Adam Rotondi (Left), Matt Genser (Right)

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If you’re willing to brave the burrs, the Fantasy Flight Game Center is a mere couple minutes away by foot from the Radisson hotel that most of the Magnum Opus attendees were staying at, sitting side by side on adjacent city blocks. You can skip a good part of the walk around an uphill block by just going through the undergrowth — followed by ripping off prickles as they adhered themselves tightly to your shirt and armpits.

In retrospect, that narrow path through the dividing bushes would’ve been a lot deadlier of a shortcut last year, given that it leads to a steep and grassy hill — a good way to find yourself rolling headfirst to the Radisson’s back entrance, carried on down head over heels thanks to the glaze of frost and snow that drifted over the Roseville area back then. I’d attended Worlds just once before last year, where a good ski jacket might’ve served me better than the comparatively thin button-down I had on at the time.

Not this year, though. The very last Netrunner World Championship is, or was, held in the midst of the comparatively balmy and comfortable depths of September this time. Not that anybody’d appreciate it, as we were all still crowding the Radisson lobby, sneaking in games before everything kicks off tomorrow.

But what better way to catch up, then? Whether at the Indian curry house next door, betwixt the aisles of the Walmart up the street, or in the hotel itself, there were players everywhere catching up after a long year of Jinteki.net rivalries, talking shop and making predictions. And, carefully, not commiserating over the fate of the game.

So, naturally, I intruded on that.

Adam ‘Tundinator’ Rotondi and Matt ‘MrJank’ Genser, of the Iowa and Toronto metas respectively, were squaring off the night before Day 1A — Adam with his umpteenth iteration of Adam, while Matt was putting his Mti Mwekundu concoction through its paces, featuring an unexpected set of Rainbows. Both were long-time players; both acceded to being interviewed md-practice.

“I’ve competed at four world championships; did decently at a few of them,” reminisced Adam. “I’ve made top Adam faction for three of those five years — one of them, the faction wasn’t out yet.”

“My biggest thing is just coming up with the silly ideas,” said Matt, the self-proclaimed Mr. Jank. “Finding harmonies and coming up with… about every 10 ideas, maybe one is good and the rest of them you have to tear down. But that’s what I enjoy about it — you know when you did well, and it feels so good!”

“At the very start, I picked up a core set a month or two after it came out, just for the looks,” started Adam. “It’s cyberpunk — ”

“Ready? Find the Truth is gone,” crowed Matt as Sadaka tore a chunk out of Adam’s circuitry.

“I liked the theme of it, but I never found time to actually play it until a year later,” continued Adam. “Then I just went down to the local game store and found there was a game night. Found our community was pretty competitive, and it was a lot of fun.”

Like with many, Adam’s had experience with the 800-pound gorilla of the competitive tabletop gaming world in Magic: The Gathering, Netrunner’s older and more popular brother. But the nuanced asymmetrical approach in Netrunner kept him hooked — and was a major reason for him to buy the box in the first place.

Matt’s story is a little less straightforward. “I used to have a lot of bad habits,” he admitted impishly. “Drinking too much, doing lots of drugs… I needed to stop doing that; I had too much time on my hands.” Though now happily employed as a talented hairdresser, and married to boot, Matt’s past included tattoo artistry and getting into trouble. “I went to a game store; I explained what I wanted to play, and he said ‘you gotta get this game.’ I got it, I showed up to a Wednesday when people would meet up and play, I got my ass kicked.

I got addicted.”

Granted, 15 bucks every month or so was probably a lot more affordable than his previous habits.

“Oh, man, it saved me a ton of money.”

Given its flexible design and frankly massive cardpool, the game has it in itself to reflect a lot of play styles, preferences, and even inklings of something that can look like personal ideologies at a squint. Both players practicing before me had a reputation along those lines — ways of practices that made them stand out, both locally and even among the greater community. Case in point:

“So, originally, I played [Adam] because I shared a name with it,” said Tundinator. “And how often does that happen? And then once I started playing it, I understood that it tells you what to do and avoids a lot of pitfalls that new players have — and is aggressive to the point that I like it, but tricky to the point where if you make correct decisions, you get more value out of it than… aggressive crim was popular at the time. So it felt different, but it felt like what I wanted to do.”

For Matt, it was a little simpler — he loved kill decks, “because it takes so long to score these agendas! By the time I score these agendas, he has everything, and I’m screwed!”

The rivalries, mishaps, and moments of exceeding cleverness and luck also had a lot to do with why they kept playing.

“My favorite memory — there was this store champ,” said Matt. “I got paired with this dude that alwys kicks my ass — and we got paired for the final match of the store championship. He was playing HB — I was playing Faust, Aaron Marron, Siphon, Fisk, Andy. It was amazing — I walked all over him the whole time.”

“Iowa meta’s always been great,” said Adam. “They’re great guys; a lot of them are really competitive, and they respect my decision to be Jankmaster Adam for two straight years — best people in the world; couldn’t ask for better.

We had one player, named Isaiah. He’s a damn good player — GOD I hate playing him. He kicks my butt consistently, and makes it look so easy every single time! I’d beaten him, like, once, and that one time I felt really accomplished. I do love him, but at the same time it’s like, god it hurts sometimes.”

“So many times Dien and I play, and I want to see him at the end!” said Matt. “I’d do really good, and I’d see him, and he’d take me out sometimes. There was actually this one other game — where I was on Vanity Project. I played an Argus deck on five agendas, and I didn’t care because I had Housekeeping. I had to Punitive him three times for the kill. I think it was off the Government Takeover. Three times! Felt so great.”

But with the game’s publication under Fantasy Flight Gaming coming to a close, there’s an obvious question looming over these recollections: will they try to keep the Netrunner flame burning after it’s all over?

“Nope, I’m done with card games” said Adam. “For now.” He cited a number of issues plaguing the game, even with active developer support — issues that will now not get resolved as the game enters a preservation period among its core adherents. The much-hated Mumbad cycle, for instance, actually addressed a number of key complaints at the time, at least among his meta — the lack of real tag punishment outside of Scorch, that they wanted each pack to change up the meta — and it succeeded in that regard! Too well, even. “Every pack, something came out where people were brewing and testing, and it was great! Until it wasn’t anymore because you were on the receiving end of it.”

Though the current state of the game is largely considered successful, the drive for progression and changes, much like what drew in Matt in the first place, is cut short. And for Adam, it’s time to move on. “It’s just, nothing is going to replace this. I’m going to make an art wall with all the promos I got, make an Adam shrine, and see what happens after that.

It’ll take a while.”

NEXT: The Windy City

James Chen is an editor for Infinite Esports & Entertainment, and directly oversees OpTic Gaming’s Greenwall.gg. He also really loves Jinteki mindgames. Tip him at https://ko-fi.com/obscurica