Two leaves. Exactly two. [1st Meanjin CO]

I took this deck to Meanjin CO and it won 2 games, after drawing the first game on time. Combined with my 2-1 record on the runner side, I took out first place. This CO had 8 players including myself and was organised by Saracenar, a really friendly and organised TO who kept the day running nicely on time and even hand wrote me a Mavirus proxy, before another player (thanks Bemi!) offered me one of their printed proxies.

The deck was originally inspired by Deer’s list, then Jinsei's list then iterated on by some friends in this list, and for this tournament I changed exactly 1 card:

-1 Hokusai Grid
+1 Mavirus

I also couldn't have come up with the results I got with this list without some friends. thank you team <3

Why PE? I have always loved PE and when I saw this list doing the rounds I was excited because I could jump into standard while playing my favourite ID; and an ID that I had lots of “overall practice” remembering triggers and play-lines with. This was my second in person tournament and first in person standard tournament.

You can read the other two lists for information about the cards. I swapped in Mavirus because I think that trashing virus counters at PAW speed is cool and useful tech. Here are some notes from games on this deck.

Round 1: corp game not played, drew on time.

Round 2: against Ayla. Ayla aimed to set up early by playing economy cards and not running. I had hoped for this and had installed an unprotected Rashida T1. This Rashida firing gave me the tempo required to set up an early Prāna behind an Anansi, and then add to this server with a Mavirus and Dataloop in front on later turns. This Prāna sat on only one counter for a while, and this actually worked to my advantage as I think it made it difficult for my opponent to choose when to deal with it. In the end the counters got away from her and I was able to activate the prāna for flatline.

Round 3: Sitting down against Esâ, I got the real tournament nerves for the first time in the day. Thankfully I drew into good ice, Prāna and Warroid early, and I was able to set up a threat. While setting up this threat I drew into two Stings, and fed one into archives and installed the other. Stings are great for getting 6 credits off Prāna when you can, however, on the very next turn Esâ did Esâ things with Running Hot. Lots of clicks and Light the Fire to finish meant my Prāna was toast. But then as my turn began I realised that my opponent only had two cards in hand after this massive turn, so I triple-advanced the sting on board for lethal.

It crossed my mind that this may not have been lethal if they had a Steelskin Scarring in hand, and then I decided that I should just go for it anyway. A chance to win is a chance to win; and the tempo loss for me would not have been huge as I did have that Prāna making bank for a little while. Even though it was a short game, my opponent played really well and if they had the Steelskin in hand I am sure this match would have been a longer and more arduous battle (like our other game!).

…and then it was done! I thought that the day would be 4 rounds because I had sort of forgotten there were 8 players and yeah. A great second tournament experience! The Meanjin crew were super welcoming and I ended up getting a lift home with new friends. 10/10, would travel again.

Runner deck: