After the awesomeness during the previous store championship, I decided to go to the store championship at Lindhska Bokhandel in Örebro.

I brought a modified version of the same corp I used the last time, a Blue Sun kill deck and a new runner with Leela Patel. See the links for cards and some card choices.

The tournament was a 26-player one, at least that’s the number I heard, with 5 rounds of swiss followed by a double elimination bracket. 7 players from Linköping went, again I think but I’m not sure if that’s the correct number.

Swiss

Match 1, Tennin/Reina

vs Tennin

Memory is a bit fuzzy here. I think I got off to a good start, but somehow the corp stabilized and we went into a long slog of a game. For some reason the corp managed to score out before I could find the final agenda.

It certainly felt like I could have won the game, but I’m not sure what I did wrong. Might be that I wasn’t comfortable with the deck and played too aggressively. 0-2

vs Reina

Again I don’t remember the specifics. We had very little time and I manage to score out an agenda, so I get a timed win.

Still, corp felt great and I was in control, 1-2.

Match 2, RP/Chaos Theory

vs Replicating Perfection

Ah RP. Actually the first time I’ve played against the id, but I had a pretty good idea of how to approach the game. I scored an early agenda but I’m slowly getting locked out. Then he makes a pretty big misplay - he flips a naked remote and he wants to score, but it’s Nisei MK II instead of a 3/2 agenda and now he’s flustered. I apologize and I score the Nisei and I remove the Enhanced Login Protocol.

Still, he’s not out of the game. I run indexing but he hid a Jackson in a remote, stupid mistake! I manage to same old thing indexing again and I score another agenda and I place another agenda as the 5th card. I carefully count the cards and I manage to score the winning agenda, before being locked out of the game.

The opponent said he’s only played a week… Still played pretty good I’m very glad for that victory. 3-2

vs Chaos Theory

Another quick corp game. Snare last click into scorch for a simple victory. His inexperienced lost him the game there.

5-2 and feeling better.

Match 3, RP/MaxX

vs MaxX

We’re 6 players from Linköping and 2 from Stockholm at the top. Sadly I’m facing David, also from Linköping and we’re on our way to knock each other down.

The game is slow, very slow. I feel in control and take it slow and easy. Scoring some agendas when I get them, but not drawing all that much. MaxX runs out of cards and runs a Levy. Somehow he runs of cards again and I know I’ve won.

I have no idea how this happened, but we actually went to time, during our first match! Maybe it really was an intense game or maybe I was just tired or hungry… But anyway it happened. I manage to set up a win-win scenario for me during my second-to-last turn. Either he lets me score out or he runs the remote and let me sea-source scorch him to death (he had a hand size of 3 due to an early Cerebral Overwriter). He cooses the second option.

7-2

Match 4, NEH/Whizzard

vs Near-Earth Hub

This was by far the most stressful/exciting game of the day for me. I get a bad hand and I mulligan… Into a much much worse hand. No economy, no nothing. The corp scores an early astroscript, this isn’t looking so good… I do something, I can’t remember, then he sets up a remote with one advancement counter on. Curious, it’s probably an NAPD, but sadly I can’t get in and score so I’m gearing up for a next turn combo.

Sadly, it’s a Project Beale, worth 3 points and he’s got an astroscript token. From bad to worse, much worse. I desperately run his hand and his remote. Oh no, he’s got a scorch on top of R&D and he’s got a Data Raven protecting HQ. Luckily I’ve got a plascrete so I go tag-me with a Legwork, finding nothing. He’s using Jackson to draw like mad.

I run another Legwork with a same old thing through the Data Raven and I find two agendas and I get in some single-accesses on R&D. Lady luck isn’t smiling for long though as he draws and install-advance a remote. Surely an NAPD, which I’m too poor to get at.

My only hope is R&D and I have two interfaces out so I can access 3 cards. If I can bounce the NAPD I might still have a chance. The first card is a.. NAPD which I can’t steal. The second is a Breaking News so I bounce the advanced card now sitting on 5 agenda points.

