The premise and the deck

I've always liked the idea of a deck with World Tree.

Unfortunately I had only just started playing standard (didn't feel confident enough) when the Kabonessa WT deck was on a roll, then promptly got banned. After amavric posted his Tech Tree I felt the deck lacked economic gas. A languid wait for Shaper card scoops and finally I saw beautiful leave. At this point I wrote xiaat and said we should make a tree frog, he backed me up.

The first versions of this deck contained different shenanigans like 3x Slap Vandal and 3x Poison Viall, as a cheap backup to break big ice. Also, The Class Act seemed like the perfect option for me to move targets for the tree and keep them out of my hand. This deck was just too slow and clunky.

Then I saw Physarum Entangler in someone's deck and realized that it was what the little frog was clearly lacking to do bonk evil corpo. There were also Boomerangs (at xiaat's suggestion), but they too ended up being cut in favor of other more useful cards.

At this point I set a goal that the deck should contain no more than 60 cards, otherwise it wouldn't be very comfortable to play live. We slowly cooked up that deck and by version 1.3 it looked almost optimized and was showing solid enough in the local meta. That wasn't enough and some cards had to be added, the deck had grown to 65 cards after all. (Just at that moment Wormwood came out and I realized I was on the right track).

By the time ACC came around, I was sure the deck would do well, but I was wrong. (All in all, 28th place isn't such a bad result.)

After releasing Don't Put Down Your Deck by TAIB, I realized what exactly I was missing. Turns out my deck was close to their brew and I was very happy (since my deckbuilding experience is incredibly small)

Card selection:

2x Burner - HQ pressure is what the shapers were lacking (I play two copies as DJ Fenris is great with this)

2x Trick Shot - honestly, I would have liked to play 3 copies, but 65 cards was my last deal with myself. The rest of the events are just a basic economy set.

Bankhar and Airblades were a great addition (inspired by AugustusCaesar).

Bones vs annoying assetspams. Clot for sportsmetal and the other "I score agendas from hand you can't do anything"

Pichação is my main love, with the right approach it allows you to play as much as 3 extra (which helps a lot with Conduit Runs and purple taxes)

I've never liked playing 3 copies of World Tree, simply because once the first tree is set up, the others immediately become dead draw (we don't want dead cards in our deck, do we?).

To be honest, I've never written such long write ups and I'm not sure it's worth telling you what you can read from TAIB, so I'll just describe my emotions from the tournament below.

The performance

Woke up 03:30, had breakfast and drank an energy drink.

• Round 1 Ob vs tvaduva's Kit - I lost and was quite upset.

• Round 2 Frog vs Naim PD - this time my card draw was good and I was able to beat purple

• Round 3 Frog vs jfoley NeuroEducation Azmari - I lost in 4 turns, my opponent's card draw was perfect.

• Round 4 Ob vs Larrea's Esa - my main fear and kryptonite came true, Esa pressed me hard but miraculously I was able to win.

• Round 5 Frog vs MotionBlur's PD - this time purple was stronger, there was almost nothing I could do.

At this point I was ready to give up and drop.

• Round 6 Ob vs Dropbear's Kit - I decided not to repeat the mistakes of the first round and played almost perfectly, winning.

• Round 7 Frog vs OF-OF15's Sportsmetal - a matchup I was more prepared for than ever, I knew it well and it helped me win easily.

• Round 8 Ob vs Mortivor Sebastiao - the game started with Mortivor installing Hannah and Bones, the game was close to being lost but Mortivor sat out the credits and I was able to pull out the win. (sorry Mortivor, I was hoping we weren't paired)

• Round 9 Frog vs Toron4's Asa - the toughest game I had in the whole tournament, we played very close and we ended up 6-6, draw. (At

• Round 10 Ob vs StephanE's Sable — playing for Ob against criminals is something I didn't want to do the whole tournament (luckily I was able to win).

Suddenly with 19 points I was able to make it to the top. It was my first top at such a big tournament and I crawled through the medium-low tables.

The result after the Swiss:

Ob 4-1-0, Ari 2-3-1.

Next Day:

Woke up again at 03:30, had breakfast again and drank an energy drink (funny, isn't it?)

• Round 1 top Frog vs abstracted PD - my card draw was perfect, quick set-up and lucky accessors helped to finish the game in 8 turns.

• Round 2 top Ob vs bowlsley 419 - worst matchup for a deck with the perfect amount of money to win. In one turn I managed to score out Above the Law and trash Daily Casts with 6 creds, econ blast! After that I managed to build a perfect fork and score a winning SDS.

• Round 3 top Frog vs CheekFake PD - tree setup turn 8, that said it all, first top loss.

• Round 4 top Ob vs xiaat Frog - sorry bro, I've never had such a perfect run for this deck, every card came in perfect timing. (bro kill :()

• Round 5 top Ob vs Jai Frog - after failing to set up Archer on HQ (horribly flooded with agendas), the future champion didn't stay away and punished me with conduit.

I know that usually all the players showing only winning games, but that game is not only winning.

The afterthoughts and shoutouts

First of all I want to say thank you to Russian Netrunner Community, especially to the guys from Saint-Petersburg, without them none of this was possible. Xou, xiaat, emmel, Mortivor and many others, I love you guys.

Secondly to my fellow brother xiaat, who endures my stream of consciousness in private messages and is always ready to support and play this beautiful game.

Thirdly jan tuno, for the nice and great performing Awoof! deck I played during this tournament.

Fourth NSG for continuing to do their thing.

P.S.: Thank you Kikai for helping me to realize what I want from my frog.

I played unexpectedly well at this tournament and will try to play better and better. Thanks for reading.

Final result Ob 6-2-0, Ari 3-3-1

Always Be Running!