Rasher Decisions

After Canadian nats I was pretty bummed about the state of the meta and didn't have much interest in playing. The main issue was Corps did not really have a pressure cards (RIP Breaking News) and so the best runners could install a million cards crush in the late game. So all the remaining Corp strats (outside of Azmari, which suffered from the misery that are current wars) involved gear checking and trying to rush out fast (Nisei, Atlas). This meant the game was kind of a crapshoot that tended to be highly dependent on the first 8-10 cards in the Corp deck or Corp lost, and if they had a hand that could rush out their important Agenda they still had to rely on Val not having the correct breaker.

Then in the last pack Rashida Jaheem was spoiled which represented a card that could accelerate your gameplan while also provided a strong incentive for the Runner to check things (#freeSau). Also it fit in CtM which is the most fun ID in Netrunner. However I was too lazy and out of the loop of Netrunner to actually try and build a deck. Luckily @nemamiah posted his list here https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/49862/rash-decisions and did a bunch of the groundwork so I could just tinker at the edges. The core concept of the deck is still the same, move fast and use calibration testing or tags to score your last few agendas (as opposed to playing QPM / GFI).

The biggest changes I made is that were in rooted in the idea that there are 3 broad strategies when playing against ctm: 1. Ignore all assets 2. Trash what you can and keep from getting tagged 3. Trash all assets and float tags

I felt with Calibration Testing, Rashida, and Team Sponsorship you were already extremely good against plan 1 because you simply moved extremely fast and couldn't get remote locked due to FA.

Plan 2 was hard due to playing AR as opposed to QPM, as AR makes it hard to trash assets with getting tags.

Plan 3 seemed like clearly the best plan to me to beat CtM, as on only 1x QPM going tag me was less of a liability. So I cut Sea Source which is primarily useful against plan 1 when you can outpace them moneywise with Bankers. I cut down on the expensive Ice / tagging Ice and put in IP Blocks and added 1 to the ice count (also, you often want to protect Rashida turn 1). I cut Pads for Hedge funds because your primary concern is Val landing a mining accident off the bat and trashing everything, and Hedge fund is very good against mining accident.

Finally I added Preemptive action which I think you always need to play at least 1 of in CtM. It recycles your tag punishment or calibration testings or just your best cards (HHN, Bankers, Rashida) depending on what your opponent is doing.

Anyway, this deck is definitely good. I need to grind out like 20 games against Val to see how it holds up but I think it stands a good chance.

Also, shoutout to @emilyspine who was nice and helped Tolaasin prep a bunch for this tournament and more important than either of those has shown more commitment to the glory of CtM than any other player.