Dramatis Personae

Throughout this article, I will frequently say “we.” In context, “we” will almost always refer to the core Atomic Empire tryhards: me (@neuropantser), Jacob (@jdc_wolfpack), and Joseph (@josephlaizure). Many readers of this piece, and the ones in its most intended audience, will be similar to us: players with a reasonable amount of store champ-level success, but not much of a breakthrough at higher levels. If you post a top cut list to stimslack and your name is on it, you might need to specify who you are.

Act I: in which we solve the wrong meta

Put yourself back in the mindset of mid-April. Store champs were (mostly) finished; Whispers in Nalubaale was but a whisper of scoops in Stimslack; the game was still alive and kicking; Regionals dates had not been announced yet, and would not be for almost another month. A more innocent time. I and the regular Atomic crew had enjoyed a fair share of success during store champs, netting only one bye card between us but taking 3 of the top 5 slots in Richmond and 2 of the top 3 in our backyard SC. It was in this mindset that we agreed to tryhard regionals.

A word on the Durham regionals to those not familiar: it’s a tough field for the home crowd, historically speaking. Durham is a close enough drive to be feasible for players from DC, Atlanta, Richmond, and in some cases even farther away. In 2015, Dan won Durham. In 2016, Jesse Vandover did, unleashing a torrent of IG54 upon jnet casual in doing so. In 2017, Ben Mason beat Jonas Wilson in the grand finals to take the title. None of these players are from Durham. The best finish by a local in that time span was Joseph Schmoll’s heartbreaking 4th place in 2017, in a game where he was a mere credit short of Scorching Jonas to death out of Nisei Division two or three turns in a row. We had our work cut out for us.

The testing/meta-determining process proceeded pretty much by the book. We took the meta as known from Canadian nationals and recent store champs, then smashed decks against each other until we had an understanding of general performance tiers and the meta considerations to weigh when choosing one deck over another. We posed questions like: what percentage of the room needs to be on Strike Val vs. Critic Val for Obokata Palana to be correct? How about Skorp? When Whispers scoops dropped, we tried to pinpoint the important new cards and added a Strike Freedom and a Remote Enforcement rush Asa to the pool of decks to smash together. When new decks circulated into the Netrunner atmosphere, like Vicarin’s balls-to-the-wall Titan or TBB’s Amani rush Azmari, we added them too. When high-profile events like King of Subways yielded lists, we took and tested them on sight. Almost all of our testing happened in person, which I have a preference for—the speed of games isn’t as rapid as on jnet, but I also have a hard time focusing on jnet. I find it much easier to plan lines of play while shuffling a physical hand of cards.

Partway through May, we learned our regional would be held on June 9, so we threw ourselves even harder into figuring out the pack 5 meta. We convinced ourselves that Logic Bomb hadn’t given Adam enough, that FTT Val was queen, that we hadn’t figured out a build of Freedom that justified not being Val, and that Lobstermodernism was good but the tempo Gagarin, Palana, and CtM lists seemed stronger choices in the swiss. We had, in short, a pretty solid grasp of what we thought the meta would be.

At the time, we were operating under an important basic assumption: Kampala Ascendant would drop on May 31, fewer than 11 days before the regional, and would therefore not be street legal.

Act II: in which we learn that we have solved the wrong meta

neuropantser [10:55 AM]

it’s weird planning for a meta that won’t exist the week after because pack 6 will be legal

thebigunit3000 [10:56 AM]

kampala will be legal for june 9 regionals

neuropantser [10:56 AM]

wait what

Act III: in which a new challenger appears

Kampala spoilers had obviously been out for some time by this point—while we had largely been ignoring them in favor of testing the pack 5 meta, deck ideas were percolating in the back of the mind anyway. So when it became clear that pack 6 was on the table, I jumped straight to a deck I’d wanted to make for a while: value self-damage anarch. Specifically MaxX.

I’ve gone through the reasoning behind the list in my full writeup, so I won’t repeat myself other than to say most of the reasoning was there to begin with. The key with Zer0 seemed, to me, to lean into the ability. Zer0 provides speed and tempo, so play a deck that shines with speed and tempo. Stock your deck with redundant pieces, plan to recur rather than avoid the randomness, and understand that you won’t be able to hit Zer0 every turn. Play powerful multi-access and ways to set it up quickly. In summary, play an adaptation of @ctz’s Worlds ’17 aggro MaxX—a version that supplemented its Indexing-based aggression (and closing power) with extra draw and the ability to wipe out HQ at instant speed.

We added this deck to the mix and were quickly impressed by its strength. We made a few tweaks to the list—cutting Rebirth for a third Career Fair because the Skorp matchup seemed miserable even with Rebirth, swapping Overmind for DDoS—but the overall strategy of the deck stayed the same.

