Official Tournament Winning Decklists Page

StimHack.com
952

Fantasy Warehouse Store Championship Jan. 24
Iserlohn, Germany
14 Players - 4 Rounds Swiss
Winner: me

Kate - Cache

Kate “Mac” McCaffrey: Digital Tinker (Core Set)

Event (15)
3x Diesel (Core Set)
2x Legwork (Honor and Profit) ••••
1x Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control)
3x Scavenge (Creation and Control)
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
3x Test Run (Cyber Exodus)

Hardware (8)
3x Astrolabe (Up and Over)
3x Clone Chip (Creation and Control)
2x R&D Interface (Future Proof)

Resource (12)
3x Aesop’s Pawnshop (Core Set)
2x Bank Job (Core Set) ••••
3x Daily Casts (Creation and Control)
3x Earthrise Hotel (The Source)
1x Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow)

Icebreaker (6)
1x Atman (Creation and Control)
1x Cerberus “Cuj.0” H3 (All That Remains) •••
1x Cerberus “Lady” H1 (All That Remains)
1x Deus X (A Study in Static)
1x Femme Fatale (Core Set) •
1x Gordian Blade (Core Set)

Program (5)
3x Cache (The Spaces Between) •••
2x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control)

15 influence spent (max 15)
46 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Source

Deck built on http://netrunnerdb.com.

Jinteki-RP: Grail

Jinteki: Replicating Perfection (Trace Amount)

Agenda (9)
3x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
3x Nisei MK II (Core Set)
3x The Future Perfect (Honor and Profit)

Asset (9)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) •••
3x Mental Health Clinic (Honor and Profit)
3x Sundew (Mala Tempora)

Upgrade (6)
1x Ash 2X3ZB9CY (What Lies Ahead) ••
3x Caprice Nisei (Double Time)
2x Will-o’-the-Wisp (The Spaces Between)

Operation (6)
3x Celebrity Gift (Opening Moves)
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)

Barrier (4)
1x Eli 1.0 (Future Proof) •
3x Galahad (Upstalk) •••

Code Gate (6)
2x Lotus Field (Upstalk)
3x Merlin (All That Remains) •••
1x Quandary (Double Time)

Sentry (7)
2x Komainu (Honor and Profit)
3x Lancelot (First Contact) •••
2x Tsurugi (True Colors)

Other (2)
2x Excalibur (The Source)

15 influence spent (max 15)
21 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Source

Deck built on http://netrunnerdb.com.

953

While I don’t think restrictions makes much of a difference in how competitive a event is (unless the restrictions are such that strong players wont participate or take the tournament serious), allowing only one APP has a strong impact on overall corp tempo. NEH takes a significant hit only being allowed to run 4 3/2 agendas and will need to devote additional influence for fast-advance. This makes it much safer as a runner to go for a longer game when building your deck optimizing against RP which is likely the by far strongest corpdeck with a nerfed NEH.

Arguably winning a event like this takes more skill since there is a unique metagame that you need to prepare for so congratz to @DJhedgehog!
On the other hand I would really like this to not be among the decklists for The Source since you should likely run different decks for this tournament.

1 Like
954

Imagine you are having a bowling competition, but while practicing players are having a lot of difficulty with hitting the gutters. So you put up bumpers. Your competition can still be competitive, just at a different level since you are not playing the same game of bowling.

Restricting APP, and only APP, cuts out one of the most powerful decks in the game, but also takes an entire faction with it. It wasn’t a restriction on Biotic Labor, or a banning of Fast Track, it’s removing NBN entirely from the competitive landscape. NBN is one of the most diverse factions because of the power of APP. So this tournament was in a meta that is less challenging because it has less to practice and prepare for.

And the results confirm this. Stealth Andy with Feedback Filter is an obvious choice since it hates on the other over powered deck in RP, and can handle PE and Blue Sun as well. Then of course you get HB:FA, which is basically a slightly less powerful version of FA compared to NEH w/Biotic.

4 Likes
955

The field was extremely diverse, and while nobody had to prepare for NBN:NEH, 40% of players weren’t playing that deck which means there was more to practice and prepare against.

