Despy Smoke (Chicago Regionals Winner)

I couldn't decide on a Regionals runner this year, and then Madrabbit put up this double desperado smoke list: https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/42869/double-desperado-6th-place-at-norcal-regionals- I played it and loved it. Refer to the original deck for how to play it/crazy awesome Smoke shenanigans.

I made a few tweaks to shore up what I saw as weaknesses and to fit it to the Chicago meta. Basically, I added a Personal Touch, which makes Blackstone pretty awesome against Eli and helps other breakers in some matchups as well, it was an All-star include. I also added an Interdiction because sometimes it's good to clear currents, and also people rarely pre-rez their crisiums on Rnd. It did work as well. Lastly, I added a Dai V, for Mother Goddess/excalibur shenanigans in CI/Railgun decks. Its also the decks only answer to tour guide which is prohibitively expensive to break. I did not install it once, but I don't regret including it. The deck has game against basically everything but Prison and glacier jinteki(assuming they prerez caprice) and was super fun to play.

Swiss: R1-Bye

R2-Joe-Moons ETF-I get an early desperado and poke centrals and contest remotes, stealing an early GFI and trashing his key assets. Eventually he starts to outpace me and I switch to pressuring centrals. I get an indexing/mad dash run Jacksoned and end up never recovering. I have to try to draw into my breakers, but Joe outpaces me and end up scoring out. In retrospect I didnt switch to setting up my own boardstate soon enough and got tempo'd out.

R3-Lucas-Foodcoats/Glacier ETF-I get setup relatively quick with an early mercur and desperado, but Lucas has iced the heck out of all his servers and has a good amount of money. I poke centrals forcing rezzes and charging up net mercur, stealing a CST in the process. I do my best to make money to contest his remote, since I have interdiction/mad dash/Indexing in hand. He finally goes for what I think is a score. I interdiction and find an adonis, trashing caprice and BBG in the server. A couple turns later I indexing to find 2 agendas and mad dash for my last 5 pts.

R4-Greg-Rushy/spiky Palana-This is a bad matchup for me. I get decently setup and poke around centrals. An early indexing gets me a fetal AI. Greg scores a Nisei in a Caprice server, he prerezzes his Caprice and I lose the psi game. I steal a nisei while poking centrals, but Greg has another in hand and scores it. I poke HQ looking for an agenda I suspect is in there, but to no avail. Greg IAA's a card, I win 1 of 3 psi games, but Nisei is a good card. WP by Greg.

R5-Alex-Moons ETF- I get setup pretty fast and suppress Alex's key assets. I snipe a few agendas out of HQ and I am feeling pretty good. Eventually I temujin HQ with a film critic and find my final 4 pts. Alex never saw an Estelle the whole game, which made my life a lot easier.

Cut: Spags-RP glacier-I get setup a bit slowly, so does Spags, apparently he was agenda flooded. I poke HQ getting a Future perfect, but his ice is super taxing for me. I struggle to setup without a robust econ(all the run based stuff is not outstanding here). In retrospect I needed to be hitting HQ more. Eventually I money up and wait for spags to try to score with interdiction/indexing/mad dash in hand. He does this and then gives me the turn(he may or may not have been distracted at this point and there was some confusion on turn pass etc, thanks to Spags for being a classy guy). I interdiction, indexing, finding a GFI. score that and a Nisei for the win.

Brian-SYNC 24/7 Kill- I feel pretty good going into this one since I'm pretty teched against this kind of deck. Early temujin money +NACH and Film critic was good for me. I score 4 points without getting any tags landed by HHN. Eventually indexing mad dash to close it out.

Brian-Grand Finals-Similar type of game. I get an early Temu. Brian gets 15 minutes and BN scored pretty early, I have NACH film critic and start hitting HQ. I see that he has 24/7 in hand, but dont see a boom. I steal an agenda with FC before it gets MCA'd. And Brian feeds me another agenda to get rid of my NACH. I temu HQ and dont find anything i hadn't seen before. Then I indexing into 4 points through a data raven for the win.

The deck felt good even in the losses. Really fun to play! GGs to all.