Bag-of-Tricks Gaiden

haxle 31

This deck is the horrible mutated spawn of Elusive's Bag of Tricks and my own homebrew PE list. I brought it to Worlds because I couldn't get in as much practice as I would've liked and because I'd played my homebrew PE to great success a few months earlier.

Unfortunately for me Magnum Opus turned out to be an object lesson in exactly how many cards can directly(Film Critic, Hunting Grounds, I've Had Worse, Heartbeat) and indirectly(Inject, Laguna Velasco District!?!?) hose this archetype. Still, I'm proud of how I played, and that small evil part of me was satisfied every time my opponent saw my ID and sagged a little in dismay.

This is your basic PE kill list, with many paths to victory but no one path easier than any other. Scoring victories come from fast-advanced Philotic or Chronos and slow-advanced Obokatas behind Data Loops and Kakugos, with the threat of Punitive to punish unwary runners. Kill victories can come from Ronins or Show of Force combined with Neural EMPs, or unwary runners stealing Obokatas only to fall to Punitive next turn. Neural EMP and Show of Force give you some flexibility in these areas, but are also major weaknesses if the runner decides to draw up and run your remotes. It takes serious cojones to Mushin-advance a Show of Force on turn 1 and leave it, but those cojones can reward you with a win later on if you're patient and play your cards right. This list is 100% Yomi. If you're confident in your Yomi play, it will reward you. If not, your opponent will see through you and pick you apart till there's aught left but bones. Still, it's a helluva fun list to play.

Highlights from Magnum Opus include a hugely fun game against a lady named Janet who survived NINE points of damage after stealing an Obokata(Punitive, Punitive, advance-score a previously Mushin-ed Show of Force) by trashing her whole hand and rig with Heartbeat. Before this game I honestly didn't know Heartbeat could trash itself. Lesson learned. Also shout out to a gentleman named Zeb who accessed the same Neural EMP at least eight times in a row from my agenda-flooded hand, finally hit a Snare in R&D that reduced him to 0 cards in hand, then bravely ran my remotes to secure the game-winning Show of Force on his last click. I don't care what the top players say, this is what Netrunner is all about!

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