Hey fellow Netrunners!
After not participating in any kind of tournament for about a year, I wanted to get back into some more serious play. I saw that my local store, called Mage Store, was organizing a Store Championship and that was the perfect opportunity and my first Netrunner tournament ever. The tourney was held at 11 o’clock and I wanted to continue the fun I had the day before, that said I was a bit drained and tired already, but that’s just an excuse for me playing bad and not taking things even a tiny bit seriously, right? Well, that’s not completely true, since I had to play 3 of my 5 rounds of swiss in front of the camera. You gotta pull yourself together in this situation and making yourself really nervous, I guess. Since just 18 players participated, we had just those five swiss rounds. If you’re interested in seeing some of those embarrassing games, you can do so in some months, when Krystian (aka Krystman) from TeamworkCast has edited and released them on Youtube.
ROUND 1 versus bitstream (Noise and Blue Sun Glacier)
My first tournament match and I’m instantly on camera. I was shitting bricks, but the game turned out to be one of the best ones I have ever played. It was tight, math heavy and I went balls to the wall. My decision was to rush out ASAP and I was not icing up archives at all. The game against Noise went a bit longer than I wanted it to go, but I was really lucky on archives and managed to win this game with a nice finish. I ashed him out of the remote while he had D4V1D on the field, and he couldn’t come back into my remote that was being guarded by a Tollbooth, because he was missing a single(!) credit. The first game already burned all my remaining brain cells!
I controlled the next match pretty early on and got a fast rig, but time was called and I made a silly mistake that was costing me one point in the end. I went for his remote, but nothing was there. He said that he played an Interns beforehand and I had to knew what was there. Thing is, I was not paying attention at what he had done, because I was looking over to our TO while he was announcing. Best thing is that I would have seen an agenda on top of R&D for the win. Still, totally my fault and had to go for R&D anyway, pretty sure I had RDI on the board. I was just already done with the game and happy I was not extraordinarily miserable on camera – right up until that point. Trust me, that was just the beginning of some stupid plays.
ROUND 2 versus Cypher (PPvP Kate and NEH)
He drew nothing with his Kate: no PPvP, no real money and he even had to draw manually. Game was over really fast and actually kind of boring, since he couldn’t do anything.
The match afterwards was pretty much me getting everything I need, while also being lucky with my accesses. Again, fast game and not that interesting.
After the round he gifted me an alternative art Adonis Campaign, that immediately went into my deck. What a great guy, thanks again Cypher!
ROUND 3 versus Dalhill (Leela Patel and Blue Sun Kill)
Here we go, on camera again. Still a bit nervous, still turned out to be a decent round gameplay-wise, spiced up with some mistakes. Of course!
I started out with an OAI on Curtain Wall and he just countered with an Inside Job into an Emergency Shutdown, stole an agenda and bouncing my R&D ICE onto my hand as well. Afterwards he siphoned me and I had no money beginning my next turn. I luckily drew into another OAI and could bounce back into the game. That was a sick turn 1 play though. My Changeling was shutting down R&D pretty well, because screw you Mimic, and he had to dig for a solution and found a Faerie. He smashed down 2 more RDI’s and I think he had 3 now, went for R&D while I was threatening the win on the remote. He saw nothing and couldn’t bounce an ICE on my remote. That saved me the win, because I could stop him on my remote.
Next match, another one of my big mistakes. He had OAI on Tollbooth and I had the perfect answer with Refractor and Cloak, but I instantly dropped my SecTesting without thinking this through and judging the situation accordingly. Not even a miscalculation, I sadly just played turn 1 Andy on autopilot. Now I was missing the money/click to break the Tollbooth. Would have been the perfect answer to his Leela play the match before. I accepted my mistake though, otherwise you don’t really learn from them, and tried to concentrate now. I came back with two Siphons and a solid rig and econ. I saw a Punitive and knew it was a kill deck, but with my Plascrete I felt pretty safe for now, since he just saw about 1/3 of his deck and I was delaying the need to get rid of my 4 tags. He punished me with a triple Scorched into my pale face. Risky play on my part, in hindsight it was obviously not worth it.
Round 4 (Andromeda Stealth and NEH)
The first game against Andy took about an hour, very slow play here. But I was not really mad, I’m a pretty new player myself and I was not calling the TO because of this. I came to make friends, not enemies. It’s just a game after all and I had some great fun so far. I controlled the game for the most part, but couldn’t find my agendas to score them out. He just sniped them all at the end.
