d1en's Everyone deserves a chance (3rd seed at Worlds)

Rewind back to Saturday, November 8th, post Round 1, it was a horrible Round. Completely swept out from the get-go by Tim Fowler, I had a gutted feeling in my heart this wouldn't the Worlds improvement I worked for. I left the Game Centre, popped on some tunes, and returned with a renewed attitude. Fast Forward to end of Round 8, I managed to drop only one game, securing the Third Seed out of 294 players, higher than that of the person who knocked me clean down.

This list came about from continued testing since my Regionals win in Rochester, NY. The build has always been a strong suit against RP and HB, but struggled with Fastro. Knowing that I would be encountering Fastro throughout the tournament, I built a list capable of having the draw and acceleration needed to get through the deck for key pieces. That’s how I came about to finish 4th at Canadian Nationals, but it still wasn’t enough, losing to Jason Deng, the eventual winner. That’s when I realized Desperado wasn’t the right console at the end of the day, and not finding breakers at the right time always became a issue.

Thus, this led to the eventual change for Turntable and SMC. It was the perfect solution, and through months of testing, I finally had a Runner deck I felt happy with. There were plenty of times throughout the tournament when I would trade up for either a Astroscript with a token, or switch a 1 pointer for the Corp’s 2 pointer. Hell, I even traded a NAPD for a GFI, effectively reducing their point count. I chose to stick with this above all other advice for DLR Val, because I truly believed in the hard work of the community who supported this build. I didn't want to let go of what everyone contributed, and I knew that if I had a chance to jump on a Featured table, I really wanted to put on a good show for everyone to watch.

There are a few flex slots in there for a variety of things. For example, if you feel that combo pieces are being played consistently in your meta, you can opt to take out the Scrubbers and put in Imp as to further disrupt. For the day of Worlds, I had a feeling Asset attrition was the name of the game. I also worried about HB Foodcoats, and that led me to slotting Stimhack rather than having another Blackmail. Stimhack is that amazing econ card that if you find Atman on a Peddler or have a Clone Chip in play, it’ll help rig building acceleration or not get taxed on the way breaking into RnD to have another run for Medium digging.

There are a few things that have to be said on how to play the deck. If you’re playing against Fastro, you want to have hands where it gives you the card draw or acceleration through your deck. Don’t worry sometimes about letting the first Astro through. You have Turntable for a reason, I mad scratched 6 Astros and four 1-pointers for 2-pointers to delay their scores, ultimately winning losing matches. If you’re playing against RP, it’s one of it’s most favourable matchups. HB Glacier is a razor thin edge which requires critical thinking and careful use of your clicks. One misplay and you can lose your entire rig. Here was the breakout of my day:

Tim Fowler - NEH/Kate 0-2 Derrick Billings - Turtlebacks/Hailey LLDS Chameleon 2-0 Canadian player (I’m sorry I forgot your name!) - RP/Noise 2-0 Nick Soto - HB Media Blitz/Hailey Stealth 2-0 Aaron Andries - HB Food Coats/dlr Val 2-0 Stjepan Pavuna - HB Food Coats/Noise 1-1 Corp split Ahmed Ahbassi - NEH/ProCo PPVP Kate 2-0 Gregor Terrill - NEH/DLR Val w/The Source 2-0

This list was tuned and tweaked with feedback from many people in my Toronto meta. Shout outs to XVRogue, DanJo(@robomagic), Luke S, Mikhail(@pankoescolar), Aaron C, and many others from my local Toronto meta who supported me in building this list. Shout outs to @spags, Aaron Andries and Joe Schupp for believing in me and encouraging me to play what my heart said to. Shout outs to Dan D'Argenio(@mediohxcore) for keeping me motivated enough to MemStrip on stream. Shout outs to Dave Hoyland for being a amazing human being and strong opponent. Shout outs to @nobodyhasthis for being a supporter of the Strip Revolution. Shout outs to @tmoiynmwg for believing in me and helping me through this Cinderella story. If there's anyone else I missed, please post a comment and kindly remind me!

I have so many people to thank, so I'm going to end on saying shout outs to EVERYONE I met, everyone who congratulated, and everyone who encouraged me this Worlds weekend to come back and make this Cinderella story come true. The deck name is homage to what I had messaged my girlfriend after I got swept in Round 1.

I asked her, "Don't I deserve at least a chance?" At the end of the day on Friday, I read the flavour text on Valencia. "Everyone deserves a chance. Everyone."