Colorado 2016 Regional Tournament Report

It's been almost a week since the Colorado Regional Tournament for Netrunner, and I feel I'm still working through what happened.  While I don't go into tournaments expecting to crush everyone, I would at least like to see my ideas work.  At any rate, here's what I came up with this time:

Consume All Data - 46 cards
Identity: Apex - Invasive Predator

Programs
D4v1d - 2 (8 influence)
Endless Hunger - 3
Harbinger - 3
Mimic - 2 (2 influence)

Hardware
Clone Chip - 1 (2 influence, -1 max influence)
Dyson Mem Chip - 3
e3 Feedback Implants - 2 (4 influence)
Heartbeat - 3
Plascrete Carapace - 3

Resources
Hunting Grounds - 3
The Turning Wheel - 3
Wasteland - 3

Events
Apocalypse - 3
Dirty Laundry - 3
Levy AR Lab Access - 1 (3 influence)
Prey - 3
Quality Time - 2 (2 influence)
Sure Gamble - 3

My theory here is that diversifying the breaker suite should allow Apex to get through more troubling ice.  Endless Hunger and e3 Feedback Implants allow you to get through anything that has at least one "End the run" subroutine.  D4V1D allows you to deal with high strength ice that doesn't have any "End the run" subroutines, such as Assassin or Turing on a remote.  Mimic deals with low strength sentries that don't have "End the run" subroutines, such as Cobra.  Plus D4V1D has the added benefit of hanging around once its counters are gone, so it can then be used for Endless Hunger or Heartbeat.

Clone Chip gives you a bit more flexibility, especially if you lose a key program during a run.  Plus, it can let you recur a spent D4V1D.  Dyson Mem Chip is needed to run the full suite, as the +1 memory from Heartbeat isn't enough to hold Endless Hunger, Mimic, and D4V1D simultaneously.

The Turning Wheel seems promising in isolation.  I suspect that this card will be eventually changed with errata so that it only can place a counter from a successful run, but for now, you can run repeatedly into an ice on HQ or R&D that just ends the run to build up counters on this for a massive dig.  I'm wondering how well this might work in a Criminal deck that takes advantage of Snitch and Au Revoir to make piles of cash.

Last point I want to discuss is the two copies of Quality Time.  Originally, I was using Grifter instead, since that gives me money for running, which feels like something the deck should be doing anyway.  I swapped Grifter out for Quality Time to add card draw into the deck.  But still, I end up drawing a lot of cards by spending clicks, and it feels like I no longer have sufficient economy for this deck.

General Hospital - 44 cards
Identity: Harmony Medtech - Biomedical Pioneer

Agendas - 18 points
Global Food Initiative - 3 (3 influence)
The Future Perfect - 3

Ice
Crick - 2
Komainu - 2
Lotus Field - 3
Susanoo-no-Mikoto - 1
Swordsman - 1
Wall of Static - 3
Wall of Thorns - 2

Assets
Jackson Howard - 3 (3 influence)
Mental Health Clinic - 3
Shi.Kyū - 3

Upgrades
Ash 2X3ZB9CY - 3 (6 influence)
Caprice Nisei - 3

Operations
Cerebral Static - 3
Hedge Fund - 3
Medical Research Fundraiser - 3

As I have stated on the page for this deck, there is nothing original about this deck.  It's the Jinteki 6 agenda deck, just for slightly modern times.  GFI takes the place of whatever was being used before Data and Destiny came out (I think it was the Source Code fragments, but I could be remembering incorrectly.)

Ice suite is supposed to be kind of diverse.  I went with Crick hoping I could use it to get some key upgrades or assets back.  Komainu should hurt the runner, and has a kind of synergy with Mental Health Clinic, since the more cards the runner has, the more it will cost them to get through this.  Lotus Field can stop a runner early, and can't be affected by Parasite or Datasucker.  Susanoo is supposed to go on your scoring remote, but can be placed anywhere except Archives.  Swordsman is a one off to deal with Faust.  Wall of Static and Wall of Thorns provide some more EtR ice.

I've gone with Mental Health Clinic instead of other drip asset economy mostly because it's cheap to rez and I don't care much about how many cards the runner can hold.  I've also picked Medical Research Fundraiser over Celebrity Gift because I don't have enough traps to make Celebrity Gift worthwhile and I don't care about how many credits the runner has.  In theory, Ash and Caprice should be able to defend the scoring server, making the amount of money the runner has a little less relevant.

So those are my decks.  Let's get on to how badly I did.

