RELEASE THE KRAKEN, Undefeated in Swiss, 1st Gameville Table

Kraken is one of the most underplayed cards in the game for a really good reason. It's absolutely terrible. But trust me when I say it was well worth the include for the memes alone.

Recently, corpside Netrunner has been playing less and less Netrunner as runner side gets better and better cards while corps get basically nothing with HB: ETF being the only real exception. Because of this, the meta has diverged into people who play ETF and those who play Combo decks with little room in between at the competitive level. Fortunately, there is a deck that crushes combo decks and can still play a competitive match of Netrunner against those ETF glaciers; this is that deck.

Leela has always been good at shutting down the 7 point CI decks due to her ability mesing with their ability to score out, but with Hades Shard(which should really be an Eden Shard but I couldn't be bothered to find my eden shards) and Information Sifting alongside Indexing for r&d pressure, the CI matchup is pretty much unwinnable for the corp. Meanwhile, BOOM! combo decks have no real way of dealing with Aaron Marrón. Aaron Marrón additionally makes the CTM matchup playable.

With that being said, this deck struggles heavily against most asset spam decks like IG and RP, but Whizzard ran those decks out of the meta a while back and see little play anymore. This leaves only ETF as a difficult matchup but even then I view the matchup as being fairly even with heavy dependence on matchup experience and early draws.

Everything else about the deck is basically the same from when I rann a Logos Leela list last year at Regionals for similar reasons, I just don't like playing against combo and don't want to worry about it. The onyl real changes are cutting out some of the more janky parts to make room for Kraken and adding some of the new cards in because they are absolutely bonkers good (Blockade Runner was an MVP on the day and Tapwrm got me upwards of 10 credits every time I installed it).

Tournament Report

Round 1 NEH BOOM! combo kill deck WIN: I played against an Alabama natives who drove all the way down to Gainseville to play. Unfortunately for her I dropped Aaron Marrón and Hades Shard on my second turn and never looked back. She spent the majority of the game searching for a win condition. While I did get nlucky with some accesses (whiffing on an Indexing) it was only a matter of time before I closed out the game with my combo lock. (1-0)

Round 2 Titan Transnational Supermodernism WIN: This round I actually played against the store owner of Gamesville Tabletop. She came out the gate swinging with a quick hostile and atlas score before I could find a way into her gearcheck servers but with Aaron Marrón (again) and Logos and Leela triggers, I was able to keep her under a lock without a win condition. (2-0)

Round 3 Blue Sun 6 Agenda Kill WIN: This match might be one of the funniest matches I ever played. He starts off strong by going broke to score a priority requisition rezzing a curtain wall over r&d. However, I end up on my next turn legworking into hand to find a High-Risk Investment. I then followed it up with a Kraken on r&d. After that play I contemplated quitting Netrunner as I had finally hit the absolute pinnacle of what the game had to offer, but then I snapped back to reality and began tearing apart his now completely undefended servers. After that play he was at such a credit disadvantage that he had no real hope of coming back into the game. He ended up IAAing a Government Takeover in a de facto concession. (3-0)

Round 4 HB:ETF Friendless Glacier WIN: This match was against Stephen Ball, a brilliant Netrunner player and podcast personality whose matches are always intense and incredibly fun. Like me he also plays only 2 IDs and he plays them very well. However, this game starts out pretty poorly with him. He mulligans into a a hand with only one piece of ice and a couple of agendas and he finds sticking economy assets fairly difficult as I continually trash his adonis campaigns. I score a couple of points here and there as I legwork into hq and makers eye rnd. Stephen finds scoring out to be difficult as I install my breakers and hold onto inside jobs and plenty of cash. The game ends as I drop my Sneakdoor Beta and run into his hand loaded with agendas. (4-0)

The Cut:

Game 1 Potential Unleashed death by 1000 cuts kill WIN: This deck was piloted by a friend of mine who I played with when I first got into the game. He has always been really into janky jinteki flatline decks but his experience and skill always allows him to place well. Before this game I had never actually played against the ID before so I tried to treat it like it was a mixture of PE and IG kill. During the game he started sniping basically all of my Account Siphons out of hand and started milling my deck of all of its juice. He even sniped an Indexing and proceeded to ark lockdown it. I was nearing the end of my rope as my deck size dwindled but I turned the game around with a utopia shard play that netted my 3 points, 2 bounces and brought me to game point. After that play I dug for my indexing and played it to score a GFI for the game. (5-1)

Game 2 Grand Finals Winners Side versus Friendcoats LOSS: This game was against one of the best Netrunner players and Pod-casters in Florida. Ve is a very experienced HB glacier player and she showed it in the match. She began the match by installing an ice over a breaker bay grid and an eve campaign and rezzing both to prevent leela shenanigans. I then legworked in hand finding a vitruvius and bouncing the piece of ice on the remote. After whiffing on rnd I installed a blockade runner to start drawing up for sustain economy in the form of a Kati Jones or a Temüjin Contract so that I could keep up with the asset spam. Unfortunately, none of that came and Ve began shoring up her servers as she gained an obscene amount of money from her campaigns. The rest of the game proceeded with me desperately trying to find a way to slow Ve's tempo as I dug for economy that never showed up. I ended up scoring a corporate sales team but with a rezzed san-san in a 4 deep scoring remote and completely secure centrals I ended up being blown out of contention.

Thanks to: Gainseville Meta people for helping me test, Callie for running a lovely store at Gamesville Tabletop, my opponents for some great games, and Sean for running the tournament.