Vengeful Investors (4th at GenCon)

Made in collaboration with MathandLove (https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/51889/vengeful-investors-undefeated-co-regionals-us-nationals), with iterations of the deck taking 6th (I think? I forget) at Chicago regionals, 1st at Colorado Regionals, 9th at Nationals, and 4th at GenCon.

I agree with much of what he said about the deck - it's Quetzal because nothing else really fits. People forget about Quetzal all the time, too - I had several opponents remind me of my bad pub helpfully (Don't have any, but it was nice!) and rez barriers only to say "Oh...right."

The deck plays more like a combo deck than you may think. With the amount of draw you have, you end up with Zero and 2+ CV's shockingly fast, with a lot of self-damage to power them. Indexing has wonderful synergy with CV - if you can't get back in to steal it, you just make them pitch it, and once you make them pitch their hand, you know exactly what they have for the next 4-5 draws, which usually gives you 1-3 turns of zero pressure to build up your next CV. Usually, the deck applies sporadic pressure through DDos or the errant Stimhack to keep the corp honest, while building up huge CV's, then you pitch their hand, FIS next turn, and pitch it again, and Indexing/Mad Dash for the win. A lot of games, both in testing and at the tournament, were won over multiple agenda steals during 1-2 turns. Some thoughts on the card choices:

Employee Strike: Puts some pressure on the CI matchup, more importantly turns off PU, helps a lot against a variety of corps. Hacktivist is great too with CV to burn their hand, and I had to lose a FIS to get these, so..tough to say which works better.

FIS: The workhorse of the deck. Corps play smart and keep no cards in their hand. You have something to sell to them, though! Having only 2 was painful, but the 2nd indexing and having ES really helped me during the day.

Mad Dash: What makes this run like a combo deck. With Indexing, CV, DDos + stimhack to contest remotes, you often build up until the corp makes a move, pop DDos, Index R&D (can't let it get sniped by stimhack!), then either Mad Dash R&D or Stimhack the remote, depending upon what you see, end up with a 5+ counter CV, pitch their hand, and round off archives for the win that turn or next. You haven't been running most of the game, so you're sitting on 30+ credits and can afford it.

Turntable: Just a great console, won me two games (I think), and gave me a chance against a combo-CI (I still lost, but if I had just sniped an agenda, I could have snagged his over-advanced Vitruvius and slowed him down...ah well)

By Any Means: In 9 games, I used it once, and it felt so good. Trashed 3 cards (+ damage from a stimhack), pitched an agenda into Archives instead of letting Amani fire, ignored a Mumbad Virtual Tour, and took a CV from 2 counters to 6 counters in a single turn to pitch the HHN I knew was waiting for me. It's a fun 1-of, because when it works, it works really great. All of the rest of the time, it just gets damaged out of your hand, and that's fine too. Also good if you worry about Mushin decks, since it ignores ambushes - not that they're really that much of a threat, but it's certainly a nice perk!

Trope: Net damage fodder against most match-ups. Gives you a win against PU / grindy Jinteki. 2 because Inject often snipes 1. Used it against the only PU I saw during the day, and I would have lost if I didn't have them.

Same Old Thing: Indexing #3 or Mad Dash #3, as needed, and safe from being Zero'd out of hand.

I wish I could give a lovely write-up of the course of the tournament, but it's frankly a blur. All I can say is I played a lot of wonderful people, and had a great deal of fun. I also got quite lucky (I wish I could remember who's CI it was that I blindly Mad Dashed HQ, and stole the 1 agenda in hand for 3 points - you deserved better!) It felt good to be the only non-Valencia in the cut, and the only Quetzal in the entire tournament.