This final Worlds is taking place in a fresh new metagame as everyone emerges blinking into the light of MWL 2.2. As such everyone went into the event paranoid that there was a secret deck they hadn’t thought of that would upend all of their testing. Ultimately the first day brought no completely new archetypes the way Hate Bear gatecrashed Worlds 2016 but the most successful Corps in particular have made some subtle-yet-important tweaks to best place themselves in the evolving trends of the meta.

The biggest trend? Corps are tortoises, Runners are hares.

In most netrunner metagames in history, most Corps have won by getting to seven points while most runners have tried to hold them off long enough to get a crushing resource advantage that inevitably wins them the game. But modern ice is incredibly expensive, and modern Runners are really, really poor. There are few sources of really infinite economy in the game any more. Even Aesops Hayley decks eventually run out of things to sell. Once you’re running low on Liberated Accounts and Stimhacks, those big ice are almost unbreakable.

What runners do have on their side is the early game. Corps have a hard time rushing, because the runner will ransack your centrals with Indexing and The Turning Wheel, so you’ll have a hard time drawing 7 points you can score out anyway.

It’s no coincidence that the most successful Runner on day 1a of Worlds has been Valencia, and the most successful Corps have been slow ones that can outlast her: Data Raven CtM, EoI Azmari, various Mti lists. Rushier plans out of Sportsmetal and the even more aggressive rush Weyland decks out of Titan and Argus performed really poorly. And that’s been reflected in the results.

30 netrunners got at least the 28 prestige (minimum 9-4-1 record) required to make the Day 2 Swiss Rounds.

Runner faction breakdown:

19 Anarch

8 Shaper

2 Criminal

1 Adam

Corp faction breakdown:

13 NBN

12 Jinteki

5 Weyland

0 HB (!?!?!?!?!?)

Val > MaxX

With PU and Skorpios effectively neutered by MWL2.2, many top players predicted that MaxX rather than Val would be the go-to Anarch. Without the extra draw power of Zer0, Val is even more likely to have to sit watching the Corp score out behind a Thimblerig, while MaxX always has conspiracy breakers online. However, Val has four big advantages: Employee Strike, the bad publicity, Turntable, and a much easier time playing Rebirth into Omar, all of which are really important against the breakout Corps of the weekend. Early points snatching away those first two or three agendas that are inevitably in the Corp’s top 10-15 cards is so important for runners right now, and Val is much more comfortable just putting down a Turning Wheel and running centrals, while MaxX needs more time to set up.

What’s the opposite of a Yellow Submarine?

NBN was the most successful faction on day 1 and its advantage was especially pronounced at the top tables. Yellow decks made up 43% of the top 30, but 60% of the top 10. Josh Wilson finished top of the standings with a build several players were on using Data Raven, SEA Source and triple Quantum Predictive Model, with more ability to tax out runners through ice. The AR-Enhanced Security / Calibration Testing version that saw so much success at UK Nationals is clearly still competitive, though, as evidenced by Joe Schupp’s 2nd place success.

Azmari is also getting on the Data Raven / SEA Source / EoI train with QPM and 15 Minutes giving you a much better scoring and tag punishment plan than the old 6 agenda lists that had to rely on the very trashable Echo Chamber for the final point. Data Raven also means the ice suite has fewer weak points, and the ability to play four currents and use Scarcity aggressively causes runners and especially Shapers a world of problems.

The Many Faces of Mti

Jinteki made a strong showing and most of those decks were out of Mti Mwekundu. But there’s massive variation across the different Mti lists. Global Food Initiative is the most popular restricted card but Surveyor and Obokata Protocol are also seeing play. What’s the best defensive upgrade? Should you play eight agendas or nine? If it’s eight, do you play The Future Perfect or SSL? Do you play Envelope? Excalibur? I’m looking out to see which builds survive the crucible of Swiss and make it to the elimination rounds.

ZERO HB!?!?!??

Before the tournament there was speculation as to whether the Reconstruction Contract combo decks that were so strong out of CI before the MWL could be shoehorned into Sportsmetal somehow, whether someone was working on a secret brew. So far, the answer is no – and ‘fair’ Sportsmetal lists haven’t done so well either. Stephen Ball has probably the best list out there, with Endless EULA and Loki to copy it letting him tax out even runners with Aumakua online. His game against Josh Wilson, though, sums up the weakness of the deck – it’s really hard to both push in a remote and protect your centrals at the same time, because you don’t have enough ice during the crucial early period before the runner has breakers online.

Bringing the Thunder

There were only two Criminals in the top 30, but both were at the very top of the field in 3rd and 4th place and they were both on Liza, taking advantage of the relatively few players on High-Profile Target. You can watch Kevin Dinsmore play his Apoc Liza deck on stream here.

Kevin was also the nutter piloting SSO Industries – watch this space for more updates.

Stay Tuned

I expect most of these five trends to hold through day 1b today, which you can watch on Dodgepong’s fantastic stream starting 10am Central / 4pm UK time. Stay tuned for more news, decklists and analysis here at Primary Transmission Dish throughout the day. Remember – if you can touch your F5 key without burning yourself, you aren’t refreshing often enough!

EDITS: Confirmed Austin’s Crim deck to be Liza.