BEST GEIST IN THE WORLD*

*Is a title which actually belongs entirely to @dodgepong, who out-placed me after a give-no-fucks Day 2 at Worlds and despite a HORRIFIC and INEXCUSABLE pairing fuck-up by FFG which really boned him.

TLDR: Deck got me to #46 by end of swiss day 1. Flunked out of Day 2. Murders yellow decks.

Also his list is different and located here.

So I'll just cover the differences in our lists and post my tourney report. Read the details of how the deck plays in his write-up.

-1 TCon
-1 Crescentus
+2 Sure Gamblow
+1 Gingerbread

So to start, I'm a 46-card-believer (!ratios), and in the piss-filled meta of worlds - Get it? Because yellow decks. Trust me, it's a good joke - I knew gingerbread was going to be good. I actually installed mongoose once and used it to break only one piece of ice the whole tourney.

The econ debate re: Temüjin v SGamble was a tough one, but I think we all agreed (including @pacer after playing this deck for KoS), that 3x Temüjin is maybe not the Geistiest of things. I loved having 2x all weekend, and you'll see why in the tourney report. It's a great card. If it gets added to the MWL, that's a huge fucking mistake and FFG will be irreparably harming criminal and this card. Just man up and errata cards (3inf), ffs. Losing the Crescentus hurt a lot, however, and I think in the future, the 3rd cresc likely becomes my 46th card. The only other consideration is an Inside Job as #46. Good card with B&E stuff. Either way, that last/extra card slot is pretty flexible and meta-dependent. I think if you want to stay at 45, you have to cut one of the Sports Hoppers, so that's big and probably needs testing.

NSFW Corp Deck Here. Don't look at it. Not worth it.

~ ~ T O U R N E Y R E P O R T ~ ~
-- If I haven't listed them, I've no idea the names of my opponents, and I apologize for that. I'm a bad person. Forgive me. --
Round 1
Geist vs Blue Sun As a testament to my last-minute lack-of-testing and having not played netrunner for a billion months, I was totally and utterly unprepared for Blue Sun Crisium/Off Grids. I should have won this game easily, but instead chose to misplay horribly. I have a near-full suite of breakers, missing only the ZU.13 and a mongoose when I siphon him fairly early on. I force a DNA Tracker + 1 other piece of ice rez in front of HQ, steal his money, and play Employee Strike to shut down the bounces. I then decide "that'll do" and discard the 2nd Emp Strike to hand-size. PRO TIP - NEVER CASUALLY THROW AWAY YOUR INFLUENCE AND MOST POWERFUL CARDS. He plays paywall implementation the following turn. 2 Turns later has Crisium + Off Grid installed behind a Mother Goddess with no other Ice rezzed. Despite hitting 6 points off Medium digs, I am unable to stop him from rushing. Stupid. Stupid. STUPID plays by me. Also another case for Inside Job. 1-1 RIP the dream, prepare to drop from tournament.

HB ETF vs Gabe
Fairly straight-forward match-up out of ETF. Protect Centrals early, build a remote, win the game. I start the game with some sweet ice which I lateral growth out along side some hedge fundery or maybe restructure, putting me on 15 creds with all three centrals iced. Yay. Only downside is that I'm sitting on one card in HQ, which he Inside Jobs to steal - see ya, Corporate Sales Team!
It's not a huge loss, as now the scoring remote is fairly secure behind a Silver and Turing, so I score out 4 points, build my credit lead further, and durdle around scoring the last two ABTs. Uneventful game, largely. Start the Day 1-0

ROUND DEUX
vs Scary as fuq Valencia omg who plays Apocalypse?!
This game was so frigging scary because I assumed this was run-of-the-mill Val gonna take all my shit and never let me rez ice. Fortunately for me, I YOLO score an ABT turn 2 into a Silver over HQ and an Architect over R&D, and now just need to find my EBC to feel ultra safe. Unfortunately for me, after I biotic out a vitruvius, he installs eater, runs HQ, runs RD, runs archives, at which point I get a sinking, awful, "I'm gonna 1-3 drop from worlds because I'm a bad player" feeling, and he plays Apoc. RIP the dream. Architect's still alive though, so that's cool. I spend the next 4-5 turns trying to recover and double/triple ice centrals while he spends the next same number of turns trying to find a breaker for Architect (Eater's facedown yayyyyy), and instead just runs through it to fire his second apocalypse...

Fortunately, Reclamation order + NEXT Ice is rull good. And I finally battle back / don't hemorrhage agendas for long enough to double ice all centrals, drop a turing on RD in front of Architect, and hope for the best. He runs RD without the 3rd and final DDoS, so I rez, and the rest of the game is just me scoring out behind some random piece of ice. PHEW. Crisis averted. 2-1.

vs Chronos Protocol He drops a card (braintrust) turn 1 which I'm fairly certain is an agenda, but with siphon and E. Strike in hand, I'm fairly comfortable playing safe around an ambush and letting him have it. I trade 2 e strikes + same old thing just to keep his targeted marketings off the board and stay safe early. Followed up by 2-3 Siphons, he's just too far behind, even on 3 points (HoK), to come back, medium + merciless ice breaking + levy for more siphons = G G. ALL ABOARD THE RECOVERY TRAIN! CHOO CHOO MOTHERFUCKERS.

