This R+ Deck Beat Sokka (9th at Worlds 2022)

With Rezeki and PAD Tap banned for Worlds 2022, my favorite archetype was viable again: NBN You-Must-Be-This-Rich-To-Play.

via GIPHY

The Deck

I started by taking RepoRogue's R+ Boom Rush and just replacing Archived Memories with another Hard-Hitting News. But without ArchMem, the Drago Ivanov-into-BOOM! plan felt way too fragile. I started winning more games by just jamming behind Funhouse and Endless EULA, which together represent a 12-credit swing and a tax of two clicks if your opponent clears the tags the old-fashioned way, giving you the perfect window to HHN. They're even taxing against the boat! It felt amazing to find ICE that mattered.

The deck had two problems: it needed more money to rez all this expensive no-facecheck ICE, and it needed more things to jam in the remote to force the runner to check the remote. Slowly, reluctantly, I cut more and more copies of the best Corp card in years for a card everyone forgot about after System Gateway, and everything clicked. Runners have to respect Drago anyway—why not get something when they inevitably bust through your remote?

This deck isn't about Drago. Drago's basically just a tech card for Citadel Sanctuary. Instead, you want to never-advance or single-advance a card behind taxing ICE every turn while holding up Seamless Launch so you force your opponent to play "what's in Server 1" as many times as possible. Simple, fair Netrunner.

Other changes:

• 2 Self-Growth Program became 1 Market Forces as a hedge against Tag-Me. Not sure if this is correct, but it was never relevant on the day.
• Extra influence turned into Hansei Review for even more money and Crisium Grid for Stargate/Deep Dive/Apocalypse/Diversion of Funds/etc. Holy crap everyone should be on Crisium Grid right now.

Some Games

In Round 4 of Swiss, Sokka was reading me like a book. I had Seamless Launch in hand and wasn't sure whether to bluff again with an NGO Front or to install the last Bellona and bluff it as an NGO the next turn, so I shuffled them both without looking at them and put one into the scoring server. When Sokka played Pinhole Threading, I didn't know whether or not I had just lost until I flipped the card and saw it was NGO. Just another one of the countless coin flips that landed in my favor that match.

In the first round of the cut I was scared to run against skry's Trieste Aginfusion, so I chose the hard matchup I felt I understood: Reality Plus vs. Freedom. Then I mulliganed into three agendas and no ICE and skry liberated me of all my operations and Agendas. That can happen with this deck.

The next round, R+ redeemed itself by helping me bait icecoldjazz through an Endless EULA into an NGO Front. After that he was too poor to contest my server and I scored out. I never drew Market Forces, so we never learned whether that card is worth it for the Tag-Me matchup. Reality Plus's Final Score: 5-1.

Sincere Thanks and Shameless Plugs

Worlds 2022 was my first Worlds and my third in-person competitive event, so I'm absolutely gobsmacked to have placed as high as I did. A thousand thanks to Null Signal Games for putting on an amazing event, cheers to all my opponents, and congratulations to our new World Champion!

(Plug plug plug I wrote a doc about prepping for Worlds that should be helpful if you're just getting into Standard plug plug plug I'm writing an article about NSG and Worlds and you should be able to find it on TCGplayer soonish under this handsome author's byline.)