Act IV: in which Europe attacks

We went back to testing as before, this time with pack 6 in mind, and had almost come to a good view of the meta when the European Championships smashed its kneecaps. The winning decks—scarcity Palana and Nexus 419—were decks we had all but written off. The hot new tech—Reconstruction Contract combo CI—was so far off our radar it might as well have been a Yu-Gi-Oh! deck. The best CtM didn’t have a single Tollbooth. There were caveats, of course. Pack 6 was likely to shake up the meta; Europe is well known to have a high number of CI memelords pilots per capita; building a Palana scoring remote is much easier when you can’t get Siphoned. But it was still jarring to see a meta so different from what we had envisioned.

The main takeaways from Euros, for us, were the following:

1) Weyland rush, between Argus, Titan, and Skorpios, might be the corp to beat, based on numbers in the top 16.

2) Reg Val was still a deck to fear, especially a version on 3 breakers.

3) There was a viable Clot shaper in the form of @tugtetgut’s Circus Hayley.

So we threw those decks into the collider as well. We grew less enamored of Argus, especially after @whiteblade111 took @ion_fox and @inniscor’s reg 419 to the top of Winnipeg regionals. Titan was the slot machine in action—capable of nearly impossible to beat wins, and also capable of turn 1 losses when the runner hit an open R&D for an Atlas. Skorp seemed, all around, very solid, and it had a very strong matchup against our Zer0 MaxX.

Circus Hayley was the true revelation. Was it finicky to pilot? In our experience, yes. Was its econ beholden to an untutorable resource? Not as much as you might suspect, but yes. Did it have very strange lines, especially in the late game? Absolutely. But it had game against everything we threw at it, and it crushed matchups with decks that hoped to win by fast-advancing. Going into the final week of testing, I was convinced Circus Hayley was the right runner deck, though the rest of my team seemed less convinced. I was sad to leave a deck whose list I had technically cobbled together by the wayside, but this was about results. There were future events to do well with my own list at.

Act V: the week of

neuropantser [10:13 AM]

circus hayley is good

jdc_wolfpack [10:13 AM]

haven’t had a chance to test it yet

but having clot is good right now

neuropantser [10:14 AM]

d4 recursion has been :spicy_meatball: too

—

neuropantser [7:58 PM]

i hate this deck

ion_fox [7:58 PM]

OnO

you said it was good?

neuropantser [7:58 PM]

it is

it just

it’s so shaper

ion_fox [7:58 PM]

…

neuropantser [7:59 PM]

i hate playing shaper so much

please tell me i don’t have to play this deck

ion_fox [7:59 PM]

you don’t have to play this deck

neuropantser [8:01 PM]

but it wins

—

neuropantser [12:47 PM]

so where are y’all on corps?

jdc_wolfpack [12:48 PM]

titan but leaning skorp

josephlaizure [12:49 PM]

azmari rush

jdc_wolfpack [12:50 PM]

you?

neuropantser [12:50 PM]

no clue tbh

i haven’t won a game of corp in like a week

even titan

jdc_wolfpack [12:51 PM]

have you considered getting gud at netrunner?

neuropantser [12:51 PM]

seems difficult

—

neuropantser [11:34 AM]

so @sirris PM’d me asking to test yesterday

jdc_wolfpack [11:35 AM]

Huh

neuropantser [11:35 AM]

it’s a :rusecruise: right

he’s playing against us this weekend

jdc_wolfpack [11:35 AM]

Or he might just want to test

neuropantser [11:36 AM]

no way

this is definitely 4d chess

—

jdc_wolfpack [8:58 PM]

how did the games against @sirris go?

neuropantser [9:03 PM]

turns out it’s hard to win as 419 vs skorp when you hit a snare with 2 in hand

419 did fine once i realized that lol

grant + nusiphon is good

jdc_wolfpack [9:04 PM]

savage

neuropantser [9:05 PM]

he was also on a deck like our maxx but in val

no ribs, just zer0/cv

jdc_wolfpack [9:06 PM]

you think it’s real?

neuropantser [9:06 PM]

earlier today kenny said he had jon on “a good runner” and that runner was val

i’m inclined to say real

jdc_wolfpack [9:07 PM]

you spend too much time on this site

strike?

neuropantser [9:06 PM]

ya

strike is the main reason i think it might be better

but he was also on trope

so that lowers the average card quality

jdc_wolfpack [9:07 PM]

yeah strike seems really good right now

neuropantser [9:07 PM]

it’s fine

we just need people to not play mti

or titan

or ag

or skorp

—

neuropantser [11:42 PM]

does it bother you that grant has quotation marks

robotmascot [11:43 PM]

ya

a lot

neuropantser [12:04 AM]

does any corp rn win games of netrunner

robotmascot [12:05 AM]

you just need to win 1 right?

you have a bye

neuropantser [12:05 AM]

i don’t

robotmascot [12:05 AM]

oh

:rip_ran:

neuropantser [12:05 AM]

they say titan is a slot machine but honestly i’ve had way better luck with irl slot machines

neuropantser [12:17 AM]

ok yeah i’m not sure how any deck beats that start

robotmascot [12:17 AM]

ya

i would have needed rebirth kim like t1

neuropantser [12:18 AM]

maybe titan is ok???