If your idea of competition and challenge is “Can I fast track and astro” or “Do I have a biotic labor to get this train rolling” then yes, NBN provides the highest level of competition and challenge.

I prefer all games to be Rules As Written, and as such didn’t fully support the rules changes enforced at this event. That being said, I had to prepare against decks I hadn’t seen before and played against things I didn’t even consider. Sure I could have tuned my deck against NEH and still lost 50% of my games against it. It was much more fun to play against decks that I had no preparation for because of the creative space not seeing 40% of players play the netdecked NEH fast advance.

3 Likes
956

I think a lot of people are missing @jerklin’s point here.

It’s not that the tournament can’t be “competitive” in the sense that everyone is trying their best to beat everyone else, it’s that it can’t truly be considered a “competitive netrunner tournament” because you’re not quite playing the same netrunner that everyone else is playing at the competitive level.

semantics, w/e

7 Likes
957

I understand his point, and as stated I don’t really care if my decklists get posted for whatever reason, including they aren’t up to the “standards” of a “competitive tournament”. It’s not like being posted there means anything other than to boost my ego, and I couldn’t give a shit less about netrunner analytics. What he said was false, and my rebuttal was of the incorrect information, not what this website does with the results.

Just to be clear- I would rather play the game as it was made… but that doesn’t mean I think NEH is good for the game. A trained monkey can be extremely successful with NEH Astrobiotics because the deck all but plays itself. There are few decisions to make and only one goal- score Astroscript Pilot Program.

To say that the success of a faction hinges on a single card sounds like poor game design. I don’t think the reduction of NBN players were indicative of the strength of the faction being so low that it was unplayable, but instead participants either took this chance to build something different or didn’t want to try to make NBN work without Astro. Based on the corp decks I saw and the extreme diversity, I can’t say that I missed NBN. The game has so much to offer and so many other good design points and card interactions that taking out “EZ Mode” adds a lot more depth to the game because a large portion of the card pool becomes viable.

7 Likes
958

I think that getting rid of astrobiotics is a good thing, but getting rid of astroscript is not. There are a lot of diverse, non oppressive NBN decks that would be running around if not for Astro+Biotic. None of them are good without Astro x3. Why ban the whole faction when you can just ban the problem deck?

7 Likes
959

This is getting incredibly off-topic, and perhaps its time to branch this off to another topic (or merge with the existing AstroBiotics topic). But I’d like to throw my personal experience and set of data into the mix.

I have thorough records and stats for 31 different tournaments in Colorado since Netrunner was released. At a quick glance, some variant of AstroBiotics has been played by at least one person in the past 12 tournaments in a row, and not only has AstroBiotics not won any of those tournaments, AstroBiotics has not even finished in the top four since a second place finish in March 2014, 16 tournaments ago. Of the 31 recorded tournaments, 9 of them have been won by NBN, and the only tournament win for a deck that contained Biotic Labors and AstroScript Pilot Programs in the state was a TWIY version in last year’s Store Championships.

AstroBiotics is a very, very good archetype, and there is no doubt in my mind that it is one of the top two Corp archetypes currently in the game. But it must be said that it is not some magical auto-win button, and piloting an AstroBiotics deck is not a solid substitute for a lack of skill. I promise you, Colorado is not some haven for miracle runners who run rings around AstroBiotics. For all of the “trained monkey” and “EZ Mode” retorts that get thrown at AstroBiotics, it is simply not that great outside of competent Corp hands.

5 Likes
960

@DJhedgehog

The tournament was no doubt a competitive one. It probably was more competitive then other tournaments going on this season, and most store championships based on its sheer size. However the removal of astroscript feels kind of arbitrary and not really well thought out, regardless how well the TO has defended his statement. It’s a non standard format that (I’m making a speculative guess here with my following statement) most people probably just thought about for awhile and threw something together based on what they felt the changes to the meta would be with the removal of NBN. Its also in the middle of store championship season where others are preparing for the standard format. For me if I lived there I would come and have a good time but I wouldn’t put any practice time in personally since winning store champs and staying on top of the ever changing standard meta that I’m constantly falling behind on is a higher priority for me.

