Last November, 161 players traveled to Roseville, MN and the Fantasy Flight Games Center to compete in the 2013 Android: Netrunner World Championship tournament. As one might expect, the competition was fierce. Throughout the better part of a day, Runners conducted raids on Corporate servers. Many were flatlined; many got rich by stealing and selling Corporate data. But as the tournament wore on and lesser Runners and Corporations fell to the waysides, vegetative or bankrupt, one individual continued to master the network – Jens Erickson, the 2013 Android: Netrunner World Champion.

2013 Android: Netrunner World Champion Jens Erickson

Today, as Android: Netrunner players continue a new series of runs at Store Championship tournaments around the world, FFG is proud to induct Jens Erickson into the Hall of Heroes. There, at his place of honor, we present his deck lists as examples of competitive collections of ice, icebreakers, economy, and other cards with which you can call your opponents’ bluffs, create your own, and power through opposing defenses.

Rising to the Top

The World Championship tournament featured a diverse field in which eight different Runners and ten different Corp IDs all saw play. Of those, Criminals and NBN were best represented.

Both Andromeda (Humanity’s Shadow, 83) and Gabriel Santiago (Core Set, 17) were popular options and, together, accounted for seventy-four decks.

Click on the above chart to view a larger version.

Likewise, both NBN identities were popular. NBN: Making News (Core Set, 80) and NBN: The World Is Yours* (Future Proof, 114) together represented fifty-seven decks.

Click on the above chart to view a larger version.

Still, neither NBN identity proved to be the most popular Corp ID. Likely inspired by the results of the Plugged-in Tour that ran through October and the first weekend of November, forty-four players opted to play The Weyland Consortium: Building a Better World (Core Set, 93). Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future (Core Set, 54) was the second most popular Corp ID, featuring in thirty-five decks.

The result was a weekend full of high-pressure runs on HQ, massive account siphoning, and Corps retaliating with potent “tag and bag” strategies. Despite the popularity of “tag and bag” strategies, though, it was the Corporations running “fast advance” strategies that rose to the top, and NBN and SanSan City Grid (Core Set, 92) featured prominently among the Top 8 Corp decks.

The Final Match

After six rounds of Swiss play, thirty-two competitors were paired against each other for single-elimination matches. In the first elimination round, most of the top-seeded players won their matches, but there were two notable exceptions: Top-ranked Grant Huddleston, who dropped only two games in Swiss play, lost to Jesse Vandover; and third-ranked Fredrik Persson was eliminated by thirtieth-ranked Jens Erickson, who continued to carve his way through the elimination rounds, proving that ranking matters less than your ability to play each match to your fullest.

You can click on the above image to view the Android: Netrunner elimination brackets at full-size.

After three rounds of elimination play whittled down the field, a Top 4 emerged, dominated heavily by Andromeda and SanSan City Grid. The battles for remote servers weren’t nearly as crucial in the Top 4 as the war for HQ.

Andromeda Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the FutureKate "Mac" McCaffrey NBN: Making NewsAndromeda The Weyland Consortium: Building a Better WorldAndromeda NBN: Making News

Jens Erickson won his match against seventh-seeded Aaron Andries, and fourth-seeded Andrew Veen defeated Jesse Vandover. Accordingly, the finals featured two players running drastically different decks.

Jens Erickson considers his next play against Andrew Veen in the 2013 Android: Netrunner World Championship Final

While neither player sought to flatline Runners with his Corp, Andrew’s NBN deck featured a streamlined “fast advance” strategy that threatened to flatten the Runner’s economy with Closed Accounts (Core Set, 84) should he ever take a tag. On the other hand, Jens played a Corp deck that sought to heighten its own efficiencies through the use of Accelerated Beta Test (Core Set, 55), Director Haas’ Pet Project (Creation and Control, 4), and other cards.

On the Runner’s side, Jens harnessed the aggressive economic pressures of his Andromeda deck while Andrew’s AI-driven, fast-build Shaper rig used Datasucker (Core Set, 8) to reduce the strength of various ice until they matched the strength of one of his three copies of Atman (Creation and Control, 40).

After winning a tense first game, in which he scored two agendas after Andrew had established a lock on R&D, Jens won the match midway through the second game, as soon he scored more points than Andrew had scored in the first game.

Jens complimented Andrew on his performance:

“The World Championship finals was one of the most enjoyable matches I've played, and it was against an amazing player. It was a completely different type of game, and I felt I was playing against the player rather than his deck.

“The first game was tense. I made a snap decision on my second turn to go for broke and attempt to score my agendas as fast as possible, due to the fact that Andrew had zero credits, I had a SanSan City Grid, and I was holding eight points of agendas in HQ with defenses that would offer little resistance once Andrew was up and running. The tensest moment came when Andrew used Test Run (Cyber Exodus, 47) to pull an icebreaker that got him a look at HQ.”

Fortunately for Jens, his gamble paid off. At one point, Andrew opted not to trash Jens’ SanSan City Grid when he could have, deciding, to focus on establishing a higher tempo and locking down R&D instead. Even though Andrew established his R&D lock, Jens used the SanSan City Grid to score more of the agenda points that had remained hidden in HQ.

In the second game, Jens needed only three points to win.

“Game two, I played aggressively, only needing three points to win. The highlight of that game to me was the turn I ran into TMI (What Lies Ahead, 17), burned most of Andrew's credits, then bounced over to R&D through a Draco (What Lies Ahead, 20), and stole my first two points of the game.”

Congratulations to Jens Erickson, the 2013 Android: Netrunner World Champion!

With his victory, he earned the right to work with the game’s developers to design a card to appear later in the game, as well as a ticket to Gen Con Indy 2014, where he can take on all challengers during the North American Championships.

Assemble Your Rig and Run!

There’s a lot of Android: Netrunner action ahead of us in 2014. Before Jens Erickson can try to defend his World Championship or claim the title of 2014 North American Champion, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to compete against him, Andrew Veen, or other great Android: Netrunner competitors during our Store Championships.

Check our list of 2014 Android: Netrunner Store Championships for a tournament near you. Then assemble your rig, and start running!