Round 3
vs Andy (some dude named @lpoulter piloting)
You'll have to forgive me if my knowledge of current/former [insert literally any country including the US] national champs is underwhelming, because I had no idea who Laurie was until I was told afterwards. Turns out siphon is still a good card. And despite face-checking into an architect, siphon is even better when your opponent (me.) has little to no ice and can't find any for his life. He pulls an early agenda off RD and siphons me down. I manage to get some ice up, costing him an expensive 6c (I think) to siphon me down, but he's far enough ahead that the tempo hit hurts me far worse. I am forced to score and fire an ABT which somehow whiffs entirely and still doesn't drop agendas in the bin. It's ok though, because a turn or two later when he cutleries the Silver in front of HQ, I've still somehow got 4 agendas in hand (4-4, for those counting at home). I am forced to try and hide some points in archives sans-jackson in the hopes that he'll just keep pounding my hand and RD. I get to 6 points, but am still unable to protect the agendas in Archives, he eventually checks it for the win. 3-2 THE ROLL HAS STOPPED. RED ALERT.

vs NEH Finally. The yellow decks I've been waiting for. I feel utterly competent and confident in this match-up, both in terms of my deck and my play. And despite the result, Laurie said afterwards if he didn't make the play(s) he did, he thought I had a pretty good lock on the game. Just a testament to how well he played this - thanks again for the match! I have early tech traders, a few breakers, have run up the credit count with a temujin, and feel pretty good about putting the siphon lock on. I've seen the 24/7 in hand and he has 2 Breaking Newses, but with a Forger + Hopper out, I feel comfortable using Forger to dodge the 2nd tag vs. Boom, and with breakers out, I can siphon out of a closed account. Unfortunately, what I don't see happening is the following - I siphon. He's low but not at 0, I still don't have an NACH (it's been super elusive this game), so I avoid one tag with forger to draw a card, install a 2nd forger and clear a tag for my turn. He 24/7's. I pop forger to avoid the boom-tag. The card I draw off that forger pop? NACH. FML. He closes my accounts. He Hard-Hitting Newses me. Fuck. I spend the next few turns playing around a boom he doesn't have in hand, and eventually just YOLO into RD (trashing the boom, ironically), and scoring a GFI on a 7-deep medium dig. Sadly that doesn't put me at 7 points. He EOIs. GG 3-3 FULL PANIC WE'RE GONNA SINK.

Round 6
vs Whizzard
Kenny Deakins is also pretty good, I hear. I have a suboptimal mulligan, and choose to biotic out an early vitruvius leaving me vulnerable to siphon, but keep drawing light econ (AAL is a goddamned workhorse), and ice to stay safe. Unfortunately, that's all I see. Despite running his mimic into a NEXT Gold (good card) and opening up a huge scoring window, I. Cannot. Find. Fucking. Agendas. He manages to find 3 on a Medium dig though, and gets his mimic back eventually. My only out ends up being a troubleshooter behind a Gold, but he finds the troubleshooter before I can. RIP. GG. 7-4

vs ETF (right? I swear I must've been concussed, I don't even remember this game) Mediocre setup, and despite getting all 3 peddlers in a turn, they lose me 2 forgers in order to get a tech trader and a breaker to get my first siphon off. He fires an ABT and loses an agenda to archives, which I score. I drop a medium early and go to town. His deck floods him, short lived game. 8-4. Day 2 achieved. I'm #46 going into Day 2. Top 16 dream is still alive. Probs need to sweep round 1 day 2.

Shoutouts to my Chicago Cubs FOR WINNING THE MOTHERFUCKIN 2016 WORLD SERIES

Day 2.
vs whizz (Josh Wilson)
Close one, but similarly, my outs come down to a troubleshooter behind Gold, and he finds it first. GG. Don't play my corp deck. It's bad against Red. 8-5. Have to win out and still probably don't make it.

vs Literally any corp ever
I mulligan into 5 breakers or maybe 4 + a sports hopper or some other relatively useless fucking card. He scores agendas. He HHN's me. I'm still waiting for my deck to give me anything usable. G FUCKIN G. Sometimes I hate netrunner. That match was why. At this point I'm on tilt and out of contention anyways, so just fuck around for the remaining rounds (fire 4 ABTs, 3 whiffs ): Though it turns out if I'd tried harder, I could've maybe outdone pacer for top Criminal or HB or whatever. Fuck that guy, he wins too much <3

Final Thoughts:

All in all, awesome weekend, it was my first worlds, really only my 2nd year netrunning, and I played and beat some great opponents. I'm feeling a lot better about both the game after a long break and my play after the weekend. Met some really awesome people (and Jesse Vandover). Had a blast casting KoS, and enjoyed some fun games of Capt. Sonar (and one game with Jesse Vandover).

Utah dudes - awesome meeting you. Nielson's Frozen Custard. Go there. Now. Don't forget to let Childlock out of the car.

The UK as a whole - pleasure meeting some of you, and fantastic casting with Donald. To all of you - be ready because next year we're throwing your tea in the Minneapolis harbor like it's 1773.

KoS (spags) - great event, great organizing, next year can we afford LSD for everyone so it's a level playing field?