There Will Be Flood || 3rd & 4th at Pittsburgh Megacity

This event was streamed live on the Steel City Grid! Check out the Swiss Rounds and the Top Cut for great gameplay and commentary from andrej, aksu cranked, orbital, and cephalopod. A huge thank you to London for running the stream, and Marcus for running such a smooth event.

Under the Sea

This is the list that AnOddRadish and I brought to 3rd & 4th place at the Pittsburgh Megacity, ending the day with a 3-3 record in Swiss and an 0-4 record in the top cut. We are clearly in a runner meta, and while Thule was a rough meta call for this Sable-filled top cut, this deck still has a ton of tools to beat an unprepared runner on tempo or a backup Measured Response.

Here's what the deck's architect and best pilot London has to say about it:

Global warming has melted all the ice, ushering in a flood of biblical proportions.

This deck takes passive mult's flood the zone as inspiration, but with the key realization that we should cut all the ICE. This will be a contentious move, so I'll explain.

This deck wants to overwhelm runner capacity with a width of threats. Each defensive card slows this plan down, and because we are so wide the runner can usually ignore what we ice and contest us elsewhere. Still, a minimum number of concessions are needed.

This is normally where you would talk about ice types and forcing out breakers... Not in 2025. If you install a small number of tiny ice they will all get boomeranged or bankhared or crewed. This means that the cost to install and rez ice is comparable or even more expensive than the cost to go through them once or twice. This fact is compounded by runner cards that are looking for ice, notably bravado in crim but also strike fund + steelskin with bankhar in anarch. This means that playing ice in this deck will take a long time, if ever, for it to become tempo positive for us. In a deck built around getting ahead of the runner and capitalizing, this is a dealbreaker.

But what about the defensive slots? Do we just let the runner run amok? Fear not, there is a card better than ice. You can't boomerang or bankhar it, you can't get bravado value or crew it. Enter manegarm skunkworks. The cost to entry is entirely front loaded. Paying clicks is tough against Thule and paying 5+3 is gross. Trashing it becomes a pain in the ass with trendsetting, and if they do you can recur it with TPTB or ingatan. Being an upgrade means it hides better, using hendrik, djupstad etc. as camouflage. This makes it difficult to play against; do you run a 2-card server on click one so you can click manegarm and pay the thule tax? What if it is hendrik and you lose your turn?

OK so I cut all the ice, what do those slots buy us? Top Down Solutions. A solid card in asset spam corps because 1) it increases the chances of sticking something good, and 2) asset decks convert installs to credits really well so you get paid back quickly. What really makes it stand out is the transfer of wealth matchups where you need to be ready to duck on every turn of the game so paying 2 can actually be really helpful turn 1. Finally, it can help break R&D lock or FA in the late game which is nice.

I also changed around the econ some. I have been seriously underwhelmed by otto. It basically never fires, the FA is a dream. It finds a middle ground between MCA and Marilyn that achieves the goals of neither. I think it could have been pushed a number better, maybe on rez cost. Speaking of, that's nico campaign. I've found the credit positive rez is actually amazing, and if it sticks you can dump money into scoring/djupstad/bass or top down etc. Finally, tranq grid is an important part of the econ package. This is the kind of econ that is hard for the runner to deny, similar to regolith. It's important to have some resilient/reliable econ so the runner can't turn a slight lead into a dominant one because you are endlessly clicking for creds. Because of transfer ducking you don't really want to slow down to empty a regolith, meanwhile bottoming out to duck transfer while rezzing a tranq is totally fine. It might not fire every turn but it's at least as good as PAD campaign despite rezzing for +1 not -1.

Thank you London for the insights and for letting us borrow your deck. I brought this as an unexpected challenge for runners, even if it doesn't have a great matchup spread. Anarch tends to struggle the most against this list, followed by Shaper, and then Criminal. Sadly 50% of the field this tournament was Criminal. You miss 100% of the Meta Calls you don't take.

Shoutouts to everyone in the Steel City Grid, aureates and wyld, the Ohio crew, and the OGs in New England: NotAgain, Gordie, Kevinth, Sunny, Bard and many many more. #PittsburghWorlds2026