Hi everyone, DonTankMeBro here. Finally syncing my various user names across different forums to my main name. Attended Chilo City Grudge match yesterday in Louisville, Kentucky, at Bluegrass Magic Card Shop. The store is decently large, large enough to very comfortably hold 120 seated players. After writing down our decklists, they set to work on matchmaking for round 1 of what would end up being 6 rounds of swiss with a cut to top 8, with the top 8 being an interesting format that I had not played before, a best-of-3 single-elimination format.

There were 62 competing. I made some effort to find out who had come from where; many were from the Greater Chicago area (at least a dozen, from what I could tell?), several from Bloomington, Illinois (100 miles south of Chicago/central Illinois), some from the Bloomington, Indiana area (confusing at first, two different Bloomington metas? South central Indiana), 11 of us from the Southwest Ohio meta (Cincinatti/Dayton/Columbus) carpooled down, and many from local Louisville meta. We were asked to write down what city we came from at the top of our decklist sheets, which they used to make sure that first round no one played against someone from the same area as them- No one wanted to drive 3 – 6 hours so they could get 4 – 0’ed by the buddy they drove with in the first round. They posted first round pairings on the board, and we all sat wherever we wanted (the tables were numbered, but at this point they weren’t assigning tables), which made the first round a little chaotic. It was like a stock exchange; sixty people holding up their sheets and shouting out firstname-lastnames to find the person they were paired against. Eventually everyone had their opponent in front of them, and they started time on round one.

In this tournament, I played my Keystone 2.1 deck, (http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/13123/keystone-v2-1) and an aggressive Noise Cache I’ve been having success with, Entropy 1.4, (http://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/14009/entropy-v1-4-chilo-city-noise-2nd-seed-) on NRDB.

Round 1: Versus Jinteki: IG / Noise

First round of my first major tournament, my opponent rolls his mat out. It says “2013 World’s Top 8”, and I think, I’m over my head. In one of the first turns against his Corp, he rezzes an alt-art Eli.

Keystone vs Noise: He couldn’t find an Aesop’s for several turns, though he dropped a Wyldside after turn 4. He was clicking for credits a lot, which I know to be brutal as Noise, really cutting into your ability to pressure and keep tempo with the corp. I rushed out 2 Hostiles with 2 Enigma on HQ and Archives and an Ice Wall on R&D, and a single Archer on a remote after the Hostiles were scored let me rez it to keep him out of the Atlas I had IA-ed. Scored the single overadvanced Atlas, then next turn dropped Cleaners into the remote to win (by Atlas searching for the final Hostile if I scored this), and he dropped a D4v1d to run through Archer and take it. I install a Grim in front of Archer, install Geothermal in the remote, and advance it once. On his turn, he just sets up and takes credits. I score out Geothermal on my turn, I’m now at 5 points. He plays a Clone Chip and a Corroder and takes credits again, and I mandatory draw into a Geothermal. I drop and advance it in the remote, knowing he will Clone Chip the D4v1d, which he does, but I rez Grim. He breaks Grim, and a single trash sub and the ETR on archer, letting me trash his Corroder (his only program other than David in play) and emptying his David to take the winning agenda from me, now at 5 points. On my turn I mandatory draw Biotic Labor, and pull my Atlas token to grab an Atlas, to Biotic it out for the winning points, 7 – 5.

Entropy vs. IG: Weird game. He plays a total of 3 ice, on Archives, HQ, and a remote, in the first 10 turns. He Celebrity Gifts twice, Hedge Funds, has 2 Pads in play and 2 Mental Health Clinics, but I don’t feel threatened because he has not attempted to score at all for over a dozen turns, yet is pooling credits up to around 35. I have not seen influence and feel shenanigans might be in this deck, when finally on his turn he rezzes a Sansan in his remote with another hidden card stacked on top of it, which he triple advances. Medical Breakthrough. On my turn, my board state is hitting critical mass- a Medium in hand, Parasite in heap, Clone Chip in play, Incubator at 5, and 18-20 credits. I run R&D, Parasite killing the Komainu he rezzes, and access 6, a ton of asset econ cards and operations, a Braintrust that I score, and a TFP that I win the psi game on by betting 0, 5 points. I have one click left and Demo Run back into R&D, trashing 6 cards, all non-agendas and 1 ice. On his turn he installs 1 ice on R&D and draws twice, and on my turn I Stimhack into R&D since he could not clear virus counters, because I Demo Run’ed last click, meaning if he purged I would still see up to 3 fresh cards. I think he rezzes a Lotus Field, which I Crypsis break to see a card, and run back in for a 2nd dig to score a Medical Breakthrough for the win. 4 Prestige.

Round 2: Versus Keystone variant/Noise Cache

Going 4 – 0 in the first round I was placed at table 5, lined up with all the other 4-0 players until SoS could be determined after this round.

My Keystone vs. Noise: I keep my hand, which is Scorch/Archer/Enigma/Hostile/Posted Bounty. I ice HQ, put Archer on remote, and take a credit. Second turn, score out HT. Third turn I need cards to play and draw a bunch, finding a 2nd Scorch. By 5th turn I have 2 Scorches in hand, and I IAA the Posted Bounty behind the Archer. He runs it, I rez (Maybe trashing a Datasucker?) and he runs R&D, sees a card, ends his turn with 5. On my turn, I bounce Archer (at 5 Credits with only an Archer rezzed) to advance PB a 3rd time and forfeit for the tag, double scorching for the win.

