NANPC Montréal: Top Cut - Round 1 - Jinteki P.E. (Erin) vs. Arissana (Terence) - Android: Netrunner

[@aleksandersabak]

The simple explanation of why 0 is even is that even numbers are those divisible by 2, and you don't need a fractional amount of twos to construct a zero, you just get yourself zero twos and you're done. The reasoning you mentioned (zero is one less than 1 and 1 is odd) is also used in some areas of math, though usually the other way around: zero is defined as *the* even number, and for each other number it's even if it's one more than an odd number, and it's odd if it's one more than an even number. That's an inductive definition.

[@ernestotheiv3736]

I love your Videos ❤ Greetings from Germany

[@brightsides3933]

Plural of House of Knives is Cutlery Street

[@Hattes]

That's the one that ends with a fork in the road

[@sprout_ella]

Congratulations on 750 !!

[@nucklepuckk]

A neighborhood of knives

[@EddyTheYeti79]

So much fun to watch these match ups! Ty! Regarding Kat’s SMC alt art… Is there a way of getting more of their other alt art cards locally? I wish I had bought more at NANPC MTL!

[@MetropoleGrid]

Cat has a store page up on Make Playing Cards! - www.makeplayingcards.com/sell/kysra

[@Locustnism]

Your commentary is so clear. Have you considered ever doing a how to play?

[@Atrott88]

Hey Andrej! Phenomenal commentary as always. I was hoping for some insight into how you combat decks like the one Erin is piloting here? Jinteki PE, and kill decks in general, are wreaking havoc in my local meta. I absolutely cannot figure out how to deal with these vicious decks that can eschew traditional scoring in exchange for persistent, disruptive damage, then eventually coming in for the kill. Meanwhile I have to just pretend like everything is okay while I'm discarding 1-4 cards per turn, trying to keep the hand size up only to eat combo that can kill even a full hand. There seems to be so many reliable ways to deal decent, consistent damage, and I feel like I am just barely hanging on for the entire game. From my (limited) local perspective, these asset spam net/meat damage decks are a dime a dozen, and I just can't seem to crack them as a runner. Is there a video or blog you could point me to that might help save my sanity? All the best.

[@MetropoleGrid]

