Leeds Netrunner Tournament

After hearing about the Core Set only Netrunner tournament at Leeds MeepFest via the Run Last Click blog I thought I'd give it a go. I mean I can beat Louise and Luke just over half of the time so I can't be that bad.... right?

Decks

A first go at deck building on the eve of the tournament so lots of thought and research went into it. Not.

Gabriel Santiago (Criminal) thinking he has a reasonable economy with Easy Mark, Bank Job and 2 credits for running on HQ.
with
2 x Gordian Blade - crims need a code gate breaker
2 x Akamatsu Mem Chip - didn't want to be waiting for a console
2 x Corroder - better than Aurora
1 x Medium - criminal puts pressure on HQ so wanted to add pressure to R+D also. Didn't manage to use this card effectively

Haas Bioroid thinking Biotic Labor, good economy and reasonably tough ice. To this I added
2 x Wall of Thorns
2 x Neural Katana
2 x Tollbooth
2 x Research Station for a bit of added hand size - these got trashed fairly quickly and didn't really bring any benefits.


Tournament

Round 1 - bye
I was busy playing Star Trek Catan so missed the start of the games. An odd number of players so I got a bye (two free wins apparently but I didn't count them).

Round 2 - vs Ashley (Criminal and Haas Bioroid)
Runner - despite wanting to play conservatively I face checked an Ichi with one Gordian Blade installed and the other in the trash. That would be no code gate breakers for me then. Played very poorly, couldn't get in anywhere. Ashley scored out easily.

Corp - After Ashley pointed out that I needed to pay to install more than one ice on a server I felt even more stupid than before. Shortly after he Inside Job'd a server to steal an agenda I thought was safe. I managed to score an Accelerated Beta Test but we were running out of time. I didn't do my sums right and my opponent got into my remote server on the next to last run to pinch an agenda and then riffled through archives for the winning one.

0-2

Ashley went on to win the tournament so I didn't feel too bad at being beaten by the best man.

Round 3 vs Grumpy Neil (Shaper and Haas Bioroid)
Corp - Stupidly used my Biotic Labors to score out three 2-point agendas leaving me needing only a single point to win and only two three point agendas to do it with. Neil had some Datasuckers and Cyberfeeders up and running and quickly made short work of my defences, nabbing the last agendas from R+D.

Runner - Ate an early Aggressive Secretary but got back up and running, nabbing a couple of agendas. Low on time I made a last minute run on R+D and pulled a Priority Requisition off the top for a straight win, my first, last and only. Even then I felt like I'd got lucky rather than won on skill.

1-3


Analysis

Finished the tournament joint last with Neil, even though the table said 4th I'm choosing to ignore the wins from my bye.

I was very frustrated with my performance. Really pissed off actually. I'm sure I can play better Netrunner than that. I could blame low blood sugar, the time of day (I always have a mental slump early afternoon), poor deck choice. Fundamentally I didn't concentrate and I feel like I played badly for myself which is most annoying. I failed to be cautious when approaching HB ice and paid. I failed to do my sums and paid. I failed to concentrate and paid.

My decks were OK but I didn't make Medium or Research Station work for me so they were poor choices on reflection. However most games I ended up with a decent amount of cash so at least my economy wasn't too bad.

Lessons Learned

• Do your sums
• Caution over confidence
• Know your opponent's deck
• Practice more
• Play a wider range of opponents
• Chill out, it's just a game dude!

Massive respect to people who play games at National and Worlds level. They usually play 8 rounds of two games just to make the final cut. My brain was baked after four games. I had to go in search of caffeine and sugar immediately afterwards.

I came away with two new ID cards as a consolation prize, lets see if I can put these to work!

Lastly, well done to Ashley who was a really nice guy and played some good cards to win the day. Kudos to Neil too for being a good opponent.

p.s. don't ask me where the Bill and Ted idea came from, I have no idea  8-)