[Holy Smokes] Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann (1st @ Naarm)

HaverOfFun 740

You gotta chuck on this kickass Nena banger (Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann) to properly get you into the mindset that it's inevitable you'll trash all the ice in front of HQ or RnD and then absolutely tear through the corp's gameplan and agendas!

For those who haven't heard of Holy Shit/Holy Smokes netrunner, here is the rules document we had for the tournament. Essentially it's a format that modifies standard decks with the addition of access to all IDs where most get an improved ability and access to cards that have been banned or rotated from standard. Choosing Ed Kim didn't give me access to any additonal signature cards to include but I was so excited by the ability to trash from turn 1 without any set up at all (as well as the fact that Jai absolutely trounced me with the deck after which I grabbed it card for card for the tournament) that I was willing to go for it although the trashy Anarch gameplan could also be represented quite well using Freedom or Loup too.

The way to play this deck is to just focus on trying to get into HQ early and consistently cause that's the best way to get consistent trashes while also heaps slowing down the corp. With each free Ed trash, both Audrey v2 and Solidarity Badge get charged up in a delightful cycle that helps you keep a threatening position for challenging the remote. Alarm Clock greases the wheels of this plan even more making those HQ runs not even cost a click. Once the corp plugs the whole in the HQ defence you can either keep focusing down on it using Arruaceiras Crew and Devil Charm to bust a hole through any ice on the server or you can pivot over to focusing down RnD using Stargate and your ID.

On the day I played against a Chronos, NEXT Design and a Thule. Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-mapping was scary because the Holy Smokes rules extended the ID ability to trigger on the first 3 net damage each turn which made Complete Image an absolutely terrifying card after reaching Threat 3. Luckily my ID let me feel a bit safer accessing cards even on few cards in the grip because I would never be forced into stealing an agenda on my first access and therefore avoid any net damage on steal effects from cards like Fujii Asset Retrieval. I managed to steal a Fujii early as well as a House of Knives but opened myself up to a Complete Image that I thankfully managed to win the 50/50 chance to avoid a flatline. I kept taking my single accesses on HQ and RnD until my stack had fully emptied at which point things got a bit dicey but I picked up the final 3 points from a Fujii that got put in archives off an Anemone fire.

NEXT Design was a matchup I was pretty worried about cause the corp would have 3 big pieces of ice rezzed from before their turn 1 but my opponent respected my runner deck's relative unknown factor and used two of the ice installs to build a two deep remote and put the third one on RnD so I had an easier go at getting into HQ early where I found my first 5 points early, with the trashes loading up my Audrey enough to threaten getting into the remote at any moment to slow the corp down even more. Eventually I found my Hooligan crew and used it and Devil Charm to clear the ice off RnD and run with Stargate twice to find the last agenda I needed to win.

Luckily I have a bunch of experience playing against Thule so I at least knew what to expect and what would result in me losing. I played a Sure Gamble and a Daily Casts on my first turn but then stayed with a four card hand that included a Steelskin Scarring and for the rest of the game only ran on remote servers when they existed, HQ if they didn't and clicked for credits. My ID let me run with relative impunity because I would never be forced to steal the first card I accessed each turn so I managed to keep my tempo while trashing a bunch of agendas and Hypoxia from HQ. The corp was forced to use their Spin Doctors to shuffle back the agendas that accumulated in Archives to prevent me winning which left all of their operation punishments there. Eventually the Spins ran out and with the security of a corp on low credits, I could steal two Orbital Superiority from the table and the last 3 points from Archives.

This was a wicked format to explore and I had so much fun just chatting with the other players about what they had brewed up! I gotta thank kror for organising it all (including making a clutch emergency ban for MaxX being prevented from playing Severnius Stim Implant 🙏) and also the Lisan Al Jaib for sharing this list with me to play!

5 comments
1 Dec 2024 holzpubbnsubbe

"Irgendwie fängt irgendwann
eine dystopische Zukunft an
Corpos warten nicht mehr lang!"

Thanks for the earworm ;-)

1 Dec 2024 holzpubbnsubbe

I like that you're not playing Bankhar but instead using Alarm Clock and Crew here. Stargate seems brutal when it can land!

1 Dec 2024 HaverOfFun

@holzpubbnsubbe bahahahaha yep I’ve been carrying that song in my head the last few weeks too! The deckbuilding was all Jai but yeah, I reckon that it’s easy enough getting into the corp centrals without Bankhar and I also feel that the deck is quite card hungry already between patchwork and Audrey so it’d take more work than I feel safe with to change it to fit Bankhar!

1 Dec 2024 znsolomon

Hi there! KingSolomon here, creator of Holy Sh*t netrunner! I'm so glad you enjoyed the format that I made, it's lovely to see it running in other places too. Also good catch on banning Severnus Stim Implant for Maxx, I totally missed that when designing her ability!

1 Dec 2024 HaverOfFun

@znsolomon omg awesome to hear from ya! Yeah our local scene had a blast testing the format out for the last few weeks - thanks a bunch for thinking it up!