Expo Regional

[Chimpster]

Really excited to be able to attend this one (especially as I didn't think I would be able to wrangle a Friday - half term to the rescue)!

I'm assuming you're pretty much all going given that the event looks like it'll be over 150 people.

What do you expect to see a lot of? What super secret decks are you testing?

[MartinP]

So long as the number of IG decks remains low, I'm happy Luckily it seems that at other regionals most players aren't actually willing to play the deck at a competitive level (Or those that are, have the moniker Dark Lord already )

Mostly I'm looking forward to beating last years record @ the expo (6w 8l) and catch up with those I've yet to see at Regionals

[Nemamiah]

I don't think IG will be at all prolific. I think you have to be a fairly serious competitive player to consider taking it, and to a large extent those players have discovered that a teched out Whizzard deck (which in theory is the strongest runner, and so is what those players will mostly be playing or expecting to see at the top end) has a pretty good win percentage against IG. Then you add in concerns about time, mental fatigue and negative player experiences and the whole prospect becomes pretty unappealing. That's borne out by the stats at the three regionals so far.

I'm expecting lots of NBN decks of all flavours, with a generous smattering of Palana and Argus on top. On the runner side I actually think we'll see an upswing in the number of Criminals and Shapers played, but the majority will still be Anarchs of all shapes and sizes.

My current testing is revolving around how to stay awake and play a potential 14 hours of Netrunner without devolving in to a dribbling imbecile. Results so far have not been positive.

[MartinP]

[Chimpster]

If I just place high enough to win a alt art Same Old Thing, I'll be happy

[Brendan]

Take solid decks you know how to play well, that will get you through Swiss easily and dramatically punish mistakes from a bunch of tired players in the cut.

Something spiky would really not be a bad call - I'd expect a ton of Yellow and Argus.

[Nemamiah]

Argus is the really interesting one, I think. It's the faddy and off-beat Corp deck at the moment (no disrespect intended; it's a very legitimate deck that could be well placed in the meta), but it's coming out of the perceived weakest faction and most people probably don't have much experience of playing with it. It's therefore really hard to predict how popular it will be.

And yeah, one of the standard pieces of advice I give people is to take decks that you know and trust, and believe in your skills as a player to get you through. It's far too easy to overthink the meta and end up playing something you're not confident with because you think it's the 'right' call.

[Brendan]

Yeah, I'm curious as to how much Argus can repeat its success. The combination of Faust, rush and Scorch all work together to create a pretty nice niche for it in the meta, but it does struggle against plenty of decks.

[GuyCliquil]

What decks would you expect to struggle to out of interest?

Certainly I can see a decent Blackmail threat being a problem, and actually Siphon spam - if it can get Argus into the ground - might be a good answer. More generally a reasonably paced Shaper I can see being able to just absorb the Scorch threat and keep up.

[MartinP]

[Nemamiah]

[shanodin]

There has been a LOT of Argus/Titan on jinteki.net recently. Palana also.

[Chimpster]

Always going to be an element of that with it being deck of the week on NRDB. Expecting more Palana than usual, if only because it's got a more sensible Whizzard matchup and will do well against the resurgence of Crims (even with Po-op).

Expecting a large swathe of yellow of all varieties (including more Sol than usual) a smattering of ETF and a decent amount of Palana, Argus and Gagarin.

Should be interesting to see what variety comes out of the wood work though, who knows, could be something completely out of left field to win it (come on Tennin!).

[evilgaz]

I nearly went with a core set Weyland, but bottled it last night. If I'd had another week of testing...

Some people are thinking IG because a lot of players haven't practiced against it and therefore they think it might do well, but actually the Whizzard match up favours the runner arguably (if they play properly and don't get flustered), so I'm not as sure on that.

There'll be a lot of yellow decks, NEH is still doing well and with three varieties (asset spam, fastro, kill) you've still got the advantage of your opponent not being sure what you're doing. Add in Sol and the odd SYNC, etc. and it's quite populace.

There'll be some HB, but it's not in the greatest of places, seems you're better off going Palana and having Caprice in faction! The Palana games largely come down to psi games (for both players).

Whizzard is still strong, Noise as well, although Variency (new word). Criminals look good against some of the yellow decks and if you've put in the plascrete (after murder NEH and Argus regional wins) you've probably not in a bad place. Geist looks good long game, but some corps are rushing out, so it depends if you get the right pieces early enough.

Green has a lot of game due to the answers for everything approach, but it's a matter of match ups and what you've selected in terms of Sac Con, Clot, Net Sheild, Fan Site, Deus X, etc. There's only so many silver bullets to go round and classic corp decks may edge benefit from teching against others.

Overall it'll be Anarach at the top, blue and green reasonably even?

Yellow is favourite on the corp side I reckon, then jinteki, HB, Weyland.

[Chimpster]

Great games yesterday and really pleased with a Top16 finish!

Was surprised at how much Jinteki there was yesterday, especially Palana, definitely well represented!

Well done to the top 8, great achievement to do so well at such a huge event!

[ihmcallister]

really enjoyed my time at the regional and pleased to come so high at 25th out of 124? people. Thanks to everyone I played, I'll be posting up a tournament report soon!

[MartinP]