Round 1: vs. Marty
Harmony Medtech vs. Valencia Estavez: 3 - 3 L (milled)
Apex vs. Argus Security: 2 - 7 L

Both of these early games were fairly fast.  My early attempts to defend in game 1 were in vain, as the combination of Blackmail and DDoS left me unable to stop an Apocalypse.  I was able to rebuild after that, and even scored a GFI.  However, he still took the other two, and though I did get two Shi.Kyu onto him, he burned one off thanks to Frame Job.  After that, he was able to get Eater and Keyhole out and started burning me down.  I can't remember if my Swordsman was just burned, or if I put it onto Archives, thinking he would be sure to run there.  I suppose instead Swordsman should have gone onto R&D if I had it.  End of that game I had a TFP in a remote, with no money to score it, and getting milled out anyway.  Second game was frustrating.  I was unable to find my breakers, which gave him the time to rush out 4 points.  I did snag a Project Atlas off of R&D, but he was still able to rush out the last of the points.

Round 2: vs. Andy
Apex vs. Gagarin Deep Space: 4 - 7 L
Harmony Medtech vs. Nasir Meidan: 6 - 0 W

I play against Andy fairly regularly, so it's interesting to see what directions he goes in.  Game one in theory should have been a good match-up for me, but I don't think I saw a single copy of Apocalypse in the game.  Or if I did, I installed it face down, thinking another one would come up later.  As such, I was unable to adequately deal with the large amount of assets, ended up running out of cash, and lost the game because I ran into an Ash without money.  Game two was much better.  He went broke installing out equipment, so I put both Ash and Caprice onto the scoring server, and just didn't even bother bringing ice online.  Won with two GFIs on this one.

Round 3: vs. Aaron
Harmony Medtech vs. The Professor: 0 - 6 L
Apex vs. NEXT Design: 2 - 7 L

I have no notes on this match, as it put me into tilt.  What I do remember is that game one went very badly.  He was able to get his setup quick enough that nothing I did mattered.  Game two started off poorly.  He scored out an Accelerated Beta Test, building up his defenses.  I was able to land an Apocalypse after that, but he still rebuilt much more easily than I did.  Once again, I believe I ran out of cash, giving him the game.

Round 4: vs. Brian
Apex vs. Near-Earth Hub: 6 - 7 L
Harmony Medtech vs. Ken "Express" Tenma: 6 - 2 W

One again, ended up losing a game as Apex that should have been a good match-up for me.  I ended up having to dig through most of my deck in order to find the first copy of Endless Hunger.  Before that, I was able to put some pressure onto R&D thanks to D4V1D, since he chose to protect it with Little Engine, which had the added benefit of giving me extra cash.  I think I ended up snagging two copies of Explode-a-palooza and one AstroScript Pilot Program, but he got up to 6 points as well.  I tried digging for the last one in R&D, but he ended up scoring out a 3 for 2 agenda thanks to SanSan City Grid.  Second game was better for me.  I was able to drain out his money, and while he was able to nab one GFI, he messed up using The Maker's Eye at one point where he couldn't get in.  As such, I managed to score out a GFI and a TFP.

Round 5: vs. Natalie
Harmony vs. Hayley Kaplan: 3 - 6 L
Apex vs. Building a Better World: 7 - 4 W

First game, I was able to get a Cerebral Static off on the second turn, which turned out to be the right play, since she spent the first turn building up money through events.  Unfortunately, her deck turned my own against me.  She took a Shi.Kyu only to turn it around with Liberated Chela and Hyperdriver.  Plus, the moment I started setting up my scoring server with Wall of Thorns, she managed to get out a Morning Star onto a NetChip, making my barriers nearly useless.  She then got out a Garrote and a Torch, the latter making my Lotus Fields nearly useless.  After that, she took a GFI from me and was able to install two more Hyperdrivers, two more Liberated Chela, and all three of Fan Site, making it impossible for me to win.  I decided to score out the one GFI, which gave her the Fan Sites.  Her final turn was burning the Hyperdrivers to give herself 10 clicks for the turn, which would let her use both Liberated Chelas if needed.  I decided to not even bother forfeiting for the first one.  Game two was interesting.  I suppose I should have known this was the 6 agenda deck.  I did end up having enough time to build up my rig.  As such, she was able to get an early Hostile Takeover.  After that, I thought I was fortunate to snag a Vanity Project off of R&D, but that ended up being taken from me, thanks to the combination of Consulting Visit, SEA Source and Exchange of Information.  After that, I built up counters on The Turning Wheel by running into a Meru Mati on HQ repeatedly, then made a run on HQ hoping to dig out agendas.  By luck, the first card I pulled was Government Takeover, giving me the game.

Post-Game Analysis

Thinking on this, I won the corp games where I was able to keep the runner poor.  As such, I should reconsider ice to be more taxing.  I should also probably reconsider Biomedical Research Fundraiser.  Finally, I may want to reconsider Shi.Kyu for something more taxing.  Originally, I was contemplating using News Team instead of Ash, but these cards don't seem to have as much benefit now, since there are so many cards people are utilizing that require the forfeit of agendas.  As for Apex, I still want to reconsider both economy and card draw.  Perhaps I should bring back Chop Bot 3000 for some card draw.  Plus, I may need a better form of drip economy.  Data Folding might be the answer to that, but I would have to bring back Leprechaun to get the space I need.  Or perhaps I should consider Scheherazade to get money from installing programs.

