Sneaky Andy - Hockley Regional 2017 (2nd Place)

A very vanilla Andromeda with almost zero spice - which got me to 2nd place in a small (22 person) regional. Unbeaten in 4 rounds of swiss, lost 1 game to HB;FA in the cut (see below).

Final Record: 5-1

Things that look interesting (but often aren't)

Sneakdoor Beta - this was super spicy at Euros, but there's more (and bigger) ICE around now, which makes Sneakdoor less impactful. Still, forcing the Corp to commit more than than a single ICE on archives can be useful.

Gordian Blade - no one ever stacks code gates, except when they do, which is rare.

Film Critic - good for Lakshmi, good for QPM, good for Medical breakthrough. Good for Obokata Protocol and Fetal AI... which is why more and more Jinteki decks are splashing MCA informant. Also good against Skorpios. Tutorable with Hostage for when it's imporant, food for the Moose when it's not... okay, maybe this card is actually as interesting as it looks.

Indexing - Early indexing is great because Sneakdoor can mean that the Corp undercommits to R&D protection. Later on, though, there are often enough interrupt triggers that landing a succesful indexing can be hard. That being said, indexing wins games - and the one game I lost may have been because I used Same Old Thing for Siphon instead of Indexing.

Things that don't look interesting (but can be)

3 x Mongoose - I like having a breaker that I can reliably draw into, and that I don't have to Special Order. It makes sense for this breaker to be Mongoose. Also, no one expects the 3rd mongoose. Sometimes you can use this to your advantage, discard the 2nd Mongoose, and ruse the Corp into thinking a double destroyer remote is safe. I do not recommend doing this.

3 x Aaron Marrón - is still not enough Aaron (see below).

Abagnale - Install it, trash it to bypass some big Code Gate, replace it with Gordian. This almost never happens. Usually you just special order for Gordian, and Abagnale sits in your hand in case Gordian gets trashed.

Mad Dash - against HB, this card means that you only have to steal 3 agendas, instead of the usual 4. It also means that when you are on 4 points you are actually on match point - but the Corp doesn't know. Shhh, it's a secret.

Things that mean I have to find more credit tokens

Bloo Moose is a card, you might have heard of it. 2 x Bloo Moose 1 x Kati feels right. You may need to overdraw to discard to feed the Moose, but that's okay. You are Criminal, and so you should probably be overdrawing anyway.

I was having trouble managing my opening hands, so the day before the tournament I swapped 3 x Daily Casts out for the 3 x Dirty Laundry. This quickly proved to be the right call. Dirty Laundry gives you turn 1 credits, is immediate food for the Moose, and (later on) cuts through ELP.

Bad Matchups

Jinteki - Potential Unleash / Personal Evolution - 45 Cards is just not enough Hit Points (and the conventional wisdom is that playing 49 Card Andromeda makes me a scrub). My advice against PU is to try and keep Employee Strike alive as long as possible by running naked remotes. Hitting a Psychic Field or Snare is better than them scoring a House of Knives.

SYNC - 3 x Aaron Marrón is just not enough Aaron Marrón. Even with a Hostage. This means that you eventually end up going tag me, except that you don't have the Medium to provide the deep R&D digs you need to win in the one turn before they Exchange of Information / BOOM you. A better player than I will be able to explain how to consistently win here, but I find this matchup really tough.

Reasonable Matchups

You basically have the tools to deal with everything else. Sneakdoor for CI, Run based econ for asset spam, Kati Jones and Gordian Blade for glacier, Aaron for NBN, Employee Strike for everything that isn't GRNDL or Next Design.

Good Matchups

Anyone that does not ICE HQ turn 1.

Swiss Round 1 - American Style Moonspam EtF (the one with ABT) - Win

Moons does not ICE HQ turn 1, so I clear out a Tech Startup and an Advanced Assembly Lines - this puts the Corp on 8 credits with 1 unrezzed asset - so I land a Siphon.

This puts me way ahead on tempo, and allows me to control the board and poke centrals at the same time. I'm mindful to keep the econ pressure on - trashing turtlebacks and Jeeves, and using sneakdoor to force an ICE install on archives.

Moons is popped, and Cybernetics Court is used to keep what I presume are FA combo pieces in HQ. I apply a bit more econ pressure (forcing a Fairchild rez on R&D) and build my board state for a turn, and, when I'm ready, trash the Cybernetics Court. The next turn I pick up 2 points from archives, and sneakdoor into HQ for the game.

Swiss Round 2 - Spicy SYNC - Timed Win

I am not good at this matchup. 3 Aaron should be enough, but again it wasn't. This time, at least it was due to some seriousness spiciness in the form of Hunter Seeker!

More spiciness follows in the form of Biased Reporting (did you know there are 14 resources in this deck?).

