7th at the 2023 UK Nationals

Wins against @Mezzie (Hoshiko), @mjp (Hoshiko), @Sixtyten (Esâ), @SamB (Arissana), @Nicky3.0 (Sable), and @ChrisF (Hoshiko).

The one loss was to @BinaryDogs(Hoshiko).

(I also went undefeated with this list at the team tournament)

If there were another tournament tomorrow, I would take this list card-for-card without any changes.

With thanks and love to @paulyg and all of the tournament organisers. After 3 consecutive, and wonderful, UK nationals, Sheffield has probably become my favourite UK city to visit. I look forward to the first excuse to travel up again next year.

Some great results from EA Sports 🏅, with 3 making the top cut, and another 3 in contention. Not a bad showing for our first tournament outing!

Special thanks to all of Unband 🍌 for being just a great group of people to hang out and play netrunner with 💙.

Tournament Afterthoughts

2023 UK Nationals was the toughest netrunner tournament that I can remember. The quality of netrunner I saw being played, by new and veteran players alike, was unbelievably high. I had to fight tooth and nail for each and every win, and no mistake that I made ever went unpunished. By the end of round 3 I was exhausted.

The tournament results seem to make it pretty clear that we are in a "Corp Meta". What that actually felt like on the day was that it was much easier to force mistakes out of the Runner (as Corp) than it was to force mistakes out of the Corp (as Runner). That doesn't mean that we got any free wins as Corp--we didn't--but it does mean that we were able to play through our bad draws.

All in all, and although it was exhausting, I think this makes for the best kind of netrunner.

Premise

This was a comfort pick, rather than a meta pick.

I was pretty set on taking Facet Ob to UK nationals, because I like tempo asset decks, and it was fun to play. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I couldn't figure out what the good and bad matchups were, and that made me uncomfortable. After 4 weeks of testing, I finally concluded that the Sable matchup was "really quite bad". UK has always had a preference for Criminal, so, on the day that we were travelling up to the event, I switched to rush Ob, but with a few (untested) changes.

Matchups

Favoured vs Hoshiko

Even vs Shaper and Crim

Just terrible vs Esa

(see the original write-up for more details)

Piloting

The piloting strategy hasn't changed, but we do have a couple of new tricks up our sleeve.

The only thing I would add is that it's important to pay attention to which agendas have been scored/stolen, because that changes how we are going to close the game. If there are 2 x oaktowns in the score/steal area, then we are probably looking at a fast advance closer (and we can start dismantling the remote to secure centrals). However, if we reach the end of the mid-game and there aren't any oaktowns in either score area, then we need to reinforce our remote because that is how we are going to have to score out!

The Changes

Magnet -> Thimblerig

Other (better) Rush Ob lists from Worlds played Thimblerig, for which I was very jealous. It's a great piece of ICE for forcing a decoder install out of Hoshiko, as they can't use Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga to get through it. The same is also true of Boomerang and Botulus. Against Criminal, we can position the Thimblerig in front of HQ, and use it to swap in a Border Control to deny a Diversion of Funds.

More than once on the day, I kept a hand with little or no ICE in it because it had Mavirus, which I could immediately use to tutor out Thimblerig to protect Rashida Jaheem.

5-star change. Strongly recommend.

Ice Wall -> Afshar

With the Magnet out of the deck, we want another 3-cost code gate to replace it. It's a little gratuitous to play both Afshar and Winchester, but, actually, Afshar has great synergy with Thimblerig, so it's fine.

2nd Audacity -> Crisium Grid

Whlie I hadn't played any Rush Ob since Worlds, several members of EA sports had been actively testing it, and they all said that Crisium Grid was super hot. It improves the Criminal and Shaper matchups, but is a dead card against Hoshiko. On the day, it saved my bacon against a turn 2 Diversion of Funds, which proved key in defending an economically poor draw against Sable.

2nd Azef Protocol -> Slash and Burn Agriculture

Without the 2nd Audacity, going to 1 x Azef Protocol and 1 x Slash and Burn Agriculture (an agenda suite that was established to be playable very early in the season) seemed sensible.

Slash and Burn Agriculture has the advantage over Audacity of not requiring there to be a set number of cards in hand, which is particularly relevant when we have an atlas counter, and we want to fast advance to close, but we are facing Maw.

It's worth noting the Slash and Burn Agriculture + Azef Protocol + Tithe combo (to tutor out Spin Doctor to shuffle back Slash and Burn Agriculture), not because it happens frequently (it happened once in the tournament), but because it requires some work to set up. Either with Extract or Tucana (or both).