Hi guys, Aenesidem here with a raw writeup from Oberon store championship that took place at Hasselt in Belgium on 15/03/2014.
Today I chose to play NBN: TWIY and Gabriel Santiago. Why? Because NBN:TWIY minimizes interaction with the runner, thereby maximizing my win chances and because i performed extremely well with it on OCTGN. I expected most people to pick up NBN so i chose Gabe because does a pretty good job tearing through their poorly iced servers with Knight.
Here are my decklists:
Gabriel Santiago (45 cards)
Events: (18)
3 account siphon
3 Emergency Shutdown
3 inside job
3 quality time ***
3 special order
3 sure gamble
Hardware: (3)
3 desperado
Resources: (11)
3 armitage codebusting
2 bank job
3 compromised employee
3 daily casts
Programs: (13)
2 corroder ****
3 Faerie
3 Knight ******
1 Mimic *
1 Femme Fatale
1 Yog.0 *
2 Sneakdoor Beta
NBN: TWIY (40)
Agendas: (11)
3 Astroscript Autopilot
2 Breaking News
1 Market Research
2 profiteering
3 project Beale
Upgrades: (3)
3 Sansan city grid
Operations: (13)
3 anonymous tip
2 biotic Labor ********
2 shipment from sansan
3 sweeps week
3 Hedge Funds
Ice: (13)
3 Wraparound
3 Enigma
1 Archer **
2 Chimera
2 rototurret **
2 Bastion
First a word about the decks:
NBN: All the credit goes to Lysander who created it and revealed it on Stimhack and BGG a few days ago. I only replaced the Data Ravens with Bastions. I had been performing well with this deck on OCTGN lately. In fact I performed so well with it I only lost 1 game to a Whizzard deck that continually siphoned and vamped me. The deck is insanely fast and is actually really good against Andromeda. Most people who play Andy spend their first turn prepping up and that’s our window to score the first astro. This deck is insanely fast and almost auto wins against bad runners, bad decks or bad/slow opening hands. It was hard to decide what I would play though. I was torn between this and an HB deck from Zoondo that I have been performing equally well with on OCTGN and is a ton of fun to play. The HB deck is very slow though, so I felt a fast NBN deck would be less tiring and would warrant the highest win chances. I was extremely happy with the list and wouldn’t change anything ATM except Bastion when some more efficient ice comes out (the end the run sentry ice).
As runner I had been playing Andy for quite some time. I changed that only two days before going to the tournament and I’m glad I did. The first reason to change was that I was expecting a lot of fast NBN and I didn’t have much problems defeating Andy with my NBN list. Gabriel offered knight and a toolbox to rapidly access everywhere, which is good against those poorly iced NBN decks. Also, this deck swims in money and I like that. I felt like I always had control over the game, even in the late game. This deck pressures the corp hard and a lot of players There’s two things I like in my decks: Sitting on lots of creds and having good drawpower. That brings me to my next point: Quality time. While testing I liked this deck but I found myself clicking for cards way too often. That’s why I wanted to include diesels. I didn’t have enough influence ofcourse so I went for quality time. They offered themselves valuable as they saved me a lot of clicks so I could run more, enabled faster rig building and protected me against jinteki.
In the end I was happy with the list but Compromised employee will probably be replaced with something more efficient and they often got stuck in my hand because I favored running over installing them and because the opponents didn’t play that much ice at all.
The tournament:
So first so you know: Agenda points weren’t counted during the tournament. A win was 2 points, a loss 0 and that’s all. We were only with 6 players unfortunately, so some things had to be adapted.
Round 1 vs. Sander with Jinteki and Chaos Theory. 1-1
Sander is the TO and also organizes the league around here so he’s a good player. He decided to test some fun decks though, which was as good as it was bad. It meant his decks weren’t the best, but they were unpredictable.
Game 1: 0-1 My Gabe against his Jinteki.
In this game I made some mistakes, big ones. I face checked some ice and hit a Katana. Which in itself was stupid. I should have special ordered Mimic to tear through his sentries and run afterwards. After scoring some points through a knight that moved between his R&D and remotes I hit an archer which wrecked my mimic and Knight. Here’s my second big mistake: I could’ve run his HQ and shut downed his archer but I didn’t for some reason. I sneak door into his hand and constantly see the same card: Neural EMP. The game stretches out and my deck is almost empty. I have 5 agenda points and he has 3. At some point I decide to go for it and rush myself through a big server only to hit a Jackson and get flat lined the turn after.
Game 2: 1-1 NBN vs. Chaos theory.
I was glad to see that, it’s generally too slow but the problem is that if I don’t get the train rolling and he sets up an early rig, I’m done for. That doesn’t happen though as I use his slow start to score my first Astro behind a chimera. He succeeds in siphoning me once or twice but I can revive my economy every time and keep him out of my servers with some ice. I proceed scoring a second Astro which gives me 2 active Astro counters. From there big pressure is on, he draws a lot of cards but doesn’t succeed in assembling a rig before I score the last few points.
