Palantir Amina (1st at Tallinn Store Champ)

Trust the hunch:

So, I’ve had some decent placements and close calls earlier, but this was actually my first win at any Netrunner tournament. Whether a small store champs or not, I’ll take it.

This is practically the list by amavric. I did some tweaking but the only change that sticked was -1 Abagnale +1 Amina. I’ll stand by it.

The old Geist list of similar vein is probably one of my favorite runners of all time, so having a chance to reheat that old passion of mine was definitely something I could not ignore.

Most important note:

• I do not recommend just netdecking this for a tournament and ”figure it out while playing.” Try it out beforehand. I consider myself somewhat competent with the mentioned Geist lists, but the pacing is still different enough that I needed to relearn how to pace my plays. And if you have never played either, the amount of triggers will likely wear you down.

This deck will be able to do almost anything* once you know the ropes. It does require you to understand the gamestate of both decks and contrast them to the lines you have available to perform well. And not all the lines are instantly obvious.

This performed 3-1 on the day and I always felt I was in control. I won against Gagarin, PD and MirrorMorph. The one game I lost was big money Acme with their boomerang-unfriendly, horrible ICE where I couldn’t find my breakers in time. Still I was able to get in tons of (whiffed) Stargates and accesses. My conclusion is that the deck performs quite well even when the best line is not available.

So some thoughts on the card choices etc:

• Amina. While learning the deck I never got the Abagnale to work. It does qualify for The Back, but it always felt too expensive to actually break anything serious and the bypass is single use only. The main thing to remember from Geist was that I usually don’t want to install either decoder and instead just use Boomerangs or face to deal with code gates as long as possible. But when I want to actually break Mausolus etc, the total cost of install+break is the same after the first run. Depending on the matchup you can also utilize Simulchip to lower the install cost down to 1-4 depending how many Tech Traders you have.

• During testing I tried - 1 Fermenter - 2 Blueberry!™ Diesel + 2 Deuces Wild +1 Security Testing, but reverted back quite rapidly. On paper SecTest should synergize with the Q-Loop and give you a sense of what you can pull of during your turn. In practice it felt clunky: corp wanted to ice archives, burst money from Fermenter was direly missed and if you drew SecTest towards the end, it did not really help. Deuces were nice, but this was not the way to do it.

• Prognostic Q-Loop is really awesome. I would love to find a way to slot 3x in order to see the first copy asap. On the other hand there is not much to cut and you only need the first copy so adding the third also means you are going to get more redundant draws late game. Try to use this on corps turn whenever you know there is something installable. Paying one credit to trigger means you can save a click you would have used to draw said card and another to install it. If you afterwards click once for credit you are still a whole click ahead. And all this before considering Az or Masterwork triggers that you can get on corps turn.

• Miss Bones. Definitely 1x, meta-dependently 2x. I did not need this on the day, but it does help with asset spams tremendously.

• Flip Switch I was suspicious about this, but it does work. You can find use for all three abilities. Still probably something to cut if the cuts are needed.

• Mutual Favor Since Az does not draw like Geist did, this will help you find some permament solutions for ice.

• Revolver. Still wondering whether I should cut these for Bukhgalter and Blueberry!™ Diesel. But on the other hand the numbers are great and usually you have enough fuel between these, Simulchip and boomerangs so that you don’t run out of steam.

• Clot. Did not need even once during the day, 10/10, would not change. But if you feel like there will be no fast advance at all, here is a deckslot and two influence to spare.

• The Back didn’t fire once, most of the time I won before it became relevant and once I had more important things to do. Make that what you will. I’m tempted to consider removing this, but get always this visceral scare that it is a really horrible idea.

All in all, this is a really nice deck. There is no going around the fact that Geist was way more consistent due to constant draw and here you will sometimes suffer from getting stuck with no other ways to further the game than clicking for cards.

And moving forward, that is what I’d love to solve next. - 1 Miss Bones / Flip Switch / Spy Camera, +1 Blueberry!™ Diesel if you want to play it safe. I’m tempted to try The Class Act but it might cost too much and one needs to be careful not nomboing it with Prognostic Q-Loop shenanigans. If you are really pushing it, maybe even -1 Mutual Favor -1 Miss Bones, +2 The Class Act? (Don’t hold me responsible if this does not work. Give me credit if it does.) Final flex card is probably Revolvers into Bukhgalter. Another direction would be to find room for Docklands Pass to pile up the HQ pressure.

On the other hand this deck will likely not survive Tech Trader rotation without heavy support from new cards, so maybe the time of Geisty decks is over for the time being.

On the day I went 3-1 with runner and 4-0 with corp. If you are interested, check out my take on what cards 48 and 49 should be in Jakuzas Ciabhata CtM.

All in all I had a great time and it was amazing to actually play live Netrunner since who knows how long. Thanks for everyone!

*almost anything not guaranteed