For the next match we had like 5 minutes left after shuffling and all that good stuff. After all at least 1 point for both of us? Wrong! He scored an early Breaking News. So that was it? Nope! I managed to get his Beale from hand for the timed win.
Round 5 versus ffox (PPvP Kate and NEH Astrobiotics)
After that weird last round I was amazed that I somehow ended up on camera again, being placed second as far as I know. This time I played against our Runner-up and dutch champion. What an easy task for someone like me!
Let’s just say I hate NEH and specifically Architect and its interaction against Siphons. He’s a great player and putting it on HQ is just perfect. I made some serious mistakes here and the game was slipping away from me after a while. I ended up at 4 agenda points and nearly got 6, so I must have done something right.
Playing versus Kate was another match I really liked. Freakin Jesus I was rich like Bill Gates. This must be the highest money count on camera ever. I went out of dice and had like 80 credits or something like that. I had Ash on my 4 ICE deep remote. Easy win, right? Not at all! I was not drawing into my agendas when I needed them and he just pounded my 4 ICE deep R&D with a last ditch effort Stimhack and scored for the win.
Final Words
At the end of the day I ended up at place 8. I met some great people and players, had tons of fun and I will keep on playing in a not-so-serious fashion, because I feel that this is just the best way to enjoy the game and every tournament the most. The Netrunner community is just awesome and even while playing for high stakes they keep on making jokes and enjoying themselves. I love it and I will come back for more! Oh and ffox is just top-notch, seeing him not giving up his match with Kate was a huge boon and I learned much that day in general. Seeing and realising your own mistakes, accepting them and keep having fun was the biggest thing I took home that day.
PS Actually the biggest thing I took home that day and the ONLY reason I came was ALTERNATIVE ART CHAOS THEORY. HELL YEAH! But please don’t tell anyone, okay?
Decklist
Andromeda: Dispossessed Ristie (Humanity's Shadow) Event (16) 3x Account Siphon (Core Set) 2x Inside Job (Core Set) 3x Special Order (Core Set) 3x Sure Gamble (Core Set) 3x Dirty Laundry (Creation and Control) 2x Legwork (Honor and Profit) Hardware (10) 3x Desperado (Core Set) 1x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead) 2x R&D Interface (Future Proof) •••• 1x Feedback Filter (Creation and Control) • 3x Silencer (Double Time) Resource (8) 1x Kati Jones (Humanity's Shadow) 1x John Masanori (Opening Moves) 2x Security Testing (Honor and Profit) 2x Ghost Runner (The Spaces Between) 2x Earthrise Hotel (The Source) Icebreaker (8) 1x Corroder (Core Set) •• 2x Faerie (Future Proof) 1x Breach (Honor and Profit) 1x Passport (Honor and Profit) 1x Refractor (First Contact) •• 2x Switchblade (Up and Over) Program (3) 3x Cloak (Creation and Control) ••••• • 15 influence spent (maximum 15) 45 cards (min 45) Cards up to The Source
Blue Sun: Powering the Future (Up and Over) Agenda (9) 2x Priority Requisition (Core Set) 3x Project Atlas (What Lies Ahead) 1x Corporate War (Future Proof) 3x NAPD Contract (Double Time) Asset (6) 1x Adonis Campaign (Core Set) •• 3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) ••• 2x Executive Boot Camp (All That Remains) Upgrade (2) 2x Ash 2X3ZB9CY (What Lies Ahead) •••• Operation (13) 2x Beanstalk Royalties (Core Set) 3x Hedge Fund (Core Set) 3x Oversight AI (A Study in Static) 3x Restructure (Second Thoughts) 2x Interns (Mala Tempora) Barrier (9) 2x Ice Wall (Core Set) 3x Curtain Wall (True Colors) 3x Hive (Double Time) 1x Changeling (Up and Over) Code Gate (7) 2x Tollbooth (Core Set) •••• 3x Datapike (Creation and Control) 2x Lotus Field (Upstalk) •• Sentry (3) 3x Caduceus (What Lies Ahead) 15 influence spent (maximum 15) 20 agenda points (between 20 and 21) 49 cards (min 45) Cards up to All That Remains