A breaking news is scored early, another is stolen similarly early. I also find a QPM. But that's it. The match goes to time and all that's on either side of the board is 3 measly agenda points. On my last turn I siphon away any BOOM threat, and float Data Raven tags to indexing R&D - seeing 3 x GFI and 1 x 15 minutes. I mad dash a GFI (putting me on 5 points), and then run out of clicks.

I am not good at this matchup.

Swiss Round 3 - FA Tenin - Win

Probably my most tense runner game of the day. With the magic of Sneakdoor and Temujin I manage to make a succesful run, whilst also advancing my board state, almost every single turn (and steal a couple of Nisei while at it). There were a couple of turns where I had to ease off the gas a bit - but employee strike was out so at least Tenin wasn't getting free advancements.

Tenin fed me a naked installed Medical Breakthrough, to which I said "thankyou" and promptly hosted on Film Critic.

Then there was one fateful turn... where I had seen everything in hand (Celebrity Gift is a card) so I didn't run - but the Corp top decked and scored an agenda anyway.

It's so easy for Jinteki to FA up to 6 points - and once they are - you then have to run R&D every turn, or they can just top deck a clone retirement and win. After the match it transpired that Tenin wasn't playing clone retirement, but how can you know? And also: you should probably play clone retirement.

I close the game out by landing an indexing, and then letting DNA tracker fire to steal the winning agenda.

Swiss Round 4 - Sol (piloted by @twisty_b) - Win

I discard a Mongoose turn 1, because like a scrub I forget about News Hound.

Pretty soon Scarcity reminds me again of how many resources there are in this deck (it's 14 - we talked about this, you can see that from the list).

Fortunately a 2nd Mongoose shows up at the same time as a Beale is scored off a SanSan - so I'm able to get in and shut down the FA threat. I figure that this also telegraphs at least 1 agenda in HQ - and proceed to single access ftw.

Eventually I do manage to clear the Scarcity of Resources by siphon spamming Sol to 0 and finding an agenda - but by that point I'm already in control of the board and most of my resources have been fed to the Moose.

Winner's bracket Game 1 - Fast-Advance EtF (piloted by @callmedutch - Timed Loss

My only runner loss of the day - but it was nice to play a different kind of EtF and I'm not sure that I have any regrets.

I apply a little pressure on centrals to try and force some rezzes while maintaing tempo, but my game plan is to let EtF score 2 agendas while I build my rig - and then lock the board with E-Strike and Siphon. I execute this perfectly - using the aaron counters to clear the siphon tags, trashing Jeeves to prevent the Corp from recovering, and using Temujin and Sneakdoor to find the agenda I know is in HQ.

I don't know whether I saw the same Shipment from SanSan 4 times, or whether there were 2 SfSS in HQ and they were taking shifts, all I know is I thought about rebirthing into Edward Kim.

I indexing to see... a single 4/2 agenda. The Corp has clicked for enough credits by this point that I'm worried about them fast advancing an agenda that I am next to certain is in HQ. I use Same Old Thing to Siphon to prevent this from happening, but maybe this should have been another indexing instead (Crisum on R&D makes this complicated - and was a clutch play by @callmedutch who had not seen Same Old Thing yet).

We go to time and after taking Kati money and poking R&D and HQ I'm left with 1 click. Do I check the hidden card in archives? @callmedutch face is giving away nothing. Do I run R&D? odds seem bad. I'm still feeling confident that there is an agenda in HQ, but if I access another Shipment from SanSan I'm worried that I might flip the table. I sneakdoor run, and see a biotic.

Well played by @callmedutch - I was in a strong position, but given a couple more turns to click for credits I'm sure that he would have had no problem fast advancing that last agenda for the win.

Loser's bracket Game 3 - British Moonspam EtF with SFT (piloted by @massisi) - Win

A Cambridge grudge match! - although @massisi and I hadn't actually played against each other in a while. Also this is the first time, I think, that I have ever beaten him.

This played out very similarly to the US Moonspam matchup in round 1 of Swiss - except that I played worse, but got luckier (better to be lucky than good). I mulligan'd looking for desperado, but found 2 x Siphon and 2 x Temujin instead. @massisi wasn't able to ICE HQ turn 1, so that was good. Then I single accessed 6 agenda points from HQ and R&D before he could ICE all 3 centrals. Which was also good.

Because I'm worred about the game getting out of my control - I waste a lot of econ trashing assets from R&D to dig for the final agenda point (do not do this) - @Massisi responded by ICEing R&D with Vanilla - and a wraparound in front of an Estelle inexeorable gaining counters...

As the board state grows ever more out of my control, I dig for Paperclip, find Special Order, Dirty Laundry R&D for temujin money - and accidentally top deck the winning Agenda.

Better to be lucky than good.

14 games of netrunner total, of which I lost 3.

Really good day. Would regionals again.