Entropy vs. Keystone variant: The first game over so quickly, we take a couple minutes to shuffle and make some smalltalk. His name is John, he had been playing core set with his friend since October 2014, and just received a bunch (if not all) of the remaining ANR packs for Christmas. Very cool dude, and sitting against me at Table 5 in the second round is pretty boss for a guy who has been playing for 3 months. He had overheard that I was ItJustGotRielle, and told me he was playing my deck with a few changes, which was pretty cool, and we started. He plays very well for his experience level, and gets great draws, getting 2 Curtain Walls and 2 OAIs very early before I can deny them. Instead, I bide my time, getting set up, making poke runs where I know his Curtains are to make him rez them, taxing him clicks to bounce them and reinstall them. I notice his digging fairly aggressively with Jackson and then pitching cards, so I run HQ. He rezzes the lone Data Raven, and I jack out. I Dejavu for Caches to money up and pass turn. On his turn he IAA in his scoring remote, so on mine I install a Nerve Agent, incubate it to 4, and then Demo Run HQ, walking through Data Raven- he pumps its trace by 4 to a total of 7, and I have six credits, so the Raven gets a counter, which concerns me, but I access- I wipe his entire hand, taking a 3 pointer, 2 point, and trashing a Midseason and 1 Scorch. Next turn, I Aesops Wyldside to play 3 viruses, and last click drop and pop Hades Shard but only grab a Hostile Takeover. He is digging for Scorches, because I’m floating one tag and he has a Raven counter- I don’t want to clear the tag knowing he’ll use the counter as soon as he draws 2 scorch anyway, so I just keep the tag and dig for a parasite. I get one next turn and put it on the Raven, and I have a Datasucker with one counter, so next turn I can blow it up and then clear the tags, and likely score the winning agenda soon after. On his turn he uses the Raven counter and then installs over it, trashing it, and draws more. I now know he has at least one scorch in hand, but I have no imp, and no Demo Run, 2 tags, and 3 credits, but no millable viruses. I’m effectively stalled. I panic despite winning 6 points to zero, and decide that I can win before he finds that second second scorch. I draw up and play two Datasuckers, planning to mill them to turn on Crypsis and then run HQ and Archives next turn looking for the winning points. I pass the turn, knowing I just need one more turn and I can Aesops a sucker to clear the tags and he’ll have drawn too much for Scorches to bring the game back. He draws for turn and lays down two Scorches, giving me my first loss of the tournament- and at the hands of my own deck. Well played, John. I scold myself for being so reckless. 6 Prestige.

Round 3: Versus ETF:FA / Andromeda (Greyson Inman)

Round 3 matchups are posted, and even though I split last round, I only drop from table 5 to table 7.

Keystone vs. Andromeda: This was a great game, fast paced and action packed. He has a relatively weak start, and I have a strong start, a Hive, Ice wall, Enigma, Hedge Fund, Hostile, Archer, all by turn 2. He gets a 2 Datasucker out very early and makes a lot of runs in the first few turns, but by the time he gets Security Testing down I have ice across all of its targets. I get 2 Power Shutdowns early, and snipe both of his Datasuckers with them by turn 5; at this point he has Corroder and Mimic installed, and I was sweating a little bit until I drew the Shutdowns, because I have a single Archer on my remote, and only a Grim on R&D (HQ iced 2 deep to prevent early Inside Job/Shutdown plays until I could see his event spread), so I kept not rezzing the Grim since it wouldn’t do anything. After sniping the Datasuckers, I install a second ice on R&D in front of Grim, because I’m floating a lot of credits and holding Midseason/Scorch/Information Overload. I install IO in front of Grim, and he Inside Jobs R&D with an RDI installed, so I go from 18 credits to 7, rezzing Information Overload for the bypass effect and Grim behind it, trashing Mimic. He sees two cards, scoring an Atlas (going up to 4 points after stealing a Geothermal out of R&D earlier), and at this point has 2 Plascretes installed. I do not draw a Taurus, and am pretty committed to a Midseason/IO play to muscle back into the game and get some agendas scored, so on my turn I take both Geothermal tokens to get up to around 28 credits, and last click Midseason him for 18, him having 13/14 credits. He takes the tags (why wouldn’t he), and on his turn draws twice and then Inside Jobs R&D again, bypassing IO before I can stabilize to secure my scoring remote, and walking through Grim, trashing his Corroder, to see 2 cards. He sees my 3-pointer and steals it for the game. Very well played on his part considering his board state and his start.

Entropy vs. ETF:FA- He was flush with asset econ early, getting 2 Adonis and an Eve early. One Adonis was behind a Next Silver and Next Bronze, and not worth what it would take for me to be able to deny it, but I dropped an Imp to deal with the other 2 campaigns. He isn’t trying to score really, but drops a Jackson and RFGs it when I run archives, which keeps him strong back in the game for another 4 or 5 turns, letting him ice up more and get an Ash into his remote. He installs Ash and agenda and advances it, scoring it next turn- Vitruvius with a counter. Fantastic play, meaning Jackson can be saved for a real flood problem and Vitruvius can be fired off to get an agenda into your remote the second the score window presents itself. I don’t want to use a Stimhack to get the Vitruvius, and I’m running honestly pretty poor, having an Aesop’s/Wyldside out but drawing a lot of non-cheap Virus and no Caches, relying on Daily casts and poke runs to try and pressure what little I can. Eventually Wyldside starts delivering Lampreys, Datasuckers, and Caches 2 at a time, and he is playing conservatively to try and weather the heavy period of mills, which allows me to credit back up to the point that I can be a threat. I do not specifically remember how I won out, but I remember making a 4-5 card Medium dig with Crypsis after dropping Crypsis out of hand unexpectedly and running 3rd click, and then with exactly 7 credits left I drop and pop Hades Shard to pull 5 points from Archives (having Aesops out and a Dejavu and Stimhack in hand to recover next turn was the plan) and score out. I had milled a lot of his ice, and with the points in archives he couldn’t properly protect R&D while still being able to recover the lost cards and keep his tempo up. Both good games from a good player. 8 Prestige.