neuropantser [12:31 AM]

titan is garbage

robotmascot [12:32 AM]

lol

—

neuropantser [12:35 PM]

so uh

y’all saw the news?

jdc_wolfpack [12:38 PM]

:coffin: :video_game:

josephlaizure [12:45 PM]

honestly in disbelief

neuropantser [12:46 PM]

anyone else gonna be on full tilt tomorrow?

jdc_wolfpack [12:47 PM]

yep

josephlaizure [12:47 PM]

yep

—

ion_fox [11:00 PM]

you should not play hayley tomorrow

neuropantser [11:01 PM]

are you putting my shaper skills on :blast:?

tough but fair

ion_fox [11:01 PM]

no i’m putting your psychology on :blast:

neuropantser [11:02 PM]

also tough but fair

but seriously i think it’s the right deck

ion_fox [11:02 PM]

maybe for the field

but not for you

neuropantser [11:03 PM]

?

ion_fox [11:04 PM]

“i hate playing shaper so much”

“please tell me i don’t have to play this deck”

neuropantser [11:05 PM]

how dare you use my own words against me

but… yeah you’re probably right

maxx is way more fun

i’ll just hope no one is on skorp

let gord decide

—

neuropantser [12:03 AM]

got time for a game?

considering the audible to hatchet skorp and want to make sure it’s not a terrible idea

josephlaizure [12:04 AM]

time for one game yeah

i’m on dyer val rn if that works

neuropantser [12:05 AM]

perfect

neuropantser [12:25 AM]

i’m glad we did that

hatchet skorp is a terrible idea

josephlaizure [12:26 AM]

haha

get some sleep

—

neuropantser [2:04 AM]

ok

so i’m still losing as skorp rush

but the games feel way closer

i don’t feel completely out of it like i did as titan

robotmascot [2:05 AM]

ya

tbh got a little lucky in those games

neuropantser [2:05 AM]

sure

well, registration starts in 8 hours

so i think i’m going with skorp and maxx

because i’m out of time to change my mind

robotmascot [2:06 AM]

good luck

:mega_party:

Act VI: in which we learn what we missed along the way

You can read the full tournament report from my decklist to see how the tournament went. In short: played well in swiss hitting some good matchups (hi PE!) and bad ones (hi Skorp!), lost a good CtM matchup in the cut, battled back to the 3rd/4th playoff thanks to some perfect Skorp rush draws, then made one of the biggest misplays of my Netrunner career to lose a game I think I was at least 70% to win otherwise. Because of the particular way the run ended, I was very salty for a while, but ultimately I’ve come around and am happy with my finish. Jacob finished in a heartbreaking 9th place off tiebreakers, and Joseph had a rougher day, finishing close to the middle of the pack.

The main thing we missed heading into this regional was the power of Surveyor. Jon Dalesandry, the eventual winner, was on a 6-agenda Surveyor-stacking Azmari. I was slated to pick sides against him in the first round of the cut (which ended up not coming to pass when a no-show higher in the standing shifted us both up a placing), and I played against as close an approximation of the deck as I could mock up from Jacob’s memory. I was on 0 D4v1d, and things were rough. My only real out was to rip an early SSL from HQ before he was ready to push it in the remote, then draw for Indexing + Dash. Unless the corp drew poorly, in which case I could lucksack a win by wiping HQ out and immediately Mad Dashing archives. The matchup favored Jon enough that I strongly considered corping against him, despite my many corp woes in the week leading up to regionals.

Ultimately, this was a blind spot due to card evaluation: we didn’t realize just how strong Surveyor would be in the field. In a sense, card evaluation is the story of this whole regionals: we correctly identified certain powerful cards (Zer0, Diversion of Funds), which gave us a strong deck and a near-correct view of the meta, but we missed another (Surveyor) which was a key piece of the puzzle. Card evaluation is a key skill, and there is no easy replacement for it.

Act VII: in which a piece of paper is passed around

Between rounds, something much more important than regionals happened: Matt Werner (@mwerner) passed around a sign-up sheet. The Triangle area consists of several game stores; Atomic is only one. Not everyone uses the stores’ forums, not everyone uses Stimslack, and no one platform can reliably reach all the Netrunner players in the Triangle. What was the signup sheet for? We weren’t sure, exactly. Maybe eternal format leagues. Maybe cube drafts. Maybe pick-a-card-pool tournaments. Point is, Netrunner might be losing official support, but it didn’t have to die, and we weren’t ready to let it.

I hear a lot of arguments over what makes Netrunner special. The arguments I hear often focus on three things: the game is incredibly fun; the world is diverse and fascinating; and the people who play Netrunner are among the kindest and most fun in any gaming community. And honestly, to me, it’s not any of those—it’s all of them. What makes Netrunner special is getting to play this game, set in this world, with these people. Any less and the Netrunner experience wouldn’t be what it is. I’m not sure what the future holds for this game, but I hope your meta has people like Matt who are committed to taking Netrunner into the future and making it last a little bit longer.

In the end, that’s all we can hope for.