Netrunner Spring Tournament

There was another, smaller, netrunner tournament about a week ago. I was looking forward to a very casual setting but there were also some guys who came from… Västerås I think, but I’m not sure. We managed to scrape together 9 people at least, and I didn’t notice anyone bringing anything super janky.

Runner is my Achilles Heel and so I decided not to make any big changes, I brought a more aggressive Leela deck with desperado and security testing. I know it should be a good deck as other people has won many tournaments with variations of it, but I’m feeling a bit less confident with it anyway.

My corp deck is a super fun deck with Industrial Genomics which had performed very well during testing but I’m still worried. My feeling is that it’s still the most janky corp deck in the tournament.

The tournament format is a simple swiss, with no playoffs.

Match 1, Bye

I came here to play netrunner, not to watch other people play netrunner… The 1 hour wait was quite boring to be honest.

4 points and I’m the lead! It feels sad though.

Match 2, Henrik Etf/Kate

vs Engineering the Future

So I play my friend Henrik again. I know his decks inside out, and he knows mine. It’s a bit fuzzy, but I don’t think I got a super terrible start. I try to keep his money low, but failing. I try to get some accesses, but I find nothing. He scores and I bounce and try to put some pressure but I fail. Somehow I’m locked out of all servers without any money and I lose 0-7.

Well played Henrik, well played. Still 4 points.

vs Kate

So I get set up and I get my money rolling. I score out an NAPD and a Fetal I believe, but we’re a bit low on time. I score some agendas and he’s finding nothing. He has a fairly good rig out, but he can’t get anywhere fast. But time is called and I win on time.

Time is my biggest enemy. 5 points.

Match 3, Fredrik NEH/Leela

vs Leela

Ah my trusty corp matchup. I’m in control the whole game and I get my asset economy set up. He makes the mistake of not trashing anything or running archives so I manage to get rich as a troll. He’s richer for a time with ~40 credits from clicking Kati every turn, but it doesn’t really matter when I rezz 2x Ashigaru on HQ and Tollbooth/Susanoo/Tsurugi on my scoring server, naturally with Ash or Caprice for protection.

I can score out quite comfortably. 7 points!

vs Near-Earth Hub

This is another one of these runner games where I have no idea what I’m doing wrong, but I’m severely locked out, without any money and the corp just crushes me.

The start is quite bad, no desperado and no security testing leaves me quite poor. He’s got 2 pieces of ice in front of HQ, the outermost unrezzed, I have some breakers and a little bit of money and I gamble with a Legwork but he rezzes a Tollbooth. Drats. I knew he had at least a Beale but also an Astroscript he scores out. This was a huge misplay, I should have either built up or focused on trashing his assets.

In the end the astrotrain rolled me quite hard with 3 astroscripts scores in rapid succession. I knew I should have built a shaper/anarch with Clot. Still 7 points.

Match 4, Harald Etf/Hayley

vs Hayley

A stealth Hayley deck. As against Fredrik I get my asset economy online but he’s pressuring my R&D a lot harder, luckily not finding anything. To combat stealth I stack sentries like a madman with 2x Cortex Lock and one Tsurugi over R&D and Susanoo and another Tsurugi over my scoring server. The tax is very real, both in credits and in clicks via net damage. I score out a couple of agendas and I’m ready to score out for the win, but the game ends after a desperation run on R&D with only 2 cards left - and a Snare.

Corp deck is fantastic, although I need to play it a bit faster. 9 points.

vs Engineering the Future

Finally I’m having a good start! I score an early agenda and add some pressure. He forces a score and I bounce ice on HQ and Account Siphons him down. I’m very much about to win, but my mortal enemy the time has decided to come visit me again, and I get a timed win.

Now this is how the feeling of playing runner should be! 10 points.

Summary

It seems I wasn’t the only one having trouble with running, as 22 victories came from the corps (15 AP, 3 flatlines, 4 timed) compared to the 10 runner victories (9 AP, 1 timed).

Anyways it appears like I did fairly well, even though the bye gave me a huge point boost and my 2nd place feels quite undeserved. Here are the final standings:

I never played Daniel, but it appears he crushed everyone this day. Well done!

While I didn’t win and I missed out on the playmat, I did get alt-arts of both Popup-window and Gordian Blade. Mmmh pretty! I especially like the popup-window art!