To see my Azmari deck, click here

Why pre-party? Because soon mommy is going clubbing with her favorite DJ. Alriiiiiight!

This is the deck I took to the Antwerp regionals yesterday, attended by 25 people. I ended up 2nd in swiss and after winning once in the cut got the bronze medal. Sunny was probably an odd choice for what I knew was gonna be a very competitive event. But I am not feeling Smoke atm and I would rather be caught dead than red sooooo... mini faction it was.

This deck is mostly similar to the one I got 1st place with in Den Hague a few months ago. The main change is going from Film Critic + The Source back to Employee Strike, cause Titan seems to have fallen out of grace a bit and I was expecting everyone on 3 Scarcity. Luckily, the only times I saw it were when I wasn't at the receiving end of it.

I did not install a single Sunny breaker the whole tournament, Aumakua and Nexus did all the heavy lifting. Black Hat didn't fire once but White Hat was pretty sweet to get rid of problem cards and filter non-agendas out of HQ.

The Archivist was a fun little nugget, although whether he is worth the 4 influence is up for debate. Still, 1 link for 1 credit is great value. Speaking of, triple Maxwell was clutch all day. Being able to use one to contest remotes early and then installing another one to up your link again is amazing. Would never go back to less than 3.

Here is a tourney report on my matches:

Round 1: SC Bye

Round 2: vs Asa/Val

Asa is usually a match up I fear, but I remained calm while he build up a board presence. He scored a Remote Enforcement and installed Anansi, which was without doubt a good call as it takes a dump on Nexus. Too bad for him I was also on Turtle and it had 5 strength in no time. After that there wasn't much he could do. With some help from the Archivist bad pub, I kept checking servers, ultimately using DDM for the win.

My corp game set a trend, as it showed how bonkers NBN ice can be combined with Azmari's econ and Jinja's clickless installs. I went pedal to the medal, before he could set up CV shenanigans, and he couldn't get his engine going in time. It's a shame, because Tyrox was a super friendly guy and our match was extremely jovial. Too bad I had to crush his dreams, especially after he swept a strong player in the first round... Sorry again, man.

Round 3: vs Argus/419

Argus can either be a walk in the park if they play by Sunny's rules, or a blow-out if they focus on rushing. Pieter definitely understood the importance of speed against my deck and had an Atlas scored and Oaktown advanced by turn 3. I thought really hard about letting it go through, but ultimately contested, having to shake a tag from data raven last click and taking 2 meat on the steal, leaving me at 1 card and few credits. Luckily he couldn't follow up with HHN and the 3 credits/2 points he missed out on really hurt him. After that I was in full control, especially with Citadel installed to get rid of tags from stolen agendas. I got another Atlas with a White Hat combo and then just hammered every server for a while till I got the final points

Nexus 419 is a scary match up for NBN, but again my deck just build up impregnable servers too fast. Scarcity put in a ton of work in this match up, and I quickly got filthy rich so 419's ability didn't really bother me. He did get some turtle counters early on, but once I iced all three centrals and purged, he had nowhere to farm. That and a lack of Nexus sealed the deal in my favour.

Round 4: vs CTM/Val

"CTM must be easy for Sunny, right?". That's what you'd think but while the link definitely helps, the current CTM build is just too fast for mother to deal with. Furthermore, it was Django who I was facing, someone who I know is a very skilled player. I made a few misplays in the early game and got hit by HHN and ended up with 4 tags. As I went to trash his bankers, I was left with even more tags, but the corp was extremely poor. This game slowed down for several turns, while we both clicked for credits like commoners. I got my tags back down, and found all my drip econ AND a Citadel Sanctuary. But at this point he had 2 bankers, back from the grave thanks to Team Sponsorship, and “protected” by ARES. While I was rewarded with 2 GFI's, he just kept recurring his Calibration Testing to Score Beales and Kitties from hand, and he won.

The second game was cut-throat, and I started sweating as Django managed to get to 6 points while I was at 4. At this stage though he had to bankrupt himself to get into my servers, and Degree Mill + Scarcity kept his board state at an all-time low. I was pretty low on credits as well however, and my remote remained largely unrezzed. As I had no choice but to be fast, I jammed my winning agenda and IAA, knowing he would certainly get in if he drew into a Stimhack. He did decide to draw, but never found it, and I scored out next turn. A sigh of relief escaped my mouth, as I had a SSL in HQ.

Round 5: ID

As I was the first player in swiss at this point, my opponent and I decided to ID.

Top cut game 1: vs Val

Deja Vu! In the first round of cut I played Django again. I opted to go Corp as I won that match up once before. It did go very similarly to last time, in that it was very close. He sniped 4 cards from my hand with Value Vengeance, but missed a crucial agenda, which I managed to score. I kept drawing, and tried to go for game in a huge remote. But one turn before I could do so, he made a desperation blind Mad Dash on R&D, forcing a Miraju shuffle... and was rewarded with the winning agenda! With 8 cards left in deck it was not entirely unexpected, but I still couldn't help but throw up my hands as I laughed and the crowd went wild. Oh well, probably deserved that one.

Top cut game 2: vs Hayley

I was excited to play against a fellow shaper player, but started to mostly feel nervous as Luis build up an impressive board. Tapwyrm definitely made me wish I did not take out my one off CVS. Scarcity again proved why it should be on the MWL though, as even with his virus dollars he had to spend insane amounts of money on runs. I scored 6 points in rapid succession and tried to telegraph my IAA card was a NGO. It wasn't though, and I again won on 9 points.

Top cut game 3: vs MTI Mwekundu

It is a shame my final game of the day was also my worst one, but it was written in the stars. RyanBantwins was my first opponent in my first ever Netrunner tournament, back in a 2017 SC, as he absolutely crushed me with Replicating Perfection and Dyper. I had hoped to take revenge for that but as he started spamming assets, there wasn't much I could do. I didn't open well after my mulligan and had to glumly watch him build up a huge board and loaded Estelle, as I couldn't run anywhere without the fear of face planting a Cortex Lock or Chiyashi. Getting my DDM sniped by Viral Weaponization was icing on a shitty cake. He scored out at his leisure and left me in the dust.

I am very happy with my result though, as I had hoped to be in the top 8 and ended up higher than that, with Sunny no less. Also was very happy to hear tons of people were rooting for me. And most of all, it was a great tournament. Everyone was super friendly, and it makes me super happy to be part of this community. I hope I will be able to keep doing well in the remaining official tournaments, and after that in whatever we come up with as fans.

Keep running, people. And remember, Sunny is best mom.