Itchy Middle Finger - Antwerpen Q2 2019 GNK - 1st Place

This is very similar to my previous 419 deck, except I took out the two Turning Wheels and the Film Critic, and replaced them with Stargate and two Falsified Credentials. The previous deck struggled a bit with net damage decks, but Stargate really helps with that match up.

During the GNK I lost one game with the deck in swiss and won the final with it.

Outfit - Tim - Win

Tim got to six points, doing a fantastic Punitive bluff, while I assembled my board. Thankfully I had Stargate installed and was able to run R&D with it, revealing two City Works Projects and a Hostile. I trash the Hostile, then next turn I hit HQ, stealing two 3-pointers, and run Archives for the Hostile.

Gagarin - Floris - Win

I mulliganed in this match up and joked about mulliganing into two Crowdfundings. Lo and behold, it happened! I installed both and a Citadel Sanctuary, and drew into all three Sure Gambles the next turn for a great economic start. Hot Pursuit was also vital in this match up, letting me challenge the key economy assets: Mumba Temple, Turtlebacks, and Commercial Bankers Group. My main fear was Floris rezzing a Judge after my last click but before Citadel Sanctuary fired, so I had to keep checking the remotes that weren't exposed. Eventually I scored an SSL, and came close to getting tagged with Hard Hitting News, but my link and Power Taps made it difficult. I hit an SDS in HQ, but left it as I only had Aumakua installed. Next turn Floris installs it behind a Tour Guide. I steal it, and he installs and advances something else. Thankfully I was able to Special Order for a Na'Not'K to get in for the win.

Outfit - Bart - Loss

This was an Outfit deck running SDS Drone Deployment, which is a difficult match up for the deck owing to so few programs being in the deck. I made the age-old Netrunner mistake of hitting a Snare! on a last click HQ run, leaving me with two tags. My Citadel Sanctuary and Rogue Trading got trashed, which isn't the end of the world, but makes me susceptible to Punitive. Bart installed and advanced a SDS behind a Hortum, and I went down to two cards in hand stealing it, trashing Datasucker. Bart had the Punitive and was able to kill me next turn for the win.

Sportsmetal - Mach - Win

I had a bonkers start of two Diversion of Funds, with the third a few cards down. There was only an Eli 1.0 on HQ, so I spent two full turns using Diversion and clicking through Eli. This, along with Corporate Grant, meant Mach was stuggling for money and not able to stop me getting Aumakua counters to challenge the Jinja remote. Single accesses on HQ and R&D eventually got me the game.

Final - Simon - Sportsmetal - Win

Sportsmetal rush decks are a bit of a coin toss for this deck, but I was able to establish a Corporate Grant lock reasonably quickly with Aumakua installed too, incentivising Simon to block the exposes. Unfortunately I got a bit cocky and got my Aumakua trashed by Hagen on the remote, but the rez let me Diversion of Funds, install Stargate, and challenge R&D. I trashed a Vitruvius and a Corporate Sales Team as Simon recovered his credits. Thankfully I was able to find my Nexus and to keep challenging R&D with Stargate, until I saw an Ikawah Project for the win. My favourite play in this match was over-installing a Citadel Sanctuary to take Simon down to three credits with Corporate Grant, letting me make a Stargate run without the Architect I knew was on R&D being rezzed.

My thanks goes to all of my opponents for the games and to Thomas for organising.