No Killer, All Filler [Undefeated in Startup Swiss]

Alternate title: "As God Is My Witness, I Refuse to Play Echelon"

Allow me to set the scene. A hotel room, midnight, the night before Worlds Startup. Jullien (@is44ru) and I both decide that, hey, Lat's pretty good right? Why not just try to rebuild Sokka's ControlLat for Startup?

There's just one problem - the only in-faction killer is Echelon. Sure, we could sacrifice some influence on the Bravados but that new Worlds art is just too nice to pass up. What if we just... didn't run a killer?

"What about Ansel 1.0?" I asked.

Jullien shrugged. "Doesn't exist."

"Tyr?"

"Doesn't exist."

I realized he was right. Sentries are a state of mind.

As it turns out, Startup sentries just aren't all that scary if you have The Boat. You click and boat through the only really scary ICE out there and otherwise just fling yourself into the Corp's servers with wild abandon. Personal highlight was an excellent game vs. Chouxflower's NEH where I plowed straight through both subs on an F2P for the two winning agendas. Sentries are a state of mind.

I cannot thank everyone who I met and played with, as well as the organizers of Worlds 2022, nearly highly enough. This was my first big tournament and I had the absolute time of my life. Love this community, love you all.

• Stephen aka IainFanAccount