Lunch break here, at about 4 o’clock. The Cincinatti/Columbus/Dayton players, all of us knowing each other from countless tournaments and store champs over the last couple years, meet up and grab lunch together, catching up on how all of us are doing. From my FLGS Chris Copley, resident master of PE, is running perfect on his corp with 3 flatlines in 3 rounds, but falling flat on runner, 1 – 2. Peter McOwen is being a beast, undefeated entirely and currently at the top, and Corwin (DjHedgehog) splits 3rd round, being 5-1. Eric Caoili is playing strong (RP with Fetals instead of Nisei (edit: he had done this in past tournaments but here had switched back to the usual TFP/Nisei/NAPD) and Andromeda), Peter’s wife Ellen is doing well (seen at top tables but unsure of prestige), and Travis McDaniel from Columbus is also doing well. Ross Prather (co-host of Wait Wait Don’t Run Me with Corwin) of Cincinatti is the most consistently successful Noise player I know, winning the last 3 (maybe even 4?) store tournaments in Columbus/Dayton/Cincinatti area on the back of his Noise, is having what you couldn’t even call bad luck; He is losing games and checking his deck afterwards to find Aesops and Wyldsides clumped up at the bottom, along with Caches, or finding all agendas at the top as Corp and just not being able to recover. We get chinese next door to Bluegrass magic (pretty good, but a bad choice with 8 hours of ANR left to go, I went into round 4 with some serious Itis!) where I get to meet multiple top tier players from Chicago (kranse, the winner of 2014 Chicago Regionals notably, along with many of the best players of Chicago whose names I got but did not retain) and have some awesome discussions about our OaC plans. We all pretty much agreed that Maxx and Edward Kim will be bananas, and that Noise will able to be a lot more consistent with the new cards despite Cyberdex Suite. Cram the food because I spent too much time talking, and then it’s time for round 4!

Round 4: Versus BABW/? (David Daniels)

Two first names guy, which is why I had trouble finding him for a few, when it turned out I read his name like a dyslexic. I hate to say it, but for the life of me I can NOT recall his runner, or how I won out against it. I flatlined multiple people that day, so I’m leaning towards a Scorch win using an Atlas token. I have split twice so far, and based on how the other tables are doing, I know that I need to take a 4 – 0 here if I’m going to hope to be in the top 8 cut. Going into round 4, I’m placed at table #7 again, pleased that I did not drop after another split. I chug a Dew and summon the Eye of the Tiger and Heart of the Cards.

Keystone vs. ? – Like I said, I want to say he was Noise, because I remember my 2 matchups vs. Andromeda, and the only shaper I played was in eliminations. However I did it (scorch I think?) I took this game.

Entropy vs. BABW – Surprised to see this deck, and very cautiously dancing around getting successful runs, which he is punishing with a Subliminal. He surges forward in the first 2 or 3 turns with a Beanstalk, Hedge Fund, and Restructure, and the turn that he IAA into his remote, I run HQ and pull a SEA Source while he is piled up to about 25 credits and I’m at 12 if that. I moan internally, play an Imp, and run back in, on a 1/3 chance, and sick-grip the SEA and Imp it, at 4 cards. He scores out an Atlas with 2 counters for his whole turn, and I draw up majorly and get a bunch of things installed, along with a couple Daily Casts, set to overtake him in credits if he tries to score another agenda. He goes for it a few turns later, and I incubate a Nerve Agent and Demo Run his HQ for 3 of 4 cards, him rezzing an Archer in response to it. I Clone Chip in a Crypsis and dump 10 credits to break the Archer, and trash Midseason, Scorch, Punitive out of his hand. The flatline threat is effectively removed, since it would be way to risky to use Jackson to recurr the kill cards when Noise is sitting at 5 memory and cycling virus like crazy, so I credit back up with Casts and Cache recursion, eventually digging hard into R&D for some points and then running into archives to take the rest of the points I needed. It was a careful game, and I had to keep a tight eye on his actions to read what he was capable of, particularly how much he was digging. I went for punishing his passive dig/set up turns by cycling 3 viruses, and the turns he installed things, I would run to make him rez, letting my credits overtake his, until I was able to purge his kill cards and run without threat of punishment; I look forward to Wanton Destruction as a less combo-intensive way to do this in a pinch. He was a solid player and a cool guy. I take 4 Prestige and get my second wind of hype, after talking to the top 10 tables and finding out a LOT of people split that round, letting me climb back up. 12 Prestige

Round 5: Versus Blue Sun/Andromeda

Moved up to Table #2! I believe Peter McOwen split round 4 and so is only 2 prestige ahead, with about 8 or 10 of us sitting at 12 and him at 14, so I know my SoS is solid being at table #2. I feel that I may not need to 4-0 this one, but if I split I know I’ll have to 4-0 the next one. I win the ‘psi game’ we use to decide who picks, so I corp first.