Anyways congratulations on your win, in no way is it tainted, it’s just not standard. My cube draft win isn’t standard either but I’m still proud of it, I was playing NR after all :).

Also NEH is not that easy to pilot personally, but I guess that is a matter of opinion. Yet, it gives free wins sometimes though which other decks corp side rarely do and that is a huge draw for inexperienced or unpracticed players. And its one of the reasons it causes rage.

2 Likes
961

I think NEH has a higher skill floor than a lot of other decks – that is, it’s easier to make decent plays with it. But it still has as high a skill ceiling as other skill-intensive Corp decks; it’s just as hard to make great plays with it.

4 Likes
962

From what I could tell, half of the people there drove around 2-3 hours from Ohio/Indiana to compete at the tournament, and a number drove 4.5+ hours from Chicago. Pretty sure many of them put in a decent amount of practice time and/or thought with their decks, especially since 1st place nabbed $400+ worth of stuff (and 2nd-4th got $150 each worth of stuff).

963

Oh I definitely would have drove that far. Big tournaments are fun. Like i said, I could be way off, if people practiced for one off tournament then more power to you guys.

964

It was less practice for the one event and more just being willing to play my Quetzal deck without hesitation. If I knew NEH was going to be a thing (or at least the astrobiotics version I had hoped for some different stuff but whatever) I would have thought about it more… likely still played my exact same deck in all honesty.

965

u say that restricting one card to have more fun and diversity is bad. no, its not bad. its awesome!

meta where most of the decks are andy and neh is bad and boring. not looking for other decks and possibilities is kinda lame. good player is good because he can adjust and make valid decisions no matter what rules and restrictions there are. its more creative and bring fresh air to the game.

andy and neh being on top is self-fullfilling prophecy. they are consistent and all, but then snowball effect kicks in and most of lazy dudes netdeck those. glad in europe we got plenty of independent thinkers that just create their own decks and have fun with unusual archetypes and splashes.

wake up! being competitive elitist sucks.

966

I’ll be curious to see the full stats and all from the tournament when (if) they get posted, because from the information we have at this point, it appears that restricting one card actually led to less diversity across the field of players. More deck diversity is certainly what the organizers were attempting to achieve through this move, but I would have to say they failed from the stats currently available to us.

I find a meta where NBN is nonexistent be bad and boring.

Good players are good because they can adjust and make valid decisions no matter what deck archetypes are prevalent in the meta.

Being concerned at the restriction of a card in a tournament does not make someone elitist, for most of us it’s simply further concern for the balance and meta of the game from a perspective other than your own.

3 Likes
967

I’m also interested in full stats, because my impression so far is that while Corp diversity suffered, Runner diversity increased.

3 Likes
968

From a theorycrafting perspective this seems likely. Runner meta has been pretty good for a while but the prevalence of NEH has made it rough to play anarchs, but if NEH is gone then Noise is likely to be in a very strong position.

969

My understanding is that Stealth Andy and Noise Cache decks dominated the field. Kyle’s write-up is the most detailed available at this point, he piloted Noise and played against 3 Andys and 3 Noises in Swiss. Three (maybe four?) of the top five at the end of Swiss were Stealth Andy decks.

970

this is exactly my point. one card dont make whole faction unplayable.

you should view this restriction as an interesting twist and challenge, not reason to whine and say it’s bad to make such tournaments.

971

I didn’t face a single Noise and faced against just one Stealth Andy (four made the cut to top 8) for the day. I believe there were only 3-4 NBNs at the tournament.

Here’s what the top 8 looked like:

Stealth Andy, Clone Chip Quetzal, Stimshop CT, Stimshop CT, Stealth Andy, Stealth Andy, Entropy Noise, and my Medium Scrubber Andy

HB FA, Tennin, traditional RP, Next Design, traditional RP, HB FA, Keystone Blue Sun, and my weird RP

The three write-ups I’ve seen: my corp write-up, Kyle’s write-up, and Corwin’s 1st place write-up.

4 Likes