Hey! Thanks for the kind words! This is a really fascinating topic, and often a pain point for many. Just so we're on the same page, there are a whole bunch of different successful PE net damage archetypes (Prana assets, 'Cambridge' shell-game, grinder, etc.), and while they each come with their own nuances, there are some basic ideas that span the whole field. Firstly, we should try and make sure we're playing a bit of damage tech. To be clear, I think more focused play patterns are often superior to the hardest of tech (for example, you can play Caldera if you want to, but I wouldn't recommend it). However, there's luckily damage tech in each faction that is universally playable regardless of the Corp field. If you're an Anarch, I wouldn't leave home without 3x Steelskin Scarrings. 95% of the time, we don't play these, but keep these as insurance to an accessed trap or the Corp's kill combo. As a Criminal, I appreciate a full playset of The Class Act, which we install during a turn where we drop to an unsafe number of cards in hand. Lastly, as Shaper, we are spoiled with options. Lat and Aniccam give you boatloads of safety, and installing and keeping a Stoneship Chartroom or two around as insurance makes you nigh-unkillable to any surprises. If we're specifically talking about assets PE, I'd also consider getting some asset tech into your deck, which is still appreciated against the rest of the Standard field. Miss Bones is immense, and Paricia or Scrubber are also quite alright. I'm also a big fan of Hannah Wheels Pilintra, as her free runs to check assets and her click-gaining panic button provide a lot of utility. There's also generic tech cards against trap decks, like Stargate, which allows you to dodge the Snare!'s from R&D, and DJ Fenris into Steve Cambridge, which gives you half your deck back. The next big point is to stay calm. If you're packing a bit of damage tech, the Corporation often needs to do a lot of work to either land a flatline or score to seven points. You don't have to do anything too quickly. In this game, Terence took a big risk accessing R&D with too few cards in hand. Had Terence not taken that risk, Erin would likely need another dozen or so turns to close the game out. Always keep that in mind - if you are hard to kill, these decks take a long time to score to seven points. You have more time than you think you do. Don't rush and overextend. Particularly, don't tilt. Speaking about accessing with too few cards in hand, as a rule, you almost never want to access with fewer than three cards in hand. Three is the breakpoint that flatlines you to Snare! or a Fujii Asset Retrieval alongside PE's damage. This is something we should always be respecting. On that note: run early, draw late. This is often the play pattern into PE. Take the runs at the top of the turn, so if you do hit a trap and lose cards from hand, you can spend the rest of your turn drawing up. Ending your turn on low cards in hand is an obvious risk. This is how Runners have been beating PE for the last decade. Another important shift of thinking about the net damage matchup is reevaluating the 'value' of each of your cards. Imagine this scenario - the PE player installs a Fujii Asset Retrieval behind an unrezzed Anemone. If we want to run and steal the agenda, we'll take two net damage from the Anemone on-rez text, and three more from Fujii and PE (we're assuming we can break the Anemone). That's five cards. That's a lot. However, assuming we have our killer down, this run probably only costs us one credit. That's super cheap. This is a really big idea to keep in mind against PE - often the real tax is not about credits, but about cards. With that in mind, we need to reevaluate every single card we draw. Is the Sure Gamble better played as a click for four credits, or kept in hand as a "hit point". In a fair few scenarios, it's better as a hit point. In these damage matchups we don't need to generate nearly as many credits as against other Corporations, nor as quickly. Keep your Sure Gamble in hand and click for credits. What about a Miss Bones? She'll become a single click for ten credits in the asset matchup. Compared to Sure Gamble, installing Bones seems like a much better use of a hit point. I think this last point is the biggest perspective shift that can help a Runner play against net damage. For better or worse, in the PE matchup you're often not incentivised to play your cute multi-card combo Runner deck, but rather install your breakers, your minimum necessary value pieces, click for credits, and make early runs. It's not flashy, but it works. You saw this catch up to the Runner a bit in this replay. Finally, as a staple rule against trap Jinteki decks, they're often weaker on central servers. Advanceable traps like Urtica Cipher and Cerebral Overwriter don't do anything on R&D, so that's a great place to go find them and destroy them. Oh, and of course, facecheck with a killer. Saisentan is rough. There's definitely a lot more that can be said about the topic. Here's a link to an old Stimhack article about both sides of the matchup, which I remember enjoying when I read it years ago - stimhack.com/deconstructing-shellgame-by-tehepicwin/ If you have any more questions, don't hesitate, eh.

[@Atrott88]

@@MetropoleGrid This is tremendously helpful, thank you so much for the time and thought to put all of that down. I've since played a few games with your advice in mind, and it has made a world of difference. Stoneship alone has saved my marriage. I particularly appreciate the distinction between beneficial *cards and beneficial *approaches. Both have given me the tools, and the confidence, to tackle these intimidating decks. An aside: I was familiar with stimhack as an institution, but didn't quite know where to start--thanks so much for giving me somewhere to begin. I love the academic, philosophic, strategic approach to studying the game. Lord knows Netrunner is deep enough to accommodate it, and some of your content--"lead the dance" and "find the agendas" both come to mind--are exactly in that spiritual sitmhack vein, revealing and exploring the depths of Netrunner fundamentals. I would love to see you to explore more of those ideas behind the game in a series of videos that were compressed into a shorter "curriculum." Me, and all the folks I've encouraged to pick up the game recently, would undeniably engage with and benefit from something like that. It's hard to know where to point folks when they're first getting started. Thanks again for all of your extraordinary work keeping the discourse alive and being such a positive communicator of, and for, the game. Cheers.

[@mufasa5851]

any weyland at all atm?

[@ev3867]

Wayland is having a tough time of it on the upper tables. You do see the occasional BTL or Outfit decks, but it's both unpopular compared to other factions and doesn't cope super well with the runner environment dictated by the various forms of PD, Azmari, and AgInfusion.

[@MetropoleGrid]

While Weyland represented a healthy ~20% of the field at NANPC Montreal, the top placing Weyland was unfortunately just one point shy of making the top cut.

[@mo0man]

Oops

[@MetropoleGrid]

some risks were taken