Out of 38 participants, my dismal performance earned me 35th place.

Well, that's all for now.  Until next time, I have no snappy sign-out for you.

The Changing Nature of Words

Update: As of July 12, 2016, the Netrunner FAQ has "Swap" as a defined term, wherein two cards exchange position simultaneously,  thereby explaining how swapping devas doesn't count as installing the new one.  Of course, the cards with swap on them that have the word install still count as the new card being installed, because that's how that works.

As such, the lesson is, "Words only mean what the designers say they mean."

If you play Netrunner, you've probably come across (or at least, have heard of,) the Android: Netrunner Comprehensive Unofficial Rules, or ANCUR.  It's a fairly useful resource, allowing players to come up with rulings on cards that have not yet had official rulings on their usage.  Still, I'm of the opinion that they don't always get things right.  Allow me to explain.

On the unofficial ruling page for Democracy and Dogma, there is a ruling from Damon Stone, the lead designer, on Sadyojata.  His claim is that swapping Sadyojata with another Deva icebreaker does not count as installing the new icebreaker.  And while normally his status as lead designer would normally give him a free pass, this particular ruling seems to contradict how they have defined the term "swap."  But to get a better grasp on just how this particular word is used, let's run a search on NetrunnerDB for all cards with the word "swap" in their game text.

And the results are:
Aghora
Allele Repression
Exchange of Information
Jinteki Biotech: Life Imagined
Midori
Mumbad City Grid
Raman Rai
Sadyojata
Surfer
Synthetic Systems: The World Re-imagined
Tenma Line
Toshiyuki Sakai
Turntable
Vamadeva

So let's ignore the three Devas for now, since that's what we're trying to understand.  Also, let's ignore Exchange of Information and Turntable, because agendas in the score pile are not installed.  Still, we need to establish some sort of baseline definition for the word "swap."  To do that, let's start with Jinteki Biotech.

This seems fairly straightforward.  Before the first time of the game, we can switch any copy of Jinteki Biotech for another copy of Jinteki Biotech one time.  Of course, identity cards also aren't installed, but this does give us our baseline definition for "swap:" to exchange one card for another.

With that done, let's examine the remaining cards for understanding.

This card allows the Corporation to switch 1 card in their hand for 1 card in their discard pile for each advancement counter on this card if the card is rezzed and the corp trashes it for cost.  Again, the cards aren't installed, but this allows us to see how swapping works when swapping cards between HQ and Archives.

These three cards all involve swapping installed ice.  Tenma Line specifically says "swap 2 pieces of installed ice."  Mumbad City Grid allows the corp to swap a piece of ice that the runner just passed with another piece of ice protecting the server.  Surfer allows the runner to swap a piece of barrier ice currently being encountered with another piece of ice directly before or after it.  In all three cases, two installed cards are being swapped, so logically, we can deduce that the cards are not considered to be installed when swapped if they are already installed to begin with.

Now it gets interesting.  Both Midori and Toshiyuki Sakai say that we can swap an installed card with a card that is from HQ.  This differs from the previous scenarios where we are swapping two cards that are already installed, or swapping cards that are not installed.  Now we are swapping an installed card with a card that is not installed.  But what I think is most telling is the official ruling on these cards from the Android: Netrunner FAQ.  Specifically, page 8 for Midori reads, "Ice that is swapped is installed, but the install cost of the ice being swapped does not have to be paid," and page 10 for Toshiyuki Sakai reads, "The card that is swapped with Toshiyuki Sakai is installed."

So if we were using Midori or Toshiyuki Sakai with Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future, these cards would trigger the effect of that identity if it was the first time we installed a card on the Runner's turn.  Based on this, we can logically determine that swapping a card from hand with a card that is already installed means that the new card is considered to be installed.  Yet somehow, we are supposed to believe that the definition of the word "swap" is now different for the Runner than it is for the Corporation.

Of course, all of this is just my opinion.  Damon's ruling stands until the FAQ is updated, which I don't think will happen until Fear the Masses is released.  And to be honest, I'm just hoping that it will turn out this way so that a Deva/LLDS Processor deck would be viable.  As such, take what I say with a grain of salt, and hope that creativity wins out in this case.  Granted, I now see why A Game of Thrones: the Card Game Second Edition needed a Rules Reference Guide which defined practically every term that would be used.  And yet, players still debated on the meaning of "Limited."

Until next time, update your definitions.  Your words no longer mean what you think they mean.