I’m too poor to get the NAPD and the next turn I get Scorched to death.

The game was practically over from the terrible start, but I almost managed to steal a win. I got praise from the opponent but I can’t stop but think that I should have had a few more credits for that NAPD…

7-4, feeling the pain.

vs Whizzard

Another id I haven’t played against. He tried, and was successful for a while, with killing my oversighted curtain walls and keeping my economy low. But still, I managed to score out two the cleaners and putting more and more pressure as I gradually build up my economy lead. I think I hit a shattered remains as well.

The game ends with me advancing the winning agenda, he tries but cannot access it or any other agenda, and I score for the win.

Again corp is feeling absolutely great. 9-4

Match 5, EtF/Kate

This time I’m faced up against Henrik, my buddy from Linköping who knows my decks and I know his decks. Sadly it appears this is the battle for top 8.

vs Engineering the Future

During practice I felt very confident with my Leela deck and I get a great start scoring two 3/2 agendas. Not thinking more about it I try to build up a bit and getting ready to score the winning agenda as I know he has a few 5/3.

But things are not shaping up that way. I try to keep is economy low but he manages to get two adonis campaigns up and running and he hits two large GRNLD Refineries. Probably a huge misplay by me to allow that to happen. With his economy up he gets some nice taxing servers up and my aggressive running has not paid off at all. He’s all set up and I practically have nothing.

My last hope is an indexing through a Janus I know is there. By my counts I’m only 2 or 1 credit off from making two succesful runs through R&D in the hopes of scoring out, but it’s not meant to be. I’ve already accumulated 3 brain damage from previous (too aggressive) encounters.

With great play he manages to score out and win. Well played. 9-6

vs Kate

Again I’m having difficulties to recall the specifics of the match. I know I managed to hit one shattered remains to stop his drip econ for a while. I manage to score an agenda but time is running out.

I have a 5/3 agenda which I’ve already advanced twice. I literary have my whole hand full of kill cards: 1 snare, 1 sea-source, 3 scorch and 2 punitives and with more money I’m just waiting for him to make a run. I decide to fake the agenda as the almighty 9/6 Government Takeover agenda and I advance it up to 7 in the course of two turns. In hindsight it might have been better to score it out as a 5/3, but that’s not what I did.

So sitting at 7 advancement counters Henrik decides to… Not run it! Instead he runs my hand twice, the second time he imps my sea-source. Sigh.

So the game ends with me winning on time, somehow it feels a bit frustrating as I had so much control the whole game, thinking how can I loose? Turns out, with some bad luck and some good runner decisions it’s quite possible not to win.

10-6.

The Cut

As Henrik and I had the battle for the last place into playoffs, which I lost, Henrik makes the cut on 11 points and we’re a bunch of other players with 10 points. Huge congrats to Henrik as he really did play better than I did.

Summary

Once again I’m amazed by the friendliness of the Netrunner community. Everyone was really nice and friendly. I joked around a bit with some guys and girls I’ve never even met before, which is no small feat with a very shy and introvert person such as myself. I got a ride all the way from Linköping to Örebro and the guy with the other car even came and asked me if I wanted to come with him earlier as I got knocked out. As it happens I stayed and watched some of Henrik’s and Fredrik’s matches.

As for the games themselves I’m super happy with my corp deck which practically went undefeated during the tournament. I felt quite comfortable to win both the games where I got a timed win from.

The runner deck however I’m not super happy with. It felt slow and low on economy and just a bit awkward. Some of the problems can be attributed to good corp play: I didn’t land many good account siphons which made my economy quite bad and they played around Leela’s ability quite well. Ice up centrals at least twice and don’t score out agendas on the last click.

But mostly I think I didn’t play the runner deck right, I wanted to play more aggressively than maybe you’re supposed to with a slower control deck such as the one I had made. I really need to try out a Leela build based on Desperado and an economy package with Dirty Laundry and Security Testing, I think it might fit my style better. I also want to play around more with the wonderful Anarchs…

Looking forward to the next time I can play some Netrunner!