Like all of us, Lukas has a special place in his heart for you 
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I thought I was one of the reasons he quit.
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Gotta follow him into the land of Runestone; YOU CAN’T QUIT ON SPAGS!
edit: -bound, -scape, -stone, whatever :). Generic-Fantasy-Adventure-Land!
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Wow, pretty disrespectful IMO to not mention Whizzard as a viable Runner. I think a seasoned Whizzard player with the right list could do serious damage at Worlds in the anticipated meta. Whizzard lists laugh at RP, has a reasonable HB match-up (especially if packing an Atman), and even the NBN FA match-up is reasonable. I would predict more high placing Whizzards than MaxX’s at Worlds this year, although part of that is because I think more Whizzard will be played. RAM is definitely a strong deck but I don’t think many players are brave enough to bring it.
also, there is no way @bblum is playing Weyland, not even his beloved Foodcamp. at least, I hope not.
Val is definitely Tier 1, too.
Award for the most conservative prediction ever goes to…
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but there is only one seasoned whizzard player in the world…
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Val is basically whizzard with upside though. Drop a scrubber down - boom, you’re a whizzard!
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Not disagreeing with you (: There will definitely be more Val than Whizz
All of these predictions are assuming the best players will play against eachother. Ffg has demonstrated that they only want the players within driving distance.
The prizes and the title dont matter, netrunner is bigger than minnesota. You can sit on a throne of mousepads, but it doesnt make you king.
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Here are my picks for top Runner and Corp!
As everyone knows, last year Dan D’Argenio won with some bullshit tier 1 deck and “skill”, but from the looks of things, this year things are going to be shaken up by the advent of some truly new blood in the netrunner scene. If you thought the intensity of last year’s games were something, you might in fact, not know anything at all!
My top picks for Runner this year:
Shaper
is going to be a force to reckon with, as people have unanimously decided that PPVP Kate is lower tier than they previously thought. Exile is poised to make a huge splash with the new influx of trashable cards data and destiny has to bring to the table, along with the discovery of the (over powered some would say) Cortez Chip/False Echo combination. Lead designer, Lukas Litzsinger ruling new errata, giving Exile 15 additional influence has sent sparks flying in the hyper competitive reddit netrunner community, with words such as ‘playable’, ‘ridiculous’ and ‘what was the point’ being thrown around, it’s clear it is everyone’s favorite probable opiate addict is going to make real waves this year.
Next up, Anarch
These well mannered, polite, courteous runners are destined to run, and that’s pretty much it. No one expects any Noise on tournament ground over mass belief that he is too “lame”. If any Anarch has a chance of creating as much of an impact on the competitive circuit, it’ll have to be, of course, Andromeda. Datasucker is primed for a comeback along with its partner card “goddamned parasite” and “Jesus, clone chip, really? Of course.” With the new FAQ stating that the Jinteki card cerebral static will be usable first turn against Andy, making the player search through their grip and stack for any copies of Desperado, forcing them to tear them up directly into the closest waste receptacle, the meta will be torn whether to play Anarch decks, especially after Order and Chaos did literally almost nothing but give the corporate players dedicated technician team, the sleeper hit of the box, edging out Honor and Profit as most useless expansion.
Criminal
No one will play Criminal.
Corp Side!
The real excitement of the days proceedings will undoubtedly be whether anyone plays anything other than Astrobiotics now that film critic has been released. An FFG insider has told me, anonymously of course, “it was really stupid of us to release Haarpsichord along side the obvious counter”. He went on to state a number of rampant mumblings along with the phrase fucking (…) losers a number of times before being carried off to a group home, where he is certain to get the assistance and care he needs. Let’s move on to the factions now!
Engineering The Future
Engineering The Future gained some real legs with cards such as Team Sponsorship and Marcus Batty, ensuring the runner might actually have to try to play a game of netrunner. Engineering The Future players have already been accustomed to deck building traps such as, non-Engineering The Future identities, and as such, players are skilled at playing the best cards in the game, avoiding “the bad ones” Engineering The Future has many different archetypes to choose from this time around, such as ETFFA, and losing. Exciting times ahead of us!
NBN
I already discussed this, NEH FA, obviously.
Maybe data and destiny will have some interesting “frustration cam” moments, a new feature of this year’s Worlds, wherein players reactions upon losing 5 points in one run are filmed with a high speed camera. You can really see the “I wish I had just played SanSan and Astro and Beale like everyone else” tears well up in their eyes.
