Failing to Go Faster at UK Nationals [2-2@CoS, 1-4@Standard]

LLBlumire 179

This deck is an evolution of Baa Ram Wu's Flippy Shit with a few meta calls and some bad decisions. The Clot call turned out to be entirely correct based on the presence of Big Deal, Audacity, and a bit of NBN FA at the event. Unfortunately for me I did not match into a single fast advance card the entire event and it happened before I got a Simulchip on the table.

Despite this decks poor performance at the event, it was consistently a joy to pilot. And as you will see in the coming pages I had some of the most Netrunner games I've ever had.

My notes for this deck will be less detailed than my notes for my corp deck as this requires significantly more concentration to pilot.

Crown of Servers

I played alongside the People's Front of Reading (not to be confused with the splitters in the Reading People's Front) and won its first game against Sixtyten from Arthritis Campaign, who was on a BABW! deck, filling out a full suite of System Update IDs with the rest of the team. The game ended when I touched 9 points in a single turn, 1 off of HQ, and then 2 off a deep dive!

The next round I was thoroughly picked apart by Aceempress of Qtmqehish on thunderbolt. It's intimidating playing against the best thunderbolt player in the world. It's worse when your deck draws exclusively hardware. I drew my entire hardware suite by turn 5, and the bottom cards of my deck at the end of the game were two environmental testings, a coalescence, the aesop's pawn shop, a spec work, a telework contract, and a kyuban (alongside a the second lilypad). So I was not flush with cash during the game. Aceempress exploited my economic weakness and game me a proper schooling in how to facecheck a Bloop!

Now we come to some foreshadowing. Against ChonkySeal of Belmont Biscuit Milk Chocolate Seal Bars (which were delicious and kept my sugar levels up through a lot of the long weekend), and I have a confession I must make. I have never defeated Aginfusion. Not once in my entire history of playing Netrunner. I don't know if it's the decks I play, or if it's me. I always ask what I did wrong after the games. I just can't seem to beat it. My the end of the game there were two Nisei Mark 2's scored, and I whiffed my last shot at a Deep Dive.

And finally, as in my corp writeup, against J0NALD of We Traded Quagsire for Kikai, my note taking fell to an all time low. I have the word 'spin' written on my note card, presumably because I saw a spin doctor at some point. I recorded the game as a win, and will assume that Ob did as Ob does, the density got high in R&D, and I hit a Deep Dive.

Main Event

In round 2 I played against LesserScarlet, who unfortunately fooded up playing Issuaq. I hit a Fujii turn 1 while trick shotting, losing my Physarum safety net and so declining the second run. Shortly after this, I was able to contest a Bacpro installed in the remote through usual 'Ari pulls an access out of thin air' methods, and then went into stall mode until I was able to recur my Euler from the bin to contest the code gates on the central servers. My deep dive turn with free breaks on Euler and cheap breaks on a pre-placed Ika eventually led to hitting another Bacpro, but it was the 7th card down so I was on the edge of my seat!

In round 4 I went against Simili on Asa. She was able to get Hagen on central servers, and I ended up needing to use a muse to get a propeller to access (and contest an agenda) early. From there, I was simply in a fracters-waiting-room to pull of deep dive. Unfortunately for me my Pressure Spike, Simulchip, and Muse that would get me the fracter back decided to be in the bottom 5 cards of my deck. Not to worry, on the final turn of the game (with ikawah score out being threatened), I sent the run for deep dive and clicked Q-loop, knowing I had a very good chance of hitting my breaker. Unfortunatley Spec Work decided to show up and the game was lost!

Round 6 brings in some foreshadowing I prepared earlier, as I rematched into ChonkySeal's AgInfusion. You will be pleased to know I am nothing if not consistent, and have still never defeated AgInfusion, though I do believe I put up a much better fight. The deck simply needs Pinhole Threading to be able to contest Charlotte Caçador, is my main takeaway.

Round 8 sent me into Atien's A Teia, with a beautiful playmat and alt art. This game ended in sadness as I missed a deep dive with a high density R&D, all ~5~ remaining agendas managing to be in the bottom ~17 cards undeneath my deep dive.

And finally Round 9 sent me into Bartimaeus on R+. I trick shot turn one straight into a Tomorrowʼs Headline, then bounced into a Ping. My opponent popped a Rashida Jaheem and Jammed a new card behind the Ping, then hitting me with Oppo Research. I decided to float the tags and focus on economic recovery, throwing down Coalescence into Spec Work and setting myself up for future turns. Unfortunately there were no Future Turns, as my opponent rez'd Gaslight to tutor the second End of the Line (the first was in their opening hand) to shoot me in the head for the game!

Final Thoughts

On a 4-1 record, propped up by a good Corp side performance, I was admittedly very tilted by the end of the event. I grew frustrated with the number of games that I felt were lost with few learnings to be had: Missing deep dives, getting perfect-combod, and breakers hiding in the bottom cards of my deck. I got some valuable learning from the AgInfusion match, and will perhaps beat it one day. In hindsight I may have had the possibility of a DJ Quetzal in the game my breakers were hiding, but I'm unsure if letting Hagen eat my Aesops based economy fuel would have been correct (over assuming I would find a breaker not in my bottom 4 cards). Despite my disappointing performance, the Event was incredible fun!

2 comments
20 Nov 2024 Baa Ram Wu

I can't quite explain how upsetting it was for SixtyTen, who has to get rolled by My Arisanna on a weekly basis to sit down across from what turned out to be basically my Arisanna (T&C's apply)

The record maybe says a lot - but how did you feel about the Spec works over Aesops/Diesel in the end?

24 Nov 2024 LLBlumire

@Baa Ram Wu fully in support of swapping aesops for spec works. I think I'd have had an even worse time if I was on the Aesops as honestly while it had some bad luck, the big problem was the deck was just too slow to find it's answers, and people teched into and were expecting deep dive because of the lat presence.