One More Trip to Space - Districts (American Online, 3/15/20

[I ran this back 2 weeks later for the APAC Online District, swapping a Hostile for a third False Lead and a Quarantine System for a third NGO. After an extremely terrible and exhausting day at work and starting off 0-2, it became the first tournament I've ever dropped from.]

Picking the list

Jemison is my all-time favorite Corp ID. It was the only Corp I played for the full final year of the FFG license before taking a 6 year break from the game. In that time, I played fast-advance focused versions before pivoting to kill lists and then back to vegan--and with one chance to play it in Standard before rotation, I am back on the murder plan because my targets and favorite batteries for RPC have rotated. I felt really good about my abilities to build and pilot a Jemison list by the end of 2018, but was sure that those skills had atrophied so I went to look at what other people were doing in Standard. I liked the look of Clicktaker Jemison and built it to try at locals, but struggled finding windows to effectively police the Runner to say nothing of scoring. I took a second look and saw people playing around with Red Level Clearance and decided to go that way but I really liked the damage fork, and of course I am an enormous sucker for splashing HB core damage into Weyland so there was zero chance I was dropping the Cerebral Overwriter. Out of all the lists I looked at, I opted to keep the ice suite from the original Clicktaker list as is, partly for influence spread and partly because it was all ice I already knew--and probably subconsciously I really wanted to run a full playset of one of my favorite cards, Enigma, before it rotates, something I didn't think about until in the space of a week, both Andrej of the Metropole Grid and the American Online District commentary team called me out for loving the card.

