[Throwback, 2nd @ TTT] The ToolboxX

The Throwback Team Tournament was a great thing. Not only did everyone have fun on the day - but a lot of people I talked to mentioned having an amazing time preparing for it and theorycrafting. I saw Council (who wouldn't play in the main event) get majorly nerdsniped by Throwback prep - and I imagine the same goes for many others. At the same time, people who didn't want to prep much could just take a good Standard deck and add a Sensie Actors Union, a Friends in High Places, or any other power card.

Congratulations to wowarlok for picking the perfect format for this. You handled everything perfectly. Thanks to Atien for the prize support - Ams's Bahia Bands, those Mindscapings, and the jakuza alts were all amazing.

To the deck.

Unknown unknowns

As a homicidal piece of shit taught us years ago, there are things we know we know, things we know we don't know, and things we don't know we don't know. When playing a strategy game that's just been upset by a big change, a novel format, or something else new and unexplored, it pays to focus on the last part.

Therefore, don't even think about what you suspect you might face - bring either something so linear and proactive you don't have to care about the opposing side, or something so versatile and wide-ranging in its disruption you can adapt to anything. I chose the former for Corp, and the latter for Runner.

You might think the deck has tools hand-picked for IG; for Warroid Tracker prisons; for infinite credit combos; for stacks of Archers; for Potential Unleashed; for asset spam of various nature; for whatever sequences of operations we might face; for Titan Transnational's lightning speed. All of those are lies: the truth is, Bankhar, Simulchip, Clot, Imp, Cupellation, Pinhole Threading and Ashen Epilogue are tech for everything and nothing. With the potential addition of Hush (which definitely should have made it in) they are a perfect toolbox of cards that never say "beat this one thing" but "you can challenge any corp that tries to win the game on this axis".

If someone tried to win by just playing fair, these cards might have proven useless and the deck might have faltered. But no one was going to play fair this one time, and all we could do was have perfect coverage for all brands of unfairness.

The deck went 2-1 at the event, just because I can't play against Punitive Jinteki at all. In retrospect, 1x Heliamphora could have been an interesting addition to our tech suite, and something I would definitely consider if Throwback happened again tomorrow. I got a chance to win by central multiaccess, but failed. Three copies of End of the Line were cupellated over the rest of the tournament.

I hope we get more events in this format, and in more formats. Getting to figure out something new always makes my neurons fire in novel ways. Netrunner is the best game ever made.