Keystone vs. Andromeda: Knowing from OCTGN how great Stealth Andromeda is for a meta where the fastest of fast-advance decks have been soft-nerfed, I plan not to allow him the time to set up. Of course, I anticipate him running stealth also because of how many of them I had seen that day and how successful they had been performing, knowing I’m at the top tables. I mulligan my first hand, describing it jokingly to my opponent as ‘too safe’ (3 ice, no Hedge Fund, a Geothermal, and an Oversight AI), and pull my second hand up, looking for a Midseason, Hostile, or at least a Scorch and Jackson. The hand is Hedge Fund, Hostile, Midseason, Hive, Enigma. Awesome and aggressive starting platform against a Criminal. My mandatory draw is an Ice Wall turn 1, so I Hedge/Enigma HQ/Hive R&D. He does the usual Andy (Laundry, Testing, Sure Gamble) and plays a Casts. Hm, I say. Better hurry up. I dig for ice, not actually seeing agendas, which is disconcerting. I money up and ice archives to deny Testing credits until he gets a Corroder. He plays one out of hand a couple turns later, but has almost zero econ outside Casts and finds himself clicking for credits a couple times every other turn, since I am utilizing Hive to the max by not scoring the Hostile I started the game with purposely, wanting an Atlas. I am far ahead in credits, 16-20 to his 2-5 on average, and he uses his Corroder to run Testing on Archives but has no Desperado so isn’t getting much. He last click installs an SMC. What? I worry. This guy is at the 2nd table in 5th round of Swiss, why would he run SMC? I run through a mental list and decide on either Keyhole or Medium, so on my turn I put a Grim on R&D in front of the Hive to bolster/tax it, and then Power Shutdown for 0 to get the SMC out, and then IA an Atlas in my remote behind unrezzed Ice Wall/Hive. I’m still holding Midseason and a single Scorch, and it will be either 7 credits for him to get in (he is at 4 credits) or he’ll inside Job, losing a card from hand and still costing him 5 (but still 7 with IJ). He is at 4 credits, and Tests archives to spend 1 and gain 2 (5 now), click for 2 credits, and last click runs remote. I rez Ice Wall and Hive, he pays through, and he steals the Atlas. Annoyed to lose it, but I know it means I can put him in tag hell. I have 2 rezzed Hives (R&D and remote) so I draw for turn, put Jackson behind the Ice Wall/Hive, and Midseason him for 7 (holding 3 for the Enigma on HQ in case of Legwork because I plan to recover from the Midseason by scoring Hostile next turn) while he’s at 0, so he takes 6 tags after his link. It gets stranger still as he begins clicking for credits and running R&D through the Hive, and I don’t plan to rez the Grim I put in front of Hive since I just need a 2nd scorch to end this game. He keeps topdecking cards but not seeing agendas, clicking for credits, running through Hive again (since I have 3 points scored and 1 bad pub, it’s only costing him 2, so he’s hitting it every turn), so I Jackson dig like crazy but don’t see the 2nd Scorch. Finally he drops rez and Siphons me through Enigma down to 2 credits, and runs R&D for a card. He says “Oh, am I dead?” so I internally shrug and bounce the R&D Hive to get up to 7 credits, and there it is, the 2nd Scorch. I Scorch out for the win. Weird game, he might have played 6 or 7 cards all game.

Entropy vs. Blue Sun: I get a decent start, with both Wyldside and Aesops, but his is better, with a turn 2 OAI Curtain on R&D, bouncing it, putting it on the remote, and scoring out Corporate War. Later on he does all of this a second time, now at 4 points, 2 Curtain Walls in play and something like 40 cred in his pool. He is slow playing it, so I keep taking my time and punishing him by cycling viruses while I let my Incubator accumulate. After it gets to 3, he has a Caduceus on HQ (locking me out for about 10 turns until I finally draw a Crypsis) and I Demo Run/Nerve Agent at 4, and trash another Caduceus, a SEA Source, scoring 2 points, and trashing a Jackson. He is still sitting at somewhere around 30 credits, but I just mill a few more cards knowing I denied him a Jackson he planned to use, and then drop and pop Hades Shard to take an Eden Fragment and Atlas to score out. At table 2 I went 4 – 0, so I feel confident I’m in the cut.

16 Prestige

Round 6: Versus RP / Andromeda (Travis McDaniel)

Travis is a strong player from Columbus who is a frequent top competitor for all the Columbus tournaments that I’ve attended. We are essentially rivals, playing against each other in final rounds several times (as far back as 2014 store champ semi-finals in Columbus) having a near-50% win/loss against each other, even through our dozens of games on OCTGN. I fortunately don’t feel too pressured since going into the 6th and final round I am second seed and he is first seed, so even in the event I lose both I should end at 5th or 6th on SoS. We sit down, make jokes about the pressure of not losing and our constant rivalry, and he wins the psi game to choose, going for Corp first.

Entropy vs. RP- This game in a nutshell was like this: I didn’t see a Clone Chip or Crypsis til it was too late, and then drew 2 Crypsis simultaneously in Wyldside. Without either of those, I could not afford to check his ice, as I knew that he runs 3 Komainu AND 3 Tsurugi, and I had unfortunately drawn both of my Stimhacks, my single Demo Run, and 2 Dejavus, so I didn’t feel I could afford to run and lose this hand to a Komainu. He had 3 MHC rezzed before too long but I had milled his Sundews; he was sitting at around 12 credits most of the game which was plenty, with his MHCs fueling his advancements on agendas. He scored out a Nisei so I milled a bunch of cards, focusing on getting my econ ready for the Stimhack/Crypsis/Medium dig as soon as I drew it. Eventually I got my Hades Shard, but wanted to hold it since I hadn’t milled many cards. Next turn he Interns a hidden card into his remote, and this is still fairly early into the game- I assume it to be an NAPD or TFP, but it ends up being another Nisei, and I haven’t drawn a Crypsis yet STILL. With 2 Nisei scored, I know I have no chance of scoring with a power play like Stimhack, so I give up on everything but playing viruses. I mill like no tomorrow, and drop Hades Shard and pop it. 2 TFP! I win the first psi game, and lose the second. 3 Points on my last click. On his turn he installs and rezzes Jackson in his remote and draws up, and the vice squeezes tighter- I have a Dejavu in hand to get the Hades Shard back, but with a Jackson on the board I can’t fire it in time since he’ll RFG Jackson as soon as he sees me Dejavu. So I Dejavu the Shard, and he immediately Jacksons the TFP out of Archives. Now I need to play a bunch of viruses and then drop and pop Shard again and hope for a win that way, but my Wyldside draws the next 2 turns are 2 Crypsis, and then 2 Datasucker. I play both Suckers and he IAA in his remote. I know it to be TFP, so I have one turn to mill 4 points and score them, unlikely since he plays NAPD and I’m low on creds. I play both Crypsis for 2 mills, and pop shard last click, but see nothing, and he scores out.

