wouldn't have been able to play remotely as well without that.

In my practice I wasn't able to flag down an AgInfusion player to practice repeatedly into, and I got simply outskilled by an impeccable Ag game from Augustus kicking me out of the top cut. To remedy this, I am going to become an AgInfusion sicko so that I understand the weaknesses as well as possible. Apologies to people on JNet in the next few months.