[Startup] Pull my Devil Trigger – 9# Worlds 2023

This deck feels like a rushdown character on fighting games.

You wanna push on early stages as much as you can: force rez, make cheap access with S-Dobrados or Backstitchings, and hope to fish an agenda sooner or later, in order to pull the devil trigger. With Legwork, Jailbreak, Docklands Pass and Mercury’s Skill (which triggers with Sneakdoor and Eru, our best late game tool to close out the game), if we are able to read where agendas are, we are pretty likely to hit something because of the high number of accesses Merc make. Backstitching is one of the most important cards in the deck, because they allow us to use the high reward run events with our ID trigger with no icebreakers. S-Dobrado gives us free access from time to time, accessing 2+ cards on R&D (Wake) or HQ (Docklands Pass). However, the most important card in this deck is Hermes, Our Devil Trigger. On mulligan, go get Hermes ASAP. It disrupts the corp a lot and even more in this deck, allowing to empty some servers or give us enough space to catch our pieces because corp is slowing down to face the god of the thieves.With this deck I tend to kinda ignore the remote and go for the YOLO Devil Trigger to contest. Sometimes may be inconsistent, but I feel like if this deck doesn’t score early enough, game is probably lost, because corp probably will outscale this Merc. Based on this, I just can say that the darkness of night falls around my soul and the hunter within loses control, gotta let it out gotta let it out, so Oonga Bunga centrals is the way.

Games

Game 1 vs Epiphany Analytics

I played against my playtesting partner Gabrielden, who ended up winning the match. I believe this matchup is really difficult for Mercury because Epiphany has a lot of control on R&D with Federal Fundraising, Epiphany’s ID ability and Daily Businsess show. These cards are must trash on this mu, because this deck lives around R&D pressure, which is kinda negated by these cards. We need a lot of money to trash everything and be careful of the SanSan, while on some point they will probably have infinite credits. I think that we need to pressure a lot before he has that R&D control, and when corp starts having R&D control and a Sansan Remote, trash those tools, fishing for the Pinhole onto the Sansan or going directly there. I feel like this deck does not have that many credits, so that’s why I think this matchup is not in our favor. However, it might be because of my piloting, so let me know what you think about! On our game, I was able to trash every R&D control tool my opponent installed, but not the Sansan behind a Tollbooth, so I lost because of the FA from R&D with Epiphany. GG, my friend; viva Anji Mito y me cago en él.

Game 2 vs Near Earth Hub

Similar matchup, but not that disrupting to our gameplan. We still have to trash a lot of things (DBS, Federal Funraising, Sansan) but corp doesn’t have that R&D controll, so we can make a lot of potential good accesses. Eru caming in clutch to close out the game, seeing 3 cards from R&D to score the last Project Beale. Took some Oppo Researchs, which were efficiently solved with Networking (thank god that I managed to have it early enough). Close game, but won in the end.

Game 3 vs A Teia

Got my Devil Trigger early enough, and managed to go for a Legwork while my opponent looked flooded. Got two Regenesis, with 2 Devil Triggers, a huge tempo swing in my favor. Kept pressuring R&D and HQ, stealing a 2 pointer. On the final turn of the game, I run 3rd click with 5 cards in hand, accesing 2 cards. The first card was a snare, so my body started to be worried about his integrity. However, true relieve came into play when I accessed the last card: a Fuji Asset Retrieval, closing out the game.

Game 4 vs Personal Evolution

Houston, we have a problem. My opponent started to push a remote which looked like a Fuji, so I went Usain Bolt mode to get the Hermes and try to go for the rebounce, but I didn’t run fast enough. PE scored an early Fuji, while I had 2 points. I managed to be always high on cards thanks to Hotels, Nukas and Diesels, but didn’t catch agendas on time. My opponent sneaked a House of Knives on a free remote, but I didn’t run it, so that made the game a lot harder. After some accesses and Eru’s runs, I drew my last 3 cards of the deck, while we were 5-5 ( I believe). However, with 5 life points left, frustration was getting bigger, so Bang, Bang, Bang I had to pull my Devil Trigger and close the game: dying was a matter of time. I looked archives with Eru on the first light of the fifth day, but nobody came. Rest in pepperonis Mercury. Congratulations to my opponent PyreFly, who made things really hard for me and put an enormous pressure on each decision I had to make. I love these kind of games, pure Netrunner. Wp!

Game 5 vs Restoring Humanity

Devil trigger just in time, good econ and good draws; everything was working like a clock. Had a lot of pressure on HQ with docklands, jailbreak and legwork + backstitching and S-Dobrados, scoring an early Send a Message. The remote and HQ were a bit weak, so agendas weren’t safe. After that catch, RH put an upgrade on Archives and R&D. This caused on me some fear because of Nani being a thing, so I started to pressure less R&D. I scored an early Fuji from HQ, and before that he rezzed R&D upgrade (Nanisivik Grid) and Archives (Anoetic Void) to avoid the bounce. A trillion cards were storaged in Archives, so now that I knew that Archives was protected by an Anoetic and not a Nani, I took 16 credits and went siege mode against archives, aiming for R&D pressure and Nani negation. Furthermore, I wanted to see what was there because I felt that there could be some agendas due to the fact that the remote and HQ were really porous. After 3 tries, 16 runner credits to break Vampyronassa 3 times, 4 corp cards and 4 corp credits I managed to access archives and trash Anoetic. However, game ended on the spot, fishing 2 Fuji Asset Retrieval hosted on Archives, winning the game. GG!

Conclussion

Ended 3-2, making it to top 9. I have to say that I love Mercury, and I believed that I will try to improve this in order to fix those consistency issues and make it work better. Anyways, it’s really fun to use the /ignore-ice command from time to time and see a minimun of 2 cards. My dear friend Gabrielden defined it quite well as “surgical accesses”, so reads on agenda volume on each central are really important for the gameplay. Thank you again NSG and all the players for this amazing experience. Finally, a photo of me and my fellow comrade Gabrielden, who has always been a huge light on improving as a player.

And, if you haven’t listened to it yet, give Nero a try!