Spiral Vorts (13th, Worlds 2022)

I take no credit whatsoever for this deck. Having prepared very little and played even less in the past couple years, I netdecked this excellent build with the hopes that previous experience playing Titan and other fast-advance archetypes would carry me through. I played a single game on jinteki.net and ran with it for Worlds.

Huge shoutout to all the people that made the event awesome including the Null Signal Games crew, the local Winnipeg meta (of which 6 made the flight to Toronto to compete!), and huge congratulations to whiteblade111, Winnipeg ex-pat and someone I look up to as one of my most important mentors in this game, who made his first top 16 finish. A well-deserved placement that he has worked very hard to reach. Another huge shoutout to Dragoonkin, another of my Netrunner mentors. Despite being an objectively better player than I, his luck continues to evaporate whenever we travel abroad. More late nights of drinking and less preparation was the winning formula for me.*

*Individual results may vary. This course of action is not recommended by your doctor, friends, or most sane individuals.

Runner deck: https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/9a6dafcc-bbd5-424a-85ce-2b53e716e59b/can-t-spell-wurlds-without-wu-13th-worlds-2022-

Record on the day: 6 wins, 2 losses

Round 1: win vs. Smoke

As I recall, Sports went fast and Smoke didn't have/find Clot.

Round 2: win vs. Loup

The runner initially slowed my game considerably with some well-placed Botulus. My general strategy in the tournament leaned towards trashing ICE in that case. I ultimately landed a sneaky Mavirus that swung the tempo for the win.

Round 3: loss vs Hoshiko

Mulliganed into 2 GFIs and another agenda, no ICE. Hoshiko Gachaponed into Stargate early, locking me out of ICEing R&D then pulled 2 agendas out of 8 cards in HQ for the ultimate win.

Round 4: win vs. Kit

I drew a lot of code gates and consequently threw away most of my ICE in this match, focussing on scoring as quickly as possible instead. They made a large number of free runs on R&D and were steadily adding counters to The Twinning by building up their Hyperbaric on my round. They at one point accessed 3 of 5 cards in HQ, missing the two agendas. That luck held and I scored out for the win.

Round 5: win vs Sable

The runner was using Swift, run events, and Sable's ability to routinely take 6 rounds. They landed two Apocs, but I wasn't leaving agendas on the table and was, fortunately, able to tempo out the win regardless.

By the beginning of Round 6, my record was 6 wins - 1 tie - 3 losses. To make the cut I needed consecutive two-for-ones, both of which chance dictated I would play as corp.

Round 6: win (2for1) vs Loup

This was a very close match (7-6) against an interesting and well-played Loup. I got an early break when Botulus was installed directly onto Magnet on R&D. I made a few early scores but the runner bounced back quickly. The TSN turning point was an accessed Mavirus in Archives that wiped his Imp and Friday Chip which afforded me the time to score out.

Round 7: win (2for1) vs Wu

Matched against long-time all-star jdeng, I wasn't feeling confident heading into the match. He played an excellent game and had established a strong Stargate lock before my econ really picked up. My eventual 7-6 win came off the decision to run the remote (in which I had installed Tranquility Home Grid) as opposed to R&D, which top-decked me the win by pulling Élivágar Bifurcation.

Top 16 cut Round 1: loss vs Freedom

I mulliganed into 5 agendas including 2 GFIs. They had Stargate turn 1. It's a small miracle and testament to the power of the deck that I managed to reach 5 points before losing.