🎸 Ashnikko 🎸 - 5th/10th @ EMEA

This is the latest version of EA Sports' Ashnikko deck, which we have played at a few different tournaments and which CobraBubbles and I both took to the cut at EMEA Continentals. 😊

True Believers

Ashnikko might not be the meta presence she was a month or two ago but she's still a badass and we can still crush it.

After American Conts we knew that certain cowards would abandon the deck but we never lost faith and 5 of us took it to EMEA including AAshbo, cursor and Bartimeaus.

This deck gets worse when you go above minimum deck size (shocker), so we needed to maintain consistency, maximise bankhar and continue to be amazing generally.

PD Problems

At APAC two weeks ago our team mate, Ollie, lost to a fast HB decks that had learned they could score out before we were able to setup and control the remote since NANPC Boston.

After a little testing it turned out that we were totally f****d! I played probably 25 games against various PDs with the previous version of this list and came out with less than a 25% winrate...

I was dead set on not changing the list for a long time (sorry team) but eventually gave in. The idea that I liked most was the inclusion of Botulus which required us to cut Raindrops Cut Stone, which I ultimately didn't end up missing.

With that the matchup felt better but after 55 test games in the 2 weeks before EMEA my personal winrate was still sitting well below 50%...

My teammates could notice the matchup was getting to me when once I threw my cards across the table at Aashbo after he scored a Luminal Transubstantiation and I threatened to kidnap lostgeek ahead of the tournament to get the 3/2 banned.

The Tournament

I played against 3 aggressive HB decks during swiss.

The first was against Veronica on PD with Project Vitruvius and Biotic Labor, which I lost to, however I was very happy with my play in that game and had multiple good accesses after getting to 6 points.

The second was against Toron and despite some mistakes on my part I was able to pull of a win that felt comfortable (or at least as comfortable as one can be in a room that is 35C).

Finally, I was paired up against Percomis in my final round for a 241 into the cut, the judge flipped a coin and it was decided, my Hoshiko into his PD....

After the game I walked out with my head in my hands, told my friends about the coin flip... and then told them how I absolutely crushed it!! 💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽

If it hadn't been for the huge amount of practice I put into that matchup, I don't think I would have been able to convert the game into a win but we got exactly what we needed early and locked him out of the game.

This deck is like Batman, give her enough prep time and anything is a favoured matchup.

Thanks

The tournament was the most fun I have ever been too, shoutouts to Kikai (I felt like we were sharing a brain for lots of this weekend), Cobrabubbles (who took the exact same 85 cards as me to this tournament and crushed it), AAshbo (who helped me grind dozens of games in the leadup to this tournament), KamiKami (who kindly ID'd with me in round 2), davz_131 (*who was as lovely as I remembered, Netrunner makes you close friends very quickly*), Ollie, aceempress, l0velace, J0n4ld, koga, Sauc3, zoehope, everyone in EA Sports and everyone else who made the weekend so wonderful.

I have more detailed notes on how to pilot the deck, if you are interested send me a message.

Anyways... now it seems like I have an Ob problem to solve 😉