This Sunday, July 10th, will be the first of my Elite Player Invitational tournaments. It will begin at 12 noon US Central time on my Twitch Channel: twitch.tv/TGTheBigBoy. The purpose of this tournament is to create more readily available content featuring both top-level play and commentary by top-level players. Here are the reasons you should watch:
Commentary that is up to the level of the players participating: Myself and @tmoiynmwg!
A one-time format that encourages exploration and creative deck-building. No one wants to watch an entire bracket of NEH/IG/Gag vs Faust decks. First of all, the NAPD Most Wanted List will NOT apply to this tournament! Additionally, this format will also feature a Custom banned list of one card per faction which has been agreed to by all participants. This is NOT a list of the BEST card of each faction. It is just meant to spice up the game and prune power where appropriate. My hope is that players can revert to versions of decks that they remember being strong if they like, but that players who brew something creative from scratch will be rewarded. Here is the list:
Clone Chip
Faust
Political Operative
The Turning Wheel
Eli 1.0
Nisei Mk 2
Mumbad City Hall
Sansan City Grid
Breaker Bay Grid
(Hopefully) An interview with the winning player talking about how they built their decks and any interesting decisions they made during the tournament.
The tournament will consist of either an 8 or 16-player double elimination bracket (depending how many more confirmations I get).
This will hopefully be the start of a regular series of tournaments throughout the year. Some may use standard card-legality rules and some may be custom formats. Tune in on Sunday and show your support for this initiative!
This reminds me. I think a couple months ago I signed up for an online tournament you mentioned for store championship winners. I totally forgot when that is.
Glad you are doing this. Have been considering doing something kind of similar but was waiting for the “reveal hands” feature to come out for jnet. Just a thought, the name might turn some people off. Just “The BB invitational” has a nice ring to it IMO.
I find it interesting that the players chose to ban Nisei Mk 2 for the Jinteki card, as opposed to Caprice. I’m much less worried about NM2 than Caprice, though it’s still annoying. Especially with Political Operative also off the table. (Also, players choosing to ban PolOp instead of Siphon? Crazy.)
The point from what I have heard to is to ban the 2nd best card so that existing archetypes can still thrive. Example is Architect and Parasite not being on that list.
This is mostly the idea. Banning Caprice would really ruin all fair Jinteki decks. Banning Mk2 tones down their power but still lets them function. You can win with jinteki when you never draw Mk2, it’s HARD to win when you never draw Caprice.
I’m totally baffled that people found the word “Elite” abrasive. It didn’t occur to me at all, and I thought it would just be descriptive of the event. The ANR Pro Circuit nonsense should have clued me in though…
Most people I know generally agree with the “Bernard Effect” - people who are good at the game are too busy being good at the game to brag about how good they are. While it’s pretty obvious to me that there are some excellent players invited and I couldn’t care less what the tournament is called, words do tend to matter on the whole. I’d suggest simply “Invitational” or “Premiere” or something along those lines for future reference.
Also for future reference, if you need a judge next time just let me know.
This is officially a stupid ban : +0.5 access on only best defended centrals is still clic negative after clic #whatevertoomuch. I say #6 or 7 with bumping if the card is a legwork / maker’s eye instead or #10 without providing you’ve got 1 ice to pass. Wrong choice imo.
I say they want challenge, but not too much, here’s my list :
Clone Chip
Faust
Syphon
Blackmail
Ash
Caprice
Mumbad City Hall
Jackson
Interns
Or you just may see Val BlackDLR vs Ash & Jack happy Intern friends
For example your last list on nrdb does not feature any of this cards. But features lot of mvl influence. I would definetly ban wyldside instead of faust, all top tier anarch builds use it. Otherwise I expect orange domination as it is in standart meta.
PS actually I would love to see ban of both cards^^
PPS as for wining by jinteki without caprice - i think it’s not that hard without faust and clone chips. Rig shooters Markus Batty(and probably power shutdown) decks should be a thing.
I’m not personally offended, but I think that there are several common perceptions about the current state of the game that are part of the broader context that makes people bristle at the naming.
Within the game and metagame, several dominant archetypes are viewed as non-interactive/“not netrunner”/anti-fun. The design choices by FFG have created a perceived dominance/favoritism of some factions at the expense of others (nbn over weyland, anarch over criminal). Within the competitive scene, attendance at large events is down. Some of these may be more true than other, but these are perceptions that I see repeated on reddit, facebook, and here.
One of the things that has been a constant in ANR and has helped it to weather these storms is the maturity and inclusivity of the community and the generally civil and constructive discourse it maintains. I think that is a precious thing, and language which has the potential to alienate players (even though it may be accurate and that is not the intent) chips away at that crucial part of the game and culture.
My final point would be more appropriate to the reddit comments section (but also would get lost there). Defending the name by talking about how much the participants have given to the community and how they are dominant players/trendsetters that deserve the name “elite” is not really helping. It sounds too much like boasting or telling people that they ought to show respect to their superiors.
I’m almost done drinking my coffee so I’ll wrap it up. I really appreciate the contributions to the game and the community made by the participants, and I think this is a cool idea. I think the name is accurate if potentially provocative. People are a little touchy right now because there are a number of problems in the game/metagame/community that have people worried about its future, and we should all keep this in mind when we do things to build a better world (need more coffee
I like the idea and I welcome all new ways to play Netrunner until I tried and didn’t like it. Which will not make me stop complaining about things I don’t like. So a big thumbs up for @TheBigBoy and best of luck for the event. I am eager to watch the games and listen to the commentary.
So a big thumbs up for