Keystone vs. Andromeda- Luck was on my side this time, as usually Travis and I runner split; after losing MY runner game I was feeling the pressure. He mulligans into basically the worst hand ever. I score a Hostile early, then a 4-advanced Atlas, then another Hostile that I topdeck. He gets a few topdeck accesses since I’m weak on ice and committed to my scoring remote while he is trying to draw and set up. At this point his game state is something like Desperado, Silencer, Security Testing, and Rex or something, and he keeps drawing but doesn’t see much. I get Geothermal into my scoring remote and get it scored out while he focuses on HQ, seeing me going through a lot of agendas fairly quickly, but only sees Midseason Jackson and Scorch, and trashes Jackson. I Atlas search for the 3rd Hostile and score it out for the win. 18 Prestige

What a day of competition! At this point it is about 8:30 PM, having started first round right around noon. Everyone gathers around the TO and he announces standings for the top 8 and gives out the consolation prizes of Action Jacksons (designed by Travis Schneider) and a Chronos Protocol Tour messenger bag to last place. Having split against Travis last round was a big boost to my SoS, raising me up and preserving me as 2nd seed at 18 prestige.

The top 5 were all at 18 prestige, and all 5 were from the Southwest Ohio meta; I felt good that we were cementing our area in as one with a lot of skilled, competitive players, starting the year off right. Top 8 cut looked like this:

1 – Eric Caoili 18 Prestige 89 SoS

2 – Kyle Gordon(me) 18 Prestige 87 SoS

3 – Peter McOwen 18 Prestige 86 SoS

4 – Travis McDaniel 18 Prestige 79 SoS

5 – Corwin Brindley 18 Prestige 78 SoS

6 – David Kempe 18 Prestige 60 SoS

7 – Joseph Man 17 Prestige 67 SoS

8 – Ethan Bingham 16 Prestige 89 SoS

The eliminations were a best-of-3 single elim. In the event the first 2 matches are a split, the higher seed decides what they will play in the 3rd game; though the higher seed had to make that decision before game 1 started. The pairings went 1/8, 2/7, 3/6, 4/5, meaning I played Joseph.

First round eliminations: vs. Joseph Man playing HB:ETF rush deck with NEXT ice, and a CT Stimshop deck very similar to

Selverin’s (of NRDB, Polish Nationals Champ 2014, 10th seed World’s 2014) deck, with the addition of BOX-E to pad the hand while Stimhacking and allowing memory for Opus.

Keystone vs. CT Stimshop:

Wow, this went badly. He was a good player, extremely (exhaustingly) meticulous, mostly because this was my 11th hour of netrunner running on nothing but Mt. Dew and Chinese food. He is an ex-Pro Tour Magic player, so at the beginning of every turn he would ask me 3 or 4 questions, and state every one of his actions and wait for me to acknowledge them before he would proceed. In hindsight, I actually respect that quite a bit about him, but it was robbing my brain power at the time. I had a great start, as I know how to deal with CT rush decks (djhedgehog used to play one, a Power Nap/Oracle deck), setting up a quick scoring remote and focusing on keeping my hand free of agendas so there is only 1 place for him to get cards from (R&D), and then seperating ice types between R&D and the remote so a fracter gets him in R&D, but a Sharpshooter/decoder gets him in the scoring server. I had the ice set up, he was running R&D every so often with an RDI but not really scoring beyond a Hostile. I had a Hostile, Posted Bounty, and Scorch in my hand, so I IAA a Posted Bounty. To my surprise, he thought he couldn’t get it, and didn’t try. Instead he QT and hosted another RDI on PW, which he had installed early on. He had 5 cards in hand and had been throwing away a lot of programs with 2 diesels and 2 QT already, so I felt this play worth it: I advanced the Posted Bounty and forfeited it to tag him, and he responded by dumping 1 RDI from PW (one still on there at 4 credits). I trashed PW and the RDI with it, and then last click scorched him to 1 card. I grabbed Test Run, Test Run, Clone Chip, Stimhack, and felt great about that meat damage. You don’t flatline an Opus player unless they are stupid, so I did it to give myself a chance to get my destroyers to fire and open up opportunities to Power Shutdown the remaining SMCs and Clone Chips.

