For this tournament, i had originally intended to bring a Geist deck and an Argus Security deck, but then I saw two things that changed my mind. First, I saw the deck Geist: You're Doing It Wrong on NetrunnerDB, so I dismantled that and put together a Gabe deck. Second, I saw this tweet: https://twitter.com/IirionClaus/status/621381813131431936 This inspired me to put Corporate Town back into my deck, then rebuild the deck more around it. So here are the deck lists I used:
Building Our Town
Identity: Weyland Consortium - Building a Better World
Agendas
Corporate War - 2
Hostile Takeover - 2
Oaktown Renovation - 3
Project Atlas - 3
Underway Renovation - 2
Ice
Hadrian's Wall - 2
Meru Mati - 3
Spiderweb - 3
Enigma - 3
Tollbooth - 3 (6 Influence)
Archer - 2
Ichi 1.0 - 3 (6 Influence)
Assets
Corporate Town - 3
Jackson Howard - 3 (3 Influence)
Upgrades
Underway Grid - 3
Operations
Beanstalk Royalties - 3
Hedge Fund - 3
Restructure - 3
Kind of a mix between a glacier build and a rush build. Hostile and Corporate give money for scoring them, and Oaktown gives money while it is being advanced. Atlas works for either scoring out quickly, or for setting up to get a key card. Underway is interesting, in that it lets you attack the runner's deck, which can hinder their plans. The ice is fairly standard. Hadrian's can go wherever a big wall is needed. Meru Mati should only be on HQ, but could be placed somewhere for a small tax. Spiderweb is a tossup. It could be swapped out for Bastion, which Corroder breaks for the same cost, but Spiderweb takes more counters away from Lady. Although, Bastion will last longer against Parasite, so the choice depends on your meta. Enigma for a cheap code gate, and Tollbooth for more taxing. Archer for a big gun, and Ichi for click taxing, or more credit taxing. Corporate Town is the big thing in this deck. Ideally, you'll want this in a moderately well protected server, and a second well protected server for scoring agendas. Also ideally, you'll want to score a Hostile or an Underway early for the cost. Jackson for recursion. Underway Grid is interesting. It stops Inside Job, Femme Fatale, Feint and Drive By, so you'll want one on your scoring server, one on your HQ, and the third can be placed on R&D or on your Corporate Town server. Then the three main transaction operations, because you might as well run them in a BaBW deck.
Clack Click Bang
Identity: Gabriel Santiago - Consummate Professional
Programs
Alias - 2
Breach - 2
Corroder - 1 (2 Influence)
Gordian Blade - 1 (3 Influence)
Ninja - 1
Passport - 2
Grappling Hook - 2
Sneakdoor Beta - 2
Hardware
Clone Chip - 2 (4 Influence)
Desperado - 1
Dyson Mem Chip - 3
Unregistered S&W '35 - 2
Resources
Security Testing - 3
Events
Dirty Laundry - 3
Drive By - 3
Express Delivery - 3
Inside Job - 3
Legwork - 3
Sure Gamble - 3
The Maker's Eye - 3 (6 Influence)
I was trying to go for some central pressure with this one, while also trying to be able to attack remote servers. Standard core attack suite, with Alias, Breach, and Passport. Corroder, Gordian and Ninja as backups. Grappling Hook is kind of an emergency shot, and Sneakdoor is pretty standard with Gabe. Clone Chip for some recursion, Desperado for making more money, Dyson for extra memory, and S&W for killing annoying upgrades, like Caprice and Ash. Security Testing is the main economy engine, which can get me up to 5 credits on an HQ run. Dirty Laundry for more econ. Drive By to expose and destroy upgrades and assets. Express Delivery to get specific pieces of the top of the deck. Inside Job to get through troublesome servers and into remotes. Legwork to dig in HQ. Sure Gamble because that's standard. The Maker's Eye for digging in R&D, although maybe I should have swapped one copy for another Clone Chip.
Well, onto the report. Only 8 people, so there were just 4 rounds.
Round 1: vs. Rick
Building a Better World vs. Edward Kim: 1-7 L
Gabriel Santiago vs. Personal Evolution: 2-1 L (flatline)
As usual, playing against Rick is always a challenge. To be honest, this was probably the worst runner I could have gone up against, with my economy mostly dependent on operations. I think I lost all 3 copies of restructure early on. Also, I had to forfeit an early Project Atlas to rez an unprotected Corporate Town to trash an Earthrise Hotel. It was definitely worth it at the time, but there may have been a much better play. Plus, I went overly aggressive advancing an Underway Renovation, which led to being unable to rez a key piece of ice. Game two brings up another problem I have to overcome. Against PE, I either play too carefully, or too aggressively. In this case, it was the latter. I went for a Maker's Eye run on R&D, ran into a Fetal, which burned two cards from my hand, then had to score a 1 point agenda, burning a third card. Then, on his turn, he played the three Neural EMPs I knew he had, because I had seen them on a previous Maker's Eye dig. Still, an interesting set.
Round 2: vs. Katie
Building a Better World vs. Andromeda: 7 - 6 W
Gabriel Santiago vs. Personal Evolution: 2-7 L
A close first game. I gave up a few agendas early, and lost a Corporate Town before I could rez it, but that helped tax Katie in that game. The second game I think I ended up playing too cautiously, plus I recall hitting a Cortex Lock with no programs installed, decimating my hand early on, which set me back too far, especially since I didn't see any Clone Chips in that game. Also, lost some key programs due to Power Shutdown, so that didn't help me.
Round 3: vs. Barry
Building a Better World vs. Hayley Kaplan: 1 - 7 L
Gabriel Santiago vs. Engineering the Future: 5 - 8 L
Another frustrating game as Corp, and again, because I made a mistake. I put an Enigma as the second piece of ice on HQ, when it needed to go on R&D after he played an R&D interface. Ended up losing too many agendas out of R&D. Second game I ended up being locked out of the primary servers in the end, and couldn't get into the main scoring server. Still, managed to snag two agendas in the mid game.
Round 4: vs. Andy
Gabriel Santiago vs. Tennin Institute: 9 - 6 W
Building a Better World vs. Valencia Estavez: 6-5 W (timed)
What I remember about this set is that it was close, and it could honestly have gone either way. First game, managed to snag an Utopia Fragment out of HQ, but he managed to get a Nisei with two Gene Resequencings before then. Then another Nisei came out. I managed to burn most of the counters on HQ runs, then managed to grab a Future Perfect out of the scoring server. Grabbed another Future Perfect in a later run on that server. Next game could have gone either way. I did manage to get a Corporate Town up and destroyed a lot of resources. Plus, there were a few close calls, and a point where he could have won the game if he had Blackmailed my scoring server instead of Blackmailing my R&D to dig deeper. Oh, and I managed to snipe a copy of Blackmail off his deck with Underway Renovation, which was pretty good. But at the end, time was called, and he couldn't make the run which would have tied the game for him.
So, that was an interesting turn of events. Ended up with only 5 prestige, just one point ahead of last place. Also, the last match determined who would end up in first and second because of strength of schedule, so that was also interesting. Didn't place high enough to get a Gordian Blade, which I would have like, but did end up completing a playset of alternate art Pop-Up Windows. Perhaps I should put together a deck using them so I can start freaking out my opponents with the scary clown advertisement.
Until next time, take a look at this card from classic Netrunner. It turns out there was a Yog.0 before it was called Yog.0.
