Four Deuce Oh (4th, NYC Store Champs 2021)

Before we meme, I'd like to inject some sincerity: playing Netrunner in person has reminded me how much I love this game. It was incredible seeing Netrunner people again. I recommend you do it as soon as it's legally and medically viable for you to do so. An extremely non-exhaustive list of people I was overjoyed to see for the first time in 18+ months: @ctz, @kysra, @sanjay, @osclate, @bahram, @DanB, @internet, @Ysengrin, @rongydoge, @analyzechris, @groenkaaf, @shiuuga, @Redino987, and @SimonMoon who managed to stop by and chill without having to play any games of 419 (almost certainly the correct move).

Going into this SC, I was fully planning on playing Apocaloup, but I was losing way too many games with it (like, even more games than you'd expect given my skill level). I was also toying with the most recent in a series of less defensible and more unhinged MaxX lists, but let's not even talk about the win rate with that. So I thought to myself: What would I do if I were a better player?

The answer was to play an incredibly boring 419 list, which you now see before you. The deck mostly speaks for itself, aside from maybe a few choices:

• Deuces Mild: Look. I know what you're thinking. This guy's a memer. He just wanted to have a meme deck name. But honestly, this is a 0% meme choice. I expected a very fast meta, mostly PD. I wanted to have tons of way to get through my deck and maintain tempo (hence the Diesel and the Deuces). I also found myself at 14inf of stuff that I wanted, with no obvious 1inf splash I wanted (Fenris or Rebirth felt too slow/not high-impact; Rezeki seemed way too slow; Hunting Grounds seemed unnecessary). Clicking to gain 1c and draw 2 from any amount of money is good, and I fully support this choice.

• Mutual Favor: This card is low key nuts. I was on 4 breakers and never at any point felt bad about it.

• Toilet: As I said, I expected a very fast meta. In testing, IJ was great against PD to challenge the first score and/or wipe out their upgrades before the first score. Sure enough, it proved crucial in my PD matchups on the day. It has solid utility in other matchups too -- Inside Job is essentially non-unique Boomerangs 4 and 5 against decks that have ice that costs >2 to break, and it can help you unexpectedly rebuild from a post-purge Turtle board state.

Overall, I think this deck is very solid at the moment, though it probably needs to be tuned to beat the new Sports degeneracy. The biggest risk you face is falling asleep while filling out your decklist.

This deck went 3-1 in swiss, beating PD twice and Sports once, losing to NEH. In the cut, I faced the eventual winning Sports list and lost. Congrats to @rongydoge on taking the win home for the Boston meta!