Criminal Gabriel - Core Only

Like many newbies after a couple of months of playing online and with a friend, I decide it was time to find a local store championship to test out my skill. Feeling very nervous at first as only had a single core set and not really sure what to expect but it turned out great as many before me has stated in a many forums that the core set really has a lot of good cards.

Firstly let talk about the deck and please fell free to advice/comment as my selections are due to my current limited card pool (1 core set only), knowledge and experience.

Runner: Criminal Gabriel

Why did I built this deck? Well after playing testing all 3 runner factions in the core set, Criminal just seem to best suit me. Shaper- Kate seem too slow and deliberating. Anarch - Noise - I could not quite get it going it with need for lowering ICE strengths etc. Too much room for error when playing a first tournament.

Strengths: Run early and run hard but with a degree of safety in mind that the Criminal way. Not really relying on any resource it doesn't matter if you hit a bad ICE at the start. Every breaker is doubled up and hence not end of world gets trashed.

Weakness: I feel against Jinteki is the worst matchup as too many net damage and potential servers run to make it run out of money fast. Also no breakers for traps or non-standard ICE.

Card Selection: All Econ of Sure Gamble, Bank Job, Armitage CodeBusting, Easy Mark are self explanatory, need money to break ICE, thats the key hence added Cyberfeeder to assist. Account Siphon - any criminal deck without this, try to keep Corp in checek whist boosting yourself obvious choice with the inclusion on Crash Space and Decoy to help pay or avoid tags. Crash Space is my primary choice but had use Decoy to fill out deck. Crash Space is also an excellent counter against Scorched Earth and Traffic Accident. Forced Activation - use when Corp is low on econ is great way to trash, else use up Corp money. Desperado - the best console in Core set such a good econ feeder DataDealer - this was a last minute swap in as on Jinteki.net play testing, I keep getting bad agenda ambush - proved very useful in my Round 2 Game 2. Getting rid of a News Team for 9 credit - works better than a stimhack. Breaker Suite - Simply and effective - Corroder/Femme/GorianBlade, covers the basis. Ninja if up against high sentry but usually only acting as filler or early game install before femme. Use Femme to bypass Tollbooth is a must else even with Gorian Blade it is expensive 7 credit to break. Sneakbackdoor useful if Corp leaves archive open or with low ICE.

Netrunner Spring 2016 Store Tournament Report

Date: 21st may 2016
Venue: TheHobbitHole - Chatteris Format: Swiss rounds 3

My Corporation deck can be found <https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/35410/hb-etf-core-only>

Round 1 Game 1: HB ETF vs Kate (Lose, 0pt) Very slow start, pretty much agenda bomb had 3 agendas in my hand most of the time and lost pretty quick apart from scoring an early agenda. Unable to tags and the runner keep trashing my Adonis Campaign to keep me poor. Agenda 2-7

Round 1 Game 2: Gabriel VS NEH (Modified Win, 1pt) This was pressure game, running like criminal does, early and hard on HQ, scored a couple of points and then the Corp rallied. Agenda was 2-3 when time was called just after he installed an agenda into server leaving me with one last hoorah run. First click, Account Siphon to make Corp poor and not enough to rez next runs set of ICEs and then to take further tag on Data Raven to score additional 2 pt agenda for the modified 1 points win and leaving opponent with 0.

Agenda 4-3

End of Round 1 Score: 1pt

Round 2 Game 1: HB ETF vs Noise (Win, 2pts) This is a very quick game. I opened scoring a Private Security Force on an open server on turn as runner was only interested in milling R&D into archives and upping the virus counters with incubator and medium. He was that confident he even float tags without batting an eye lid even when running on R&D against my Data Raven. He went 6-2 up in no time and with pressure on I had to change tactic. Firstly waste a turn to purge virus and then another turn do a 3-click meat damage with my scored Private Security Force to help reduce his attack options as he was breaking with Faust. He didn't care as he had worse (Anarch = I Had Worse) and was gaining 3 cards when I was doing meat damage, but eventually slip up when he was too eager and left with 2 cards in hand after missing a 4 card medium dig. PSF killed with 3 click meat damage.

Agenda 2-6 but Runner flatlined

Round 2 Game 2: Gabriel vs NEH (Modified Win, 1pt) A very fast start from Corp in getting Breaking News for the single point lead and then ambushing me with News Team for -1 agenda. I had to keep the Corp poor as he was quick with remote servers and asset. AS to the rescue. With the econ battle in my favour I could risk both snares and ghost branch then using crash space to pay for tags and finally finding desperado and data dealer to get rid of 2 News Team which was turning point and went on to win the game on 5-2 after time was called.

Agenda 5-2

End of Round 2 Score: 4pts

Round 3 Game 1: Gabriel vs Replicating Perfection (Win, 2pts) Feeling more at home and relaxed the cards just seem to come at the right time. The corp had an agenda rush and no econ as I AS and then constant run on HQ with Desperado together with a open server explosion agenda to finish quick.

Agenda 8-0

Round 3 Game 2: HB ETF vs Kate (Win, 2pts) With confidence up, I knew I was in with a chance of top to two. Brilliant first hand with Shipment for Mirrormorph to install 3 ICE, Adonis Campaigning and Hedge Funds. 10 credits and runner was slow to setup leaving lots of earlier opportunities - when 4-0 up then played for ABT which could have been a costly move; sending 2 agenda into archives. I could only protect with Tollboth at the time and later spend the next few turns bulking up archives but was too late. Runner soon caught up to 6-5. But as he went for the finish he hit an Ichi with no sentry breakers. Next turn install ABT, but I was limited in money down to 7 with 2 unrezzed ice Engina and Rototurret. The runner was clever forcing me to use my money even if he couldn't in. Luckily I had a Pad Campaign already rezzed and 2 shipment from kaaguya in hand to score out.

Agenda 7-5

End of Round 3 Score: 8pts