I didn’t play ANY of last week’s decks. Instead, we hosted my very last tournament at the Two-Headed Giant. I’m moving back to the sunny shores of Alberta (har har) this Thursday, so I wanted to get one more tournament in.
And between moving and tournament and moving and more moving, I haven’t gotten to play much Netrunner. Still, here’s some stuff. Let’s talk about the tournament in brief.
We had five players. Strangely enough, there were two Sunnys! I brought Ken and PE.
I thought long and hard about bringing Reina with Caissas. This’d probably be the last time I could take the chess pieces to a tournament until people started running full card pool tournaments, but in the end, I decided to go Crim. Really, it’s because the Caissas are pretty dated. They’re still cool, and nothing beats their physicality, but Knight is too expensive with all the multi-sub ICE. It doesn’t stand up to modern breakers. Rook is cool, but it would require a heavy investment in a derez suite, which I wasn’t totally into. Pawn doesn’t give that much of an economic boost over just installing a Temujin, and Bishop has always been pretty weak. Now it has to go up against things like Net-Ready Eyes, Dedicated Processor, and Null.
It was sad. But I didn’t play Caissas.
However, Ken and PE were awesome.
For the Ken deck, I went relatively light on the run events (only 10). That was a bonus, but what we really wanted was the 17 influence. That let us bring in Employee Strikes, Temujin, Mimic, Paperclip, Datasuckers, and two Equivocation.
The game plan was to get some regular runs in, threaten remotes with Inside Job, clear shenanigans with Strike, and then Equivocate for the win.
It did pretty well. But Abagnale was a pain. Decoders are hard for Crim.
Also Mammon had to come down in one game where I just could not find my Paperclip or a Special Order.
Femme was a boss and got me some pretty amazing plays.
But the real star of the deck was Bloo Moose. As Paperclip is the only card that comes out of the bin in this deck, I regularly made about 30 credits off of Bloo Moose. What’s that, a Daily Casts that lasts 15 turns? I’d buy that.
Bloo Moose is definitely going on the MWL.
Deliberation Ken
Ken “Express” Tenma: Disappeared Clone
Event (22)
3x Career Fair
3x Dirty Laundry
2x Employee Strike ●●
3x Inside Job
2x Legwork
2x Möbius
3x Special Order
3x Sure Gamble
Hardware (3)
3x Desperado
Resource (12)
2x Aaron Marrón
2x Bloo Moose
2x Daily Casts
3x Earthrise Hotel
3x Temüjin Contract ★★★
Icebreaker (5)
1x Abagnale
1x Femme Fatale
1x Mammon
1x Mimic ●
1x Paperclip ●●●
Program (4)
2x Datasucker ●●
2x Equivocation ●●●●● ●
17 influence spent (max 17, available 0)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Terminal Directive
Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.
My PE build was a slightly modified version of my Master Shredder Obokata deck. It’s still super amazing. I think I might swap the Cortex Locks for something else, but going down to two Shocks to include a Caprice was a really, really smart choice.
I didn’t MCA any Film Critics this tournament, but I did turn an Aaron to my side. I also Scorched somebody. The real nailbiter was in my final game against James (one of the store owners). He was on 5 points, and I was on 3 points. I had a Fetal AI installed and double advanced, and he could get into the server. But he had very few cards. Time was running down.
He went in. He hit the Swordsman and let it fire. He then hit a Komainu and cursed at me. That’s also when I rezzed the Caprice. He cursed at me more.
He lost the Psi Game. He tried again. This time I rezzed the Ben Musashi. He cursed at me more, and he jacked out—not enough cards to survive the Fetal and the Ben. He passed turn.
I triple-advanced the Fetal and waited 5 seconds for the clock to run down. I scored it and ended my turn. He now had one turn left to win the game. Unfortunately for him, I had no agendas in hand or archives, so he needed the top deck (no multi access).
It wasn’t there, so we tied. That landed me in third place behind David in first and James in second. I’m really loving this deck, but I think the ICE suite needs some tooling. Not just the Cortex Locks (though they were really great against Sunny), but also the DNA Trackers. Do I need 3? I don’t think so.
Master Shredder PE (Obokata Protocol)
Jinteki: Personal Evolution
Agenda (10)
3x Fetal AI
3x House of Knives
3x Obokata Protocol
1x Philotic Entanglement
Asset (7)
3x Jackson Howard ●●●
2x Shock!
2x Snare!
Upgrade (3)
2x Ben Musashi
1x Caprice Nisei
Operation (14)
2x Celebrity Gift
3x Cerebral Cast
3x Hedge Fund
2x MCA Informant ●●●●
2x Neural EMP
2x Scorched Earth ●●●●● ●●●
Barrier (3)
3x Kakugo
Code Gate (5)
3x DNA Tracker
2x Yagura
Sentry (7)
2x Cortex Lock
3x Komainu
2x Swordsman
15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Blood and Water
Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.
It was very sad that it was my last tournament at the Two-Headed Giant. I’m going to miss those folks.
Sky Hammer Grid 