Round 2 vs. Arjaan with Andromeda and NBN: MN
Arjaan is the owner of the store. Although I see him there everytime, I never played against him (or maybe once a long time ago.)
Game 1: 1-0 My Gabe against his NBN: MN
Turn 1 he makes some credits and ices his centrals. I facecheck everything and get through his popup window on his R&D which nets me a breaking news. I proceed to play Knight and get in everywhere. I pick up an agenda from his remote, another from his R&D and proceed by accessing the hand with Sneakdoor. He tried to assemble Sea, scorch, scorch but I was too rich and he didn’t find them in time. I took my last agenda points for the win.
Game 2: 2-0 My NBN: TWIY against his Andromeda
I start with a sweeps week, an enigma on HQ and an archer on R&D. He decides to set up the first 2 turns which was good for me as it enabled my first astro score. I believe it was with a SanSan. He continues setting up a bit and I get the train going. Once he gets going I can keep him out long enough to score my second Astro and my Beale and breaking news follow shortly after.
Round 3 vs. Brian with HB: ETF and Noise
Game 1 0-1: My NBN against his Noise
Now this was hard for me to digest. I start the train and get some points going. He trashes a lot with his Imp and mills some with noise. He trashes some ice forcing me to draw for more. I manage to protect my SanSan and score a few agenda’s off of it and get to 6 points. He has a Medium at this stage and I failed to find extra ice to protect my R&D so he trashed the one enigma that protected my r&d and ran 3 times seeing all of what was left in my deck, taking all the points he needed for the win. This was a bit my fault as I should have iced it more heavily than my HQ.
Game 2: 1-1 My Gabe against his HB.
I feared HB with all its ETR ice a bit. It’s one of the lesser matchups. I start the game aggressively face checking everything and siphoning him keeping him low on money. I manage to trash his Ashes and his Adonis campaigns. At some point he succeeds in ruining my rig with a Sherlock and puts a sensei in front, locking me out of the server. He scores 2 agendas while I’m running his hand aggressively. Unfortunately I kept seeing the same Archived memories over and over again! I assumed he had 3 in hand and no agenda’s but he had 4 agenda’s in hand and only 1 archived memories in his entire deck. Once he played the archived memories I started hitting the agenda’s in his hand and found a way to get into his server. I get in everywhere and score the needed points.
Should’ve never played the magical archived memories bro.
Finals: Sander again.
So, we decided to play a finals. Sander and I ended up on top in the swiss and ended up playing against each other again. And damn these were some fun games.
Game 1: 1-0 My gabe against his Jinteki.
I get a fairy online and start running a bit. I get a Knight online and get into his r&d a few times and liberate some agendas. I constantly need to pay attention to my hand size though and proceed carefully. After he iced his servers and I couldn’t get through I played sneakdoor and ran his hand, stripping him from some agendas. He plays a lot of 1 point agendas though so I’m stuck with only 4 points after 4 agenda liberations. At some point I manage to score a brainbust and then it happens. He kills my knight off with a Himitsu-bako I run his R&D with 4 cards in hand and what does he rez? Yes, a freaking Janus. I click through 1 routine and take 4 brain damage. Certain of dying my next turn I passed but he was too poor and didn’t have EMP luckily… I continue running elsewhere and take some damage. With the damage he hits one of my emergency shutdown not knowing I had 3 in hand and said “oh I like to see that go”. Too bad for him I had more than enough, ran on HQ with knight and inside job and proceeded to shut down his Wotan. Eventually he kills off my last Knight but I can assemble a rig of Yog, Mimic, Corroder and capture the last 2 points for the win.
Game 2: 2-0 My NBN vs his Chaos theory.
I start with Hedge fund and 2 enigma’s. One on my R&D and one on HQ. I manage to score the first astro behind a Chimera while he is setting up. Eventually he test runs a torch and manages to make it stay. He gets through to my R&D and steals a few points. I proceed by using my astro counter to score Beale. Sander happily sees how I ruined the Astrotrain, but this time it wasn’t a stupid mistake. I knew perfectly what I was doing. He continued bashing R&d while I had the necessary points in hand. I don’t rez ice and let him access to save money and score my next beale with a Biotic Labour the next turn. This leaves me at 6 points and a breaking news in hand. He suspects this and runs my hand, siphoning me to keep me off credits as I’m pretty broke by that point. I replace the enigma on HQ with a wraparound and make some credits. I hope he doesn’t run my hand so I don’t have to rez wraparound. I have 6 cards in hand though and let him access. He fails to find the Breaking news and decides to prep up for some runs realizing it could very well be over next turn but left with no real other option. I start the turn and show the Breaking news for the win.
Conclusion:
Considering this is my first official Netrunner tournament and I just came back from an 8 month long hiatus I’m very happy with this. The game really has grown a lot since I quit and has become even more interesting and epic. I had a ton of fun, met some nice people and got some nice loot including a beautiful alternate art playset of Kati Jones, a playmat, a deckbox and a Store Champion sign.