This being the plan for me, he draws for 1, and plays Diesel, now back up to 4 cards, and clears the tag. I have a Geothermal and Hostile in my Hand, and I plan to score them out since without a Workshop I won’t feel as punished by the bad pub, and knowing that there are still 3 Jacksons left in my deck to recurr Biotic Labor since one of his RDI is in his heap, one is in play, and one is in deck. I mandatory draw, and it’s The Cleaners. Eww. I’m holding 6 points, and know that this deck (assuming it’s the same list) runs 3 Legwork, so I know I have to IAA something to draw his attention to the remote, to either waste his time while I lose a less-great agenda (which is what Fracking is for this deck) but keep my Atlases and not lose my Cleaners and Hostile from HQ, or maybe he will just take 8. I make a calculated risk based on my flood, but unfortunately he’s drawn a Stimhack, and he takes 4 from Opus, installs Atman a new PW he had installed last turn, and last click Stimhacks into the remote. I rez the Archer, and he dumps the Atman off PW at strength 6 using Stim credits and walks through it for 3 and a bad pub, taking the agenda. My hope of draining him failed, and he now has a 3 credit answer to my most detrimental ice. My turn, mandatory draw- another Geothermal. Oh man, this is bad. 6 Points in hand and 3 clicks to do something about it- still haven’t seen a Legwork yet and I’m sitting on 7 credits. I need a Hedge, I need a Restructure, I need a Curtain Wall, I need SOMETHING. I have 4 cards in hand, Cleaners, Geothermal, Hostile, and OAI. I can afford to throw the OAI if I have to, so I draw click 1. Another OAI. Sigh. Time to give up on OAI plays, and draw click 2. IT’S AN ATLAS. Now i’m sitting at 6 cards, and 4 of them have to be kept. I have an Enigma on HQ and he has no shaper tricks visible at least, and a 6-Atman and a Lady out, and I’m feeling desperate. I have GOT to find a Jackson to reset this by next turn or his tempo will utterly overtake me- He has an Opus and an answer for Archers, so my hopes lie in cards like my single Taurus, Power Shutdowns, Curtain Walls to drain his Lady and credits, and maybe Grim if I can catch him without a Clone Chip to get SMC for Sharpshooter. I draw third click. PROJECT ATLAS. I die inside. I discard to 5, tossing both OAIs, now holding a hand of The Cleaners, Hostile Takeover, Geothermal Fracking, Project Atlas, Project Atlas. If he Legworks me I literally lose. What will he do?

His turn. Take 8. Your turn. I play it cool, mandatory draw, it’s an ice wall. I install it on archives, prepared to have to give up some points into archives in order to try and somehow recover this. I consider: I can click 2 draw, and if it’s a Jackson, awesome, if it’s not, it’s a card I will have to pitch, or it’s an agenda and I probably just concede. I have about 25 cards left in deck and 3 Jackson in there- a raw 12.5% chance or so that I get it, but what choice do I have? I click 2 draw, and it’s a Jackson! Click 3 Install in remote. His turn. Runs R&D, sees two cards, not agendas (obviously), and then takes 6. I rez Jackson and draw 4, resetting my hand and tossing Geo/Atlas/Cleaners, holding Atlas/Hostile, but the cards I drew were worthless. 2 Power Shutdowns and ANOTHER Archer. It’s officially hopeless, and I wanted to have some energy left to win the 2nd game and maybe get a better chance in the 3rd round. I click for credits waiting to draw Curtain Wall, which I never do. He runs archives, I Jackson the flood back in, then he runs R&D once per turn for 3 turns, taking 2 points, 2 points, and the other Posted Bounty for the game. Literally the worst agenda flood and draw in general that the deck has ever had, in over 4 months of competitive play between both OCTGN and at least a dozen store tournaments- I wasn’t even upset because I played it as good as I could with the cards the deck was giving me, but I was disappointed to play so well all the way into eliminations only to completely and utterly stall out. I shook his hand and congratulated his win, because he played well and was very considerate as a player, and we shuffled up for game 2.

Entropy vs. HB: NEXT Design

This was a solid deck, with a cost curve only a Pro Tour magic player could devise. The ETF argument was not valid for his deck, because he didn’t slow play it. It was the perfect cost curve balance of tax and speed, but I kept up with him. He started out installing 2 through the NEXT ability, drawing up to 5, and drawing for first turn. Green Level Clearance, Hedge Fund, Install. I played Lamprey, ran HQ to force a rez, but he didn’t. I accessed and saw a NEXT Silver, and realized I needed to get credits, Parasites, and Datasuckers pretty quickly if I was going to keep pace with this deck. Wyldside, Aesops, and pass turn. He built as quickly as I did, installing 2 ice a turn and playing an economy card for 2 or 3 turns in a row, having a good remote of 3 ice set up with an Ash in it. I poke R&D, only to find it’s a lone Pop-up Window! I pay for a single access, another ice, and then build for a single turn that would catch him off guard and hopefully create some good opportunities to pressure him and keep him poor and click taxed- I have a Medium and Incubator in hand with a Stimhack and Hades Shard, and a Dejavu to cycle some Caches and afford this stuff. I don’t dare Parasite the Pop-up and indicate that I’m planning to focus it, instead I play Incubator and then cycle 1-cost viruses for 2 or 3 turns. He IAA an agenda, which I let him have because he has 15 credits and I don’t have a Crypsis, and with Wyldside I only have 3 clicks, so I opt to build my board state instead of waste time making him rez when he clearly can, running so much cheap ice. He scored out Vitruvius with an advancement token, and last click installs in the remote again. I run it second click, and he rezzes Next Silver. I have yet to see a Crypsis OR Parasite, but I’ve milled quite a few cards at this point (10) and Incubator is at 4. His turn, he advances 3 times to score out an ABT but doesn’t run the test, my turn. Finally draw Crypsis, and mill 3 cards playing viruses and get up to about 10 credits, and discard the Crypsis for a Stimhack Clone Chip play. His turn, IAA again. Jeesh.

