Aumakua is Plan C (2nd at San Antonio Regional, 4-0 Swiss)

You may have seen Apoc 419 lists before, but you have probably not seen one like this.

The evolution of this list has singlehandedly kept me invested in competitive Netrunner. Shout out to #apocalypsecult on Slack (@thanatos, @ctz, and the gang) and @errantmage for invaluable input on how to build and pilot this crazy contraption.

This deck is the weirdest pile of nonsense, and I love it. It beats lots of stuff, but requires you to constantly re-evaluate if you are in a position to bide your time and sculpt your hand, or if you need to make some gutsy plays to hit your outs. Despite being a deck predicated on not breaking subroutines, I have found that it requires practice to understand the lines, and good awareness of which ice is going where, and what the Corp is capable of.

Let's run down the tech:

Easy Mark: This is a combo deck. All you need to do is draw cards and make money, and this card doesn't require a run to get your money, which is good because you don't want to give the Corp an opportunity to rez ice or play HHN if you're not blowing up their board.

Feint: Corps take one look at Criminals and start icing up HQ. If they know you're on Apoc, they'll ice up HQ even more. Feint ignores 2 pieces of ice, and when combined with DDoS, makes that part of the Apoc turn much easier. Also turns on Lucky Charm.

On The Lam: This deck can struggle playing against HHN and Anansi, and this card mitigates both problems. It's worth pointing out that if you Apoc the Class Act it's hosted on, it remains active and is no longer attached to a resource.

Unscheduled Maintenance: You know what else is a problem for this deck? Any Corp that can assemble 4 pieces of ice on R&D, 4 pieces of ice on the remote, and enough money to rez enough of it to stop the Apoc. VLC Jinja Sports actually clears that high bar, so Unscheduled swoops in to force them to either ice up achingly slowly, or try for a score (and this deck has 6x Inside Job). Ask @doomrat if this card is a meme or not.

Lucky Charm: It's pretty much another bypass card on its own, or tech for Border Control/Nisei MkII. I'm only playing 2 copies because they require support, and are unique.

I played against BABW, Jemison, AgInfusion, and Argus in the Swiss, making off with the win every time. The Unscheduled Maintenance was not quite enough to get the job done against @doomrat's Sportsmetal, but I've got some ideas about improving the list for that matchup...

Highlights of the day:

• Landing the first Apoc of the tournament in a room with two Apex players.

• Playing Apoc 419 all day without having a heart attack or passing out.

• The audible from Dragon's Lair to Multiverse Games, which turned out to have a really sweet back room with beautiful tables and comfy chairs

• Landing an Apocalypse against VLC Jinja BABW, sending an SDS to Archives, then digging for one of my Turtles to trade in for the SDS. Probably the most work Turtle did all day. Well, except for in...

• My first cut game against an Argus played by my fourth round opponent, who Knew What Was Up. This game strained everyone's credulity in a way that we may never recover from. HQ had two Border Controls installed, and a risky Apoc attempt had left me tagged and broke. I knew that as soon as High Profile Target made its way into hand, I was dusted, but living on borrowed time is better than nothing. Over the course of a preposterous 6-8 turns, I barged into centrals with bypasses for single accesses, a turtle backed up by bad pub, forced Argus to rez and pop the Border Controls on HQ to drain money for the remote, and faded the kill long enough for the hot rips to close things out. One of the most tense and exciting games of Netrunner I've played.

• Losing to @doomrat in the finals, as is tradition. :)

As always, all my gratitude to @shazzner for organizing (and finding us a great backup venue when we discovered we didn't actually have space reserved at the first venue), everyone who came out to play, and NISEI for providing sweet prize support for Regional season.