In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future it is always Warhammer Wednesday somewhere

Firstly thanks to the lovely Ronan for running the CO for Scotland this year and also to Common Ground for hosting.

As I had played zero games of netrunner in the past year (and only one tournament since 2019) I decided to stick with decks reasonably close to what I played in 2019.

For runner that meant Reaver Wu although it is quite far off the Hayley I was on in the past.

Corp though Azmari is back and so I decided to see what sort of facsimile of my Argzmari was still possible post-rotation.

There are a lot of changes and I was really unsure how the archetype was going to hold up but there definitely were some promising looking new cards as well.

Agenda Suite: with SSL banned the swap for Bellona was very clear and I ended up swapping the Degree Mills for Send a Message. The ice suite has skewed more expensive with the removal of things like Slot Machine, the increased cost of Funhouse over Data Raven and this allows inclusion of things like Endless EULA and Hydra as good targets. I am not completely sure it is the right call but either of these agendas does give you some sort of upside on steal at least.

Assets: I knew Drago would be going in the list and since I generally go for single remote play that meant losing the Echo Chambers. With Drago a one-off backroom can be comboed for similar effect to get the winning point at least. More space was taken up now that Spin Doctor exists and so I ended up dropping to 2 NGO and taking card sslots from the Operations.

Operations: I pivoted the deck a bit for Drago, ditching two Hard-Hitting News and the Econ Warfares and going up to two Boom! since Consulting Visit has rotated. Dropping the influence-costing ice and adding three Seamless Launch meant that I had one inf left floating which I figured may as well be econ so took Government Subsidy which proved useful throughout the day. The Seamless are just generally good; they facilitate never-advance plays, can let you go lower on money protecting an agenda before a score and also take an IAA Drago to four advancements leaving the clicks for Boom! I do think the Operations are the thing this deck could do with having more thought spent on - I want more tag punishment cards now I have played with Drago a bit as going from nothing to either double advance or Seamless followed by a couple resource trashes or nastier would be very nice.

Upgrades: Prisec is still legal so it is still in the deck. Sits well in the remote to force them to take a few extra tags and the damage can be relevant now with Boom! tech. Good trash cost and sometimes they pinhole it instead of the unadvanced Drago and that feels alright too. Can be handy vs apoc on centrals but they usually get tagged by ice while going for it.

Ice: I removed the Surveyors largely for influence but in the days of Boats and Boomerangs that ice has slipped a bit for me. I tried out F2P and it proved quite nicely annoying. I threw in a Hydra as a juicy Send a Message target or something to potentially rez if I have gotten well beyond Government Subsidy money. Funhouses take the Data Raven Slot and Pings give another tagging option with an etr. Endless EULA always a good ice to have and another nice Send a Message target. IP Blocks always nice cheap ice, went up to three and didn't regret it.

Tournament

We had 16 players so the event was 4 round of swiss followed by a top 4.

Round 1 vs Padma: I managed a kill by dragging them through a taggy remote that they couldn't clear from for an NGO.

Round 2 vs Padma: This time I got to 6 then eventually managed an unadvanced Drago to get a Backroom.

Round 3 vs Steve Cambridge: Had a horrendous start with multiple misplays of my ability eating multiple denial of funds in the first few turns. Eventually managed to stabilise, score some agendas and then backroom for the win.

Round 4 vs Wu: This was against the currently undefeated king of swiss and also tournament organiser Ronan so of course I had to take at least one game off of him. Unfortunately I was not taking notes and we played again in the cut so I am not 100% sure but I think I managed a kill post an apoc.

Cut round 1 vs tagme Hoshiko: I mulliganned into my one-of HHN and a Boom! and managed a kill by turn 3

Cut final match 2 vs Wu: A tough game but I managed to sneak out two 5/3s then an unadvanced Drago into Backroom to take the tournament.

All in all Azmari went undefeated on the day which I am very pleased with and I think the archetype does have legs even when everyone is expecting Boom. I do think there is work to be done and in particular trying out Reality Plus as the ID to see how the money works out and looking at more Drago lines with other tag punishment cards.

Why 4th Edition?

I never got to play the 3rd Edition competitively but it was 2nd with the degree mills swapped for Bellona and the Ice suite changed around to include Gold Farmer. It looked pretty sick and it is probably for the best you can't play that agenda suite anymore.