My turn. 13 hidden cards in archives, Incubator at 5. I Aesop’s my Wyldside for 4 clicks. First I install medium, Grimoire puts a counter on it. Second, trash Incubator to load Medium, it now has 6 counters. Third click, with 7 credits, Stimhack run R&D, since he has put another unrezzed ice in front of Pop-up and I need to afford a Crypsis install and credits to break it. He doesn’t rez, but I still Clone Chip the Crypsis for a mill so I don’t waste the Stimhack, and I access 7 cards with Medium. Feeling good, thinking I’m going to score at LEAST 4 points here, if not 7. First card: nope. Second card: nope. Third card: nope? Every card, still nope. 7 Card dig, not a single agenda. I’m shocked, but I’ve been watching archives all game, and I have a Hades Shard in hand and a single click left. I still have a Crypsis, and I look at his scoring remote- I have an NAPD scored from very early in the game running archives, and he has a Vitruvius and an ABT scored… 3 NAPD obviously for maximum tax, I say. You’re HB, you have access to two different 3/2s, so we want 3 Vitruvius and 3 ABT- that’s 18 points. Is that a trap? Maybe a Domestic Sleepers baiting a run? I guess he could run a single three-point and go to 21 agenda points, but I felt good that the odds were that he would not have the pointer and be brazen enough to just drop it in the remote like that while his R&D is open with a 5-loaded incubator on the table, a third of his deck in archives, and no Jackson on the table. Last click I drop Hades Shard and trash it to access Archives, and he hands me his giant archives pile. I flip it over eagerly, hoping for 7 points and a chance at a round 3 to run back that Corp agenda debacle and get into top 4, where the huge piles of prizes were waiting.

I thumb through all of archives. I get to the end, I stop, I push them all back together and start at the top again. I thumb through them again. What? Not a single agenda. There are 14 hidden cards in archives, 5 or 6 visible cards, and about 8 in play. Add to that his hand of 4 cards- there is something like 15 cards left in R&D, and I just saw 7 of them. He frowns, expressing without words his condolences for the variance I’ve been hit with these 2 games, mandatory draws, and advances three times. Eden Fragment, and the game. I ask him about his agendas- 3 Vitruvius, 3 NAPD, 1 ABT, and 2 three-pointers. Once again, I wasn’t upset- the odds dictated that I would get points, but there’s a 1/100 chance that something like this happens, and that means out of 100 games, this was the game recorded to be the other side of the statistic. He acknowledged that I played well, and expressed that heart dropped into his stomach when I played Stimhack, because the ice on his remote was just a NEXT Silver and another cheap ice (Eli I think?) and he was relying on me losing clicks from Wyldside and his Ash trace to keep me out for the most part, but that Stimhack would have overpowered it- So there were a couple of things I could have done differently. I could have attempted HQ (the agendas are somewhere, right?) but he wasn’t drawing in any peculiar way to tell me that he was flooded in HQ, he was just rushing them out of his scoring remote; Between a 14 card random access and 3 single card accesses in a 5 card HQ, I took to the more favorable odds, and it was the time that odds were on his side. I shook his hand again and congratulated him, and he breathed a sigh of relief. We were all strung out from the mental marathon, and Joe advanced to the top 4.

Meanwhile, a serious blow to Ohio had been dealt- Of the top 5 seeds being Southwest Ohio, going into the top 4 cut all 4 top seeds were eliminated! Advancing to the top 4 was Corwin (5th seed, Stealth Andy/ETF FA), Ethan (8th seed, never saw his decks), David (6th seed, Quetzal/Tennin FA), and Joe (7th seed, CT/HB:NEXT Design). Our Ohio hopes of Grudge Match going to Southwest Ohio for 2015 were on Corwin alone! In true grudge match fashion, each of the final 4 competitors was the representative of their region like Hunger Games: Corwin for Southwest Ohio, David for Indiana, Joseph for Chicago, and Ethan for Louisville. Going into the top 4 cut, Corwin would play Ethan, and David would play Joe.

Top 4 Eliminations:

David vs. Joe – I did not see the first game, but David made the perfect meta call with the soft nerf to NBN, bringing E3 Quetzal, one that was very well tuned. Perfect for a meta filled with Blue Sun and HB Bioroids, click-E3’ing and Quetzal-E3’ing his way just about everywhere he wanted for next to nothing. By the time I was observing this table, David had beat Joe’s NEXT Design with his Quetzal, and they were well underway in game 2 of Joe’s CT Stimshop vs. David’s Tennin ToL FA. When I got there, both of them were at 4 points, with all of David’s ice rezzed; He had a Tyrant with a single advancement on HQ, with a Grim in front of it, but Joe was single accessing HQ over and over knowing that with only 1 advancement available, David could not advance, install, and ToL the winning 3/2 out in a single turn, it was very tense. David scored out the Clone Retirement from his hand as soon as he got it, removing the Grim BP, and had a 3/2 in hand, but no ToL, and HQ was not nearly taxing enough for Joe to start fizzling. David is at 5 points and draws a Philotic, now holding two 3/2, and if I remember correctly actually discards one of the 3/2s so he could draw up and dilute HQ access. Joe whiffs on multiple HQ accesses, and David topdecks a Biotic to score out his last 3/2 and take the second game, advancing to the final 2.

Corwin vs. Ethan – I saw none of this game, but Corwin came out of it 2 – 0, meaning the finals would be Corwin vs. David, a tense matchup.

