World Wide Meta

So there has been an interest in making a general discussion on the different metas we have all over the world.

So everyone knows that if you’re playing against someone who’s from the UK and is Weyland, you need to get your plascrete ASAP. Also, if you’re playing against someone from the North America, you’re pretty much safe - they only play the ‘boring’ stuff - PPVP Kate, NEH, RP, occasionally ITD Bootcamp glacier, while we, Europeans are bloodthirsty bastards who will always find a way to murder you, be it throwing a giant space rock at your house, bleeding you out or some other way.

But how true all of these anecdotal statements actually are? That’s why I’ve created this thread - so that we all could share our common experience and so that we could get a huge compilation of the different metas we have all over the world.

I’ll start with the Baltic meta. It definitely is small, last tournament we had was the Store Championship in Riga and we had 18 participants. While that isn’t a lot, at least 5 people didn’t attend, and you have also take into account that we had participants from all the 3 Baltic countries. While we don’t have as cutthroat competition as other metas have, we still are quite competitive and like to experiment a lot. Quite a few of us don’t mind netdecking, but we don’t simply just take Calimsha’s Kate or Dan’s RP and just slap it on the table, we seek for cool decks that are fun to play but are still good.

Here’s what we had after 5 rounds of swiss:

I’d argue that we have a pretty balanced meta, having all factions almost equally represented (sorry, Haas, you weren’t welcome!). All 3 NEH were Butchershops and I can agree with the opinion that we have a lot of kill decks in Europe, I think about a half of the corps had at least a backup plan of killing the runner. On the runner’s side we had 3 Kates, even an Exile (which only lost one game), 2 Maxxs and 2 Headlock Reinas. The problem is, we don’t have a HUGE amount of people, so it’s hard to go very deep into analysis, however, we’ll have regionals later this year that might go into 30+ range, so they’d be interesting to muse about.

SO, to conclude, I think the Baltic countries have a very healthy meta, consisting of not too many, but enough kill decks and a lot of fresh, unorthodox decks.

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That sounds just like our local scene in Minnesota. Except we have a lot more people.

Wow, you guys travel internationally for a 15 player Store Championship? That is commitment.

Well all three Baltic states could be slotted neatly into Missouri* you know :wink:

*Both land area and population are about the same

How much influence would that be?

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Is that a netrunner inside joke? :stuck_out_tongue:

As @Dis noted, we are very small, yet the thing is that we only have real playgroups in our capitals and any Netrunner scene, no matter how little, is welcome. In last year’s regionals we also had participants from Finland, meaning they’d have to take a ferry across the gulf to Estonia and then drive all the way to us. Yes, for Americans it might seem unreasonably simple, but it isn’t. And we are located in the middle of all three Baltic countries (and also have the biggest meta) so the others have an easier time travelling to us.

Guess this could be a great topic to ask: I’m going to visit Ljubjana (25-28 July) and Budapest (28-31 July) do you guys know if there are going to be any events? I would love to play with you guys :smile:

Here in Spain the metagame is divided between different cities, there’s no player overlap between Valencia, Barcelona, Bilbao and Madrid so metas go at different speeds and in different directions except when they clash for Regionals and Nationals.

In Madrid I feel many of the top players have a tendence towards Runner denial decks, and also a general tendence to shy away from glacier, RP excepted. In general I feel players want decks “to play”, they recognize that Butchershop is powerful but would rather play something more fun or more complex.

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That doesn’t really help me understand the situation. I have no idea how large Missouri is :stuck_out_tongue:

Baltic countries altogether cover approximately 175 square km (or 67.6 square miles) and have 6.2 million citizens.

So, the Netherlands is just one big meta, as the same 20 or so people reguarly show up at the big tournaments. Then again, you can drive through our entire country in under 3 hours, so that’s basically like a trip to work for you Americans

As for meta flavor, we just steal everything from ZE germans(Kiddin’ guys). Oh, and Belgium is basically annexed by us, so include them as well.

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In general we have a fairly healthy exchange between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. From time to time we even get some visitors from France or the UK. It all depends how close you live to the border though. For me its just closer to go to Liege (Belgium) then to go to Cologne (Germany) for a Netrunner tournament.

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“even get some french visitors”… :smile:

France visitors was the first foreign delegation in Belgium’s nat (~10%).
Belgium visitors are also the first foreign delegation in France’s nat.

Last year the Belgium nat winner was french (Weigraff).
This year the France nat winner is belgan (Calimsha).

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This may be the right place to ask: I will be in Riga 21-24 August. Will there be something Netrunner-related happening then?

Well, I am German, so my view is a bit biased. I would have come to the French nats, too. But Angers was just too far away. (Not to mention that the event page was reachable from a German IP address.) :wink:

I actually believe that we might have the Summer Game Night Kit tournament during that week but I’ll check and PM you later!

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Please let Tallinn people know too, some might hop on a bus and show up

Of course :wink:

Basically from what I gathered from our TO the Game Night Kit hasn’t been delivered yet and we don’t know when it’ll happen so we don’t know when the tournament will be hosted. However, when we receive it, I’ll contact you. And even if we don’t get them in time, we can probably arrange a casual meetup :slight_smile:

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@flaw @V01d So, the date and place have been settled on - 22nd of August. Here is a link to the Facebook page.

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