Jinteki
Players are in for exciting new ways to play Jinteki, as the gamut of high impact, game changing ID has to deal with new runner strategies, such as “draw until film critic, don’t get siphoned, fuck vamp”. Hopefully players remember to pack their parasites, because otherwise, we’re dealing with a field of lose on a background of red cards. Industrial Genomics and Personal Evolution players hope to not see feedback filter as always, but we’re all pretty sure Mihn Tran is busy with Jinteki.net, so no one is really expecting resistance. Besides, someone is going to make the Jinteki brain damage cards work never, and there isn’t really that much new to share.
Weyland
My personal favorite deck is a Blue Sun glacier deck that I’m not going to be playing, because I’m not attending this tournament. If anyone cares to write this section up, good for you. Maybe noobs will lose to Argus or something, whatever.
I hope you all enjoyed my detailed analysis, if data and destiny is available by the time worlds is on, say hi to the one person playing Apex, and wish him or her help getting the treatment they need and deserve. Thank you all!
(To be certain, I’m not making fun of @mediohxcore here, he’s just part of the satire. The delicious biting satire)
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Nobody mentioning Ken just makes me that much more confident he’s the right call. Sorry, MaxX. Next SC season!
Corp side I’m probably taking NEXT Design again. Film Critic kinda puts a dent in my original Argus plan.
Don’t take next design, just put a fun 3 influence card into The Only HB That Matters and do the same thing you’d do in next. Except win more.
If you take Ken, and D&D is available, make prey work, that’ll be awesome.
Yeah, I got the joke the first three times.
Been thinking about Prey in Ken but I’m not sure where to find the installs unless I run jank like Cortez Chip.
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Hey, a joke is a joke, but seriously, I can’t see Next Design making much of an impact. But then again, I’m not playing tournaments, so perhaps you’ll make it. Still…
Cache, bank job, armitage, daily casts, earthrise, faerie, inti, datasucker, public terminal, the b&e suite, security testing, decoy maybe? Quality time and mass install, and maybe even hunting ground could be viable.
@gumOnShoe’s analysis seems good. I think the meta is in kind of an interesting place overall. I think “traditional” RP is in a lot more trouble than he seems to simply because the Noise matchup seems pretty awful.
The “obvious” runner decks are clearly PPVP Kate or Noise. Noise is more powerful but also more susceptible to hate. For example, he doesn’t like being tagged but Kate does not care as long as her block doesn’t burn down too many times. There’s just not that much hate you can run vs. Kate. Susanoo and (usually doomed) attempts to run Lady out of counters are about it.
The thing is, the “1.5” runner decks are also really strong. Agree with @ItJustGotRielle and @mvt, Val with 77 blackmails and Desperado is a total pain in the ass. Make sure you cut that deck because if she draws the Desperado early I think she may be even better than Noise.
Overall it feels like runner has a strong edge and I expect an absolute ton of runner-side splits. @mvt’s pick of a Noise/NEH winner seems like the safest prediction just from what I would expect the frequency of most played runner and corp to be.
However! My psi senses are telling me that there is a secret cabal sitting on some hot corp technology and I will be very interested to see what’s behind that curtain.
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Not a problem. Put out Atman 6 and a Sucker. Then, use all your Sucker counters and both Clone Chips on a Maker’s, burning down a Viper and Pup. Finally, get to the Susan, and jack out.
Bad players do this in elim games.
Agreed, except for the unnecessary usage of an apostrophe in the thread title.
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Your description of the anti-Susanoo play seems oddly specific. 
One thing I forgot to mention, Noise has an advantage over Kate (and Val for that matter) in that his ability intrinsically trumps 24/7 Power Shutdown combo kill and happens to beat the (much less good) Haarp combo deck. I have a feeling that Kate will have a rough time in the 24/7 matchup but I will admit I haven’t tried it to find out.
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IIRC They provided 1 copy at the start, 2 at the finish, and another 1 to the top 16. There’s your four.
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Plus, I’m sure I stole someone’s.
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No they didn’t.
It was one for participation, one for finishing swiss, and one to make the cut
I remember because I finished swiss and had to buy my third copy of the ugliest alt art ever printed
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Of course the prizes get way cooler (and more plentiful) the year I’m not going. Boo.
Also whizz is just bad Val.
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