Playing the list

1-3 in Swiss

• Round 2 - Loss v AlPi on Lat
  • Ability fires: 2
  1. Hostile to rez Oberth, 2 on Atlas
  2. Hostile to rez Archer, 2 on Atlas
  • Scored a Turn 1 Hostile, then Turn 3 tried to sneak an Atlas out behind an Archer, baiting the opportunity to get 2 or 3 agenda counters on it, but the Runner dropped an SMC with plenty of money to grab whatever Killer they wanted, so I let it go. Turn 4, I followed up with a second Hostile, giving a window to pull Clot but the Runner declined action (I learned later that it was already in the grip). The Runner continued setting up while I got flooded and pitched an Atlas into the bin, hoping the two SDS and last Atlas were gonna be safe in HQ. The Runner immediately checked the facedowns so I had to shuffle it back, and the next few turns I struggled to gain my footing before losing an HQ SDS and an R&D False Lead to a Deep Dive turn. Then, my fatal error was trying to RLC out an Oberth from hand for an Atlas with a counter, because I forgot I'd seen the Clot discarded. So instead of baiting it out for an econ advantage or best case scenario installing the Atlas first and advancing it once, then if there were no action from the Runner, installing the Oberth and rezzing to score with zero counters and get the points, following up with an NGO on the Oberth and double advancing last click, I did Oberth first, then Atlas, then rezzed for 2 counters from the Hostile forfeit. Clot came back and on a 3rd-click run, after rezzing Border Control into Akhet Archer, I could see that even popping the Border Control, the Runner had enough money to get back in. I dropped the forfeit counters onto the Atlas, but it was the first of a few runs that day where some extra counters did not deter someone from accessing, even though the Runner had dropped to 2 cards in grip to set up that turn.
• Round 3 - Win v imjorman on Hoshiko (flatline)
  • Ability fires: 3
  1. False Lead for clicks, 2 on Atlas
  2. Atlas to rez Oberth, 3 on SDS
  3. SDS to rez Archer, 4 on Clearinghouse
  • This was my one on-camera match of the event.
  • I got off to a much stronger start than my other games, securing a False Lead behind a punishing gear check instead of being forced to immediately take some bad pub. I stuck an Oberth in the server for whenever I drew an agenda, thinking it would be safe for a bit, but Audrey plus an Imp hitting R&D let the Runner in. At that point, I changed my playstyle to start denying accesses and therefore Audrey counters. The early game bankrupted me, so I sold off the Enigma, replacing it with a Border Control and putting a second Enigma on HQ. R&D was still effectively unprotected because I had no reason to rez the Archer there. I built up the scoring remote and installed a Spin Doctor (and at this point, with an empty Audrey, the only way to gain counters was on my porous R&D). I stuck an Atlas in the scoring remote and single advanced an NGO naked. The Runner dropped double Botulus on the remote and ran, and it was the most satisfying rez of the day yet. Unfortunately, running 3rd click did mean I couldn't overadvance the Atlas, so instead I left it alone and Extracted the NGO for a 2 credit loss but hoping that keeping the information secret was worth it, and put my third Enigma on the scoring remote. We both spent a turn clicking for credits and cards, then I finally got some good timing, with a 2nd click R&D run, so on approach I drained the remaining clicks to get two advancement counters on the Atlas in the remote (in retrospect, I should have waited until after access, just in case it changed what they did with the top of the deck, but I suspect that trashing the Oberth there would have happened either way). I opted for scoring the Atlas with just a single agenda counter so I could jam an SDS. The Runner refreshed Audrey with a counter but spent it on the Magnet, so couldn't get through the Border Control. They tried to charge Audrey on HQ, but paying to break Enigma put them low enough on credits that only 1 of 5 cards in HQ was vulnerable and they whiffed and took a credit. I didn't topdeck an Oberth, so I tutored one instead, and scored the SDS in 2 clicks to trash the Buzzsaw and jammed a Clearinghouse in the remote. The Runner took a turn off to set up a bit, so I shuffled back some econ and went to 0 credits installing and double advancing an NGO. The Runner named R&D, clicked for credits and got down a console before running R&D last click with a full grip but all 3 Steelskin in the heap. I moneyed up and forfeited SDS to finally rez the Archer, putting 4 advancement counters onto the Clearinghouse. The Runner passed turn with 1 in grip and flatlined.
• Round 5 - Loss v xdg on Lat
  • Ability fires: 2
  1. Hostile to rez Corporate Town, 2 on Urtica
  2. False Lead to rez Archer, 2 on SDS
  • I completely threw this game from click 1 and burned a red level for no value, scoring a Hostile with the rest of the turn. This was the second game I trashed an NGO without firing it, but without a counter this time it probably didn't look like a failed trap unless maybe putting the Runner on guard against snares. The Runner hushed my first ice, which made me glad I drew them in a good order. I got flooded again, but this time with only one that slightly protects itself so I pitched a surplus Atlas to recur. I snuck out a False Lead behind two ice while the Runner set up and then mulched my PR guy with a very telegraphed duplicate on board. In retrospect, because it was so obvious, I probably should have put down a naked Atlas instead, to earn a counter or two with a False Lead forfeit... because as it was, they instead stole the Atlas from HQ, even with added Spin padding. I tried to set up a trap, with a naked Corporate Town and an Urtica in the scoring server, but they ran the Urtica third click, and drew up to 4 cards before access. With my False Lead offline, I could only push through enough damage to wipe the hand and they ran the Corporate Town last click. I floundered to set up again while they kept hammering HQ with a full rig, but thankfully kept missing the two SDS. I tried to convert my False Leads into an SDS with a Quarantine System and some new ice on the scoring remote, but the Runner ran at just the right clicks to turn all the math in their favor and ended up taking the SDS from the remote and then sniping the one from hand. In addition to multiple major misplays on my part, I think this loss can also be attributed to this opponent being the only one of the day who really respected the possibility of traps and ran at the right times to turn off False Lead and also got 6 ID ability triggers to my 2.
• Round 7 - Loss v ZelteHonor on Arissana
  • Ability fires: 1
  1. Hostile to rez Oberth, 2 on Overwriter
  • I also started this round with a first click RLC but this one was not nearly as atrocious as the previous one. Scored a turn 2 Hostile which was maybe silly in the face of SMC but they didn't have Clot. The Runner ran HQ a couple times and stole an SDS and stole a Clearinghouse, leaving me in a position to try and set up a desperate trap with 4 advancement counters. Luckily, the breaker was Slap Vandal, so I got a fifth counter, but they'd drawn an extra card before running so I only got a full 5 core damage instead of a flatline (Urtica would have gotten there 😭). I drew up, but then they sniped both one-pointers in a single run and I was on the back foot again. I tried to lower the agenda density on approach to R&D, but the shuffle left the winning Atlas on top.

Total numbers

Damage done: 8 net (4 self-inflicted), 4 meat, 5 core

Agendas stolen: 12 (24 points)

Agendas scored: 9 (12 points)

Agendas forfeited: 8 (11 points)