Tournament report - Store Championship Hamburg

On Saturday, March 15th a small group of our Berlin City Grid decided to squeeze into one car and take chances at the Hamburg Store Championship 2014.

We departed at 6:40 which forced me to bring at least 3 red bull, a travel mug full of coffee to have a minimum chance to stay focused at the tournament which began at 10 am. 

With good mood and after picking up the last buddy we spend most of the time during the trip talking, laughing and already predicting the Hamburg meta which was a surprise (or not). I will write about that later.

Due to our fastidious planning we arrived in time at 9:55 to register and got in touch with the other participants who were mainly from Hamburg. Only one other nice guy came from Münster.

The store the whole event took place in was awesome. The Atlantis Game Store is one of the best locations I ever had the luck to visit. It is huge, well decorated, comfy and elegant in the same way and provides 2 different play areas at the first floor and basement. It is a bit more pricey but offers discounts for several games.

I fear it would be swarmed by all those Yugioh and Pokemon kids but on Saturday it was blocked for the Netrunner players which created a nice atmosphere. One match per table assured enough space and the store provided snacks and drinks to buy.

The tournament organizer who I won't name here out of thoughtfulness did a great job. He introduced the event, set up the tournament rules and judges and soon we were ready to play. He was the first TO I met who performed deck checks which earned my respect. I would not accuse somebody for cheating but it send a good signal to everybody. 

We were 15 players in total so one of us got a bye for every round. I was chosen first which gave me the opportunity to look at all the identities played. It was a little bit disappointing because a lot of players brought netdecks to the tournament which is not something bad or condemn-able in general but lacks a bit of self-confidence or eagerness to experience with their own decks (my 2 cents). Some told me they downloaded a deck the day before the tournament they never had played with before. Well, I should not stick my own head out too much because I started with Andromeda and NBN:TWIY too. Criminals and NBN dominated the tournament. One player played HB:CI and the rest Weyland. Jinteki was missing. On the runners side I spotted one Kid, 2 Noise players and the rest of the pack played Andromeda or Gabe.

Most Andromeda decks I saw played the anarch breaker suite with Datasucker, the occasional Femme and Knight. Weyland was 50 % pure tag'n'bag or rush hybrid decks.

Round 1: bye for me

Round 2: NBN:TWIY and Shaper: Kid

Unfortunately my first game was vs. one of my friends from Berlin. Nevertheless we both played for winning. He had a good start with his Kid deck and was able to snitch 4 Agenda Points out of R&D when I still faced one of the worst draws I could imagine. 2 x 4/2, 2 x Archer and a shipment from sansan on my starting hand after the mulligan (before I had 4 Agendas).

Well, I was able to recover to 3 points with one Astro and destroyed his Yog with an Archer but he finished the game with one Beale from HQ and another draw from R&D. 

He played NBN fast advance so I run aggressively and was able to install Keyhole soon. I rampaged through his R&D and trashed multiple Agendas and Jackson Howards. The funny part was that I had at least 6 tags and he played a Psychographics decks and only 1 credit was missing on his side to score another Beale. He used Jackson 3 times to put agendas back into his R&D but finally the pressure was too intense and I won. Close!

Round 3:Andromeda and NBN:TWIY

A pretty solid criminal deck with Datasucker and not really any surprise. I was able to play 2 sweep weeks during the first round so I had a strong economy and rezzed Tollbooth in front of R&D and HQ. I was able to build up a lot of pressure with 2 early Astroscripts with one token each. He snitched a Breaking News. Although my Archer was no obstacle for his Faerie he stole no agenda from R&D although I feared he would after installing a R&D Interface.

The game was very exciting because he had tons of credits after several Armitage Codebusting actions, Kati Jones or Desperado runs. I was not able to tax him down noteworthy so I gambled at the end and installed a Beale in an open remote and one additional ICE (only popup) and one GRNDL in my protected remote (3 Ice in total, 2 rezzed). He prepared for 3 clicks and attacked the remote. I really saw him considering a run on the lonely card but he could not risk it. I scored Beale and won next turn.

He played NBN and I was able to steal one agenda from R&D early, one Breaking News he installed unprotected and after a Sneakdoor, HQ Int., HQ Int. run I snitched one additional 2 pointer (Astro). He made a mistake and clicked for Jackson with 2 cards on his hand. I run HQ and stole 2 agendas. The game was over very fast but very intense due to the speed.

Round 4: Gabe and NBN:TWIY

I was able to score one Astro and 1 breaking news during the early game but he installed Desperado in first round and was able to siphon me 3 times during crucial periods of the game. He got lucky and snitched the two 2 pointer of 5 cards from my hand during 2 turns and stole another from R&D. It was only a matter of time and he won the game after finding a Breaking news. He played a Knight which I was able to destroy with my Archer but inevitably he did not needed it. 

In contrast, however my Andromeda deck ripped through his defenses easily and with 2 well placed Inside Jobs I was able to score 4 points before he scored something. I only made one unsuccessful keyhole run and decided to run his hand more aggressively because he drew cards a lot but never played a single one. I won quite fast but this guy (first place at the end) was tough.

Round 5: Andromeda and NBN:TWIY

My opponent was a nice guy from Hamburg and I really enjoyed the game. I was a bit nervous because I had no idea about the overall scoring but thought I could reach first place if I would win both games. I started as a runner and again Keyhole kept his promise and shredded through his R&D. I guess I got most of the points from R&D which was only protected by a Pop Up Window and one wraparound. the game was over in 10 minutes. I constantly trashed ICE I could not break so his defenses were weakened a lot. 

The NBN game was one of the most hilarious games I ever had. He constantly ignored my Dataraven but put out a Plascrete just in case. I had no scorched in my hand but I assumed he was afraid of getting flatlined. I was able to score a Market Research worth 3 points as my first agenda. He stole one Astroscript. I was getting nervous because he never played a siphon or other events. He trashed my San San and Marked Accounts constantly which was in my favor because he lost a bunch of credits. After he discarded 2 Inside Jobs I tried to gamble and scored one Astro behind a single Bastion. He attacked my HQ furiously and I was expecting him to shut down my Archer in front of R&D. It never came. At the end I scored another Marked Research with SanSan City Grid and my Astroscript token.

All of his Account Siphons were still in his deck (only 15 cards left).

After everybody finished I was pretty convinced to make it top 3 but it was one lost game which denied me the 1 place. Nevertheless I was very happy with the mat which is really awesome and got two copies of Kati Jones like everybody else. 

I really enjoyed the weekend. I spend a whole day with my friends, a super hilarious journey, I met nice people and was pretty successful. ;) Let's see how the next store championship will be.

As I mentioned before I was surprised to see so many people using net decks and I can only encourage people to make their own experience. I still believe that a deck you defined during several month will still perform better as a standard Andromeda deck. It will be still strong but the player wins the game not the deck.

I will release my "Evolution of my Andromeda deck" post soon to explain my point of view more clearly.

Keep running!

Pictures: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/organized-play/2014/store-championships/adn-2014-storechamp-prizes.png