Corwin had been hearing from others in our meta playing HB that David’s Quetzal deck was the perfect counter to these fast-playing HB decks, which rely on cheap NEXT code gates (sucker/Yogable) and porous Bioroids (E3 click/credit), so as the higher seeded player he chose to run his Andromeda for a 3rd round in the even it came to that. I saw very little of the first game, being busy discussing Netrunner with Dodd Harris of the Breaking News Podcast, Ben Proctor from the Chicago meta (who helped organize the Chilo City event logistics on the Chicago side of things) and Rob Wiley, Chicago Regionals 2014 winner (the infamous Quest Completed Silhouette deck); when I came over to the table they were well underway of their second game, Corwin having run first and apparently won out against David’s Tennin. Corwin had at least 8 ice rezzed, trying to tax out David’s super-efficient runs until he could create a single-turn window to score, while he waited on Sansans, Biotics, and the credits to use them. Two Jacksons had already been RFGed, and no agendas had been scored by either side this long into the game, due to David only getting single accesses (he does run a Legwork and Utopia Shard, and Hades Shard, but did not have them yet) and Corwin very skillfully controlling his pace and board state, being very conservative, and slowly trenching himself in with cheap, taxing ice. Each time Corwin had enough credits, he would rez the remote’s Sansan and score out a 1/3 (Bifrost) or 2/3 (Vitruvius), and then David would effortlessly clear his Kati, run into the remote, and trash the Sansan, each of them never dropping too far below the other in credits. The tempo control on both sides was perfect, between Corwins slow-drawing and ice placement and David’s pace with his Daily Casts and Kati.

Just as Corwin would start to pull ahead, David would be aware of his tempo dwindling and would Inject, losing maybe 1 program, and drawing a Casts and two Sure Gambles or what have you, and burst right back up to maintain the pressure. It was a brutal game for both as they struggled for control of it. David ran HQ and dropped Utopia Shard instead of accessing, and popped it two turns later, making Corwin discard 2 random cards, both of them agendas, which David ran archives to steal, getting a Bifrost and ABT. Corwin installed a Sansan in his remote, and next turn he topdecked an ABT while already holding a Vitruvius, with David aggressively accessing HQ once a turn. Corwin knew his deck was full of the agendas he had been recirculating with Jackson as he tried to lock David out- I saw him stare at the drawn ABT for a moment, him having 9 credits, and he does what any good player would do in that position: He rezzed the Sansan and scored out the ABT, and he ran the test. Top 3 cards: Ichi 1.0, NEXT silver, Jackson Howard. His last Jackson trashed, he puts Ichi on R&D, and NEXT Silver on his remote in front of another NEXT Silver, locking out David who had not drawn his Corroder yet. David took an econ turn and trashed the Sansan using a Knight on 1 Silver and Quetzal on the other, and then taking an econ turn. Corwin draws for turn (another agenda, meaning he has 2 in hand now), and clicks for 3 credits up to 4. David runs archives to check on the ABT results, and takes another econ turn, drawing for his Legwork. Corwin draws for turn, it’s a Biotic Labor- He is at 4 credits. There are 5 or 6 standing around the table, and all of us know there’s only one way out of this- take 3, hope David doesn’t Legwork the agendas, and Biotic for the win. Corwin takes 3 and discards an ice.

David takes his turn, draws for the Legwork, but doesn’t find it. He runs HQ for a single card, a 40% chance to pull one, and David is at 5 points as well- He can’t afford multiple runs now. Corwin shuffles his HQ and lays them down on the table…… David chooses his card, and everyone leans in. This access decides it. David picks up the card, drops it. Can’t quite get it off the table for about 5 seconds, while a crowd around the table hold their breath and try not to laugh nervously. He finally gets his fingers under it, and in a swift motion flips it over and smacks it against the table. Not an agenda! He has 2 clicks left. Draws again, loads Kati. Corwin breaths a sigh of relief, takes his mandatory draw, and says “That’s game” as he lays the Biotic and the 3/2 on the table. David bows his head a little, but shakes Corwin’s hand as the whole group of us applaud, him realizing the winning agenda was in there but he just couldn’t pull it.

Corwin comes away with “Punitive Counterstrike”, the official Louisville Slugger engraved with the Chilo City Grudge Match logo and date, the alt-art Eli 1.0, and alt-art NBN: MN, Kate, Gabe, and Noise, and the Chronos Protocol Tour playmat; David in 2nd place comes out with the custom-made playmat many of you may have seen online, the 8-bit Aesop’s Pawnshop mat, (designed by Travis Schneider) which was 1 of 2 winners in a design contest, which Chilo had printed to give away to the top 2 place competitors, along with his own set of all the alt-art identities I mentioned (but no Eli). Alt-art identity packs went to 3rd and 4th place competitors as well.

This was a fantastic event, lots of strong players from 4 different states, and very well run (there were issues with matchmaking, but they were players’ faults, for filling out their sheets wrong- the TOs and the custom tournament software they were using, which was fascinatingly easy to use and versatile, programmed and designed by netrunner player Billy Herren, was very detailed and worked perfectly). I got to hear stories shared, I got to meet players that I came into this game reading about, I got to learn about plans for the future of Netrunner competitive play, and network with many highly skilled players from many different metas and hear their take on the state of the game. I was able to introduce myself to these players, wearing an amazing lime-green Coogi sweater (color association :P), hoping I get to see them again at store champs and regionals later this year with both of us remembering each other. I met 4 different players playing my Keystone deck, and actually played against 1of them (who flatlined me!), which was a lot of fun and made for some cool conversations and interchange of ideas and advice. All in all, I had a great time, as this was my first ‘major’ competitive event (first even with more than 20 players, first event with any kind of top cut to elimination, other than a 2014 store champ where i made top 4 cut and placed 3rd out of 21) I was almost overwhelmed, but I got to have the full experience placing high enough to go into the cut. I can safely say I feel ready for the year of competitive play that lies ahead!