Cornered Animal 4th@Worlds and King of Swiss

Check out my very good runner deck over here!

On the runner side there were many options with good to great matchups across most of the field.

This was not the case for corps, my beloved Ob deck was basically all figured out by runners in terms of piloting and the new and popular Wu deck smashed it consisistently with easy access to both paricia and misdirection.

Reality plus was being teched against by everyone and their mother and was not very fun to play.

Glacier decks had absolutely no game vs Boatshiko.

I could have just played a rush deck in the form of PD or sports, but it felt way too shaky for my taste, it was not for me.

As a long time player I have learned to always try to adapt and pose a new challenge when it seems I am out of options.

I had never been this desperate, but I had not given up hope. I was a cornered wild animal, and I was forced to lash out!

I had come up with something similar to this list during a canoeing trip with my dad and my big brother during the weekend before worlds, it seemed a bit crazy, but I had to try.

Testing was not started until monday, when me and my buddy Tempest were having our most fun day of testing yet by playing whacky off-meta decks.

I was finally enjoying corping again, and despite my many doubts of this deck it won enough games against my testing buddies that in the end I felt it was my best chance for worlds.

The surprise factor it would bring would improve my chances even more, and my superior knowledge of the matchups should bring yet another edge. I finally got to sleeve up all my cool jinteki alt arts :D

Tempest made a pact with me during testing when I said I was seriously considering this deck: He would bring it if I did. And so he did as well :D The night before travelling I said "I can't believe I am bringing this deck."

So what the hell is going on here?

Well, I figured the only way to do well as corp was to not try to beat the entire field, because this year that was not possible. But if I could have decent odds vs the runners I expected the most of, then my corp chances should be ok.

My most expected runners were:

• Hoshipko
• Reaver Wu
• Apoc Lat

Notes about these:

• They play boat
• They have sentry breaker problems to be exploited
• They (and almost all runners) need cards for money

So this PE was trying to:

• Squeeze runners by having them choose between using their cards for money and using them as hitpoints
• Use wake up call to make people choose between their boat and their hitpoints
• Exploit Ika by making it jump most of the time it breaks, and sometimes just trash their ika until they cannot reinstall it
• Exploit that Boatshiko typically only plays one mk ultra, and the fact that MK is expensive to use
• Tax boat counters because of the two points made above
• Stop apocs by pinging away cards

Typically you are trying to shore up all centrals to stop boat counters from being farmed and you slowly and patiently develop your board from there. You are using your remote for never advance, scoring house of knives and stings mainly, but the threat of regenesis gives the runner more things to worry about.

There is a lot of weird little lines you can take and despite its grindy nature I actually find it very fun to play :) Longevity can be a liability but when scored it is amazing, so it seems like it´s worth it.

This deck is beaten by any deck that breaks sentries very efficiently of course, so crim and smoke should beat this deck most of the time. Against the expected runners it seems to at least have decent game though, which is all I was asking out of a corp for this meta.

Fortunately my meta call was pretty on point, I did not face crim, I faced a lot of Hoshipko and Wu, and I also faced the Freedom list that had similar weaknesses to the Hoshiko. I did not face any apoc, but I would have if I made it to the finals :D I did face Quacktapus on smoke in the cut, but I got an incredibly lucky timed win based on higher seed. Shoutout to Quacktapus for taking that so graciously btw! :)

The deck went 4-2 in swiss and 1-2 in the cut.

In the cut I felt the deck underperformed compared to what I think its potential was. To a decent degree this was because I let the deck down. In the game against Hoshipko I think I underdefended R&D and got heavily punished for it. In the game against freedom I missed two crucial things, one was overinstalling my snare when I had the chance to be able to shuffle it back later. The other was that I for some reason did not realize I should shuffle back the Obo(s?) I had in hand when I scored my longevity serum. I think the worry that the game would go to time made me play too hastily, a big shame as it could have been a much more exciting game then, but you live and you learn.

With all this in mind I think it was not a bad choice for the event, and I was very happy to bring a spicy brew of my own. I love that in netrunner I get to explore the meta, innovate in it, and sometimes affect it :) I take great pride in my brews :)

Despite my ability to harp on mistakes I made, In the end I am very happy with my result. I beat my personal best and I got my fourth consecutive top 16, two important milestones :)

This year has been a wild ride for me, especially in terms of my netrunner. I have worked hard on this game for a while, but this year I worked the hardest and boy did it pay off. I got to prove to myself I could get some of those results that I thought I could for a long time, but could never quite pull off. It all feels pretty surreal, but now I dont feel I have much to prove to myself anymore. With that in mind, all the practice has been very intense for me, so you might see a more casual Bridgeman next year around. But I dont think I will ever stop playing this beautiful game.

Of course I have to also say again that I could not have acheived this without all my friends from Unband who helped me test, discuss, and give me all the moral support I need. All of you are lovely and I´m so happy I got to meet some of you in person for the first time! :) Special shoutout to the ones of you who were not even going but still spent a lot of your time helping me prepare, it meant the world(s?) :D Props to tempest for the clutch bananas, go team unbananas!

Big shoutout to the people in the swedish discord for showing me love and support as always :)

As for worlds in general, I am so happy I went, and there were a lot of people there I had never talked to before that left me with a smile on my face, thank you!

And thank you to the NSG people for all the hard work you did to make this event a reality, the fact that we still get to have these tournaments is amazing on its own.

Most importantly, a big congratz to Sokka not only for winning worlds, but for being a great friend! Seeing him win was almost like winning myself and I had not smiled so hard in a long time :)