Today: a Netrunner tournament at a local gaming shop with my friend Dimestore; (At least that’s his nom de net).

It’ll be first constructed tournament, and my second Netrunner tournament overall.

My corp deck, I’m pretty comfortable with, I’ve played it a few times and I know what it needs. Then again, I swapped out a handful of cards last night and I’m not sure how much impact that’ll have.

My runner deck, not so much. Its been evolving over the last little while, but I’ve not played it enough. It’s been virtually scrapped twice in the last 24 hours. I started with a something that straddled two different ideas,  but its now much tighter and focused mostly on a single concept now.

Odds are good I’ll write up a summary after the tournament, with some thoughts on what worked and what didn’t. There’s two more tournaments coming up next month and I’ll be able to play in both of them.

Right now, I’m riding the bus and I’m typing up this post as a way to clear my mind and warm up my brain. To me, it feels like the writing style is different than my usual style, but I’m not sure how much that’ll come across. I feel like I’m being more deliberate and less casual about my word choice.

On some level, that’ll be because I’m typing on the phone, and I have to concentrate more on the typing than I do when I’m at a keyboard.

I’ll get there shortly, I’ll get registered, then have a coffee while I wait for things to get started. Or maybe a hot chocolate, since I don’t need the caffeine jitters.

—

An hour later, registration is done, maintenance has been taken care of and people are socialising before the tournament.

Given the number of people attending, its unlikely I’ll be taking home one of the prizes today. This one has prizes for the top 8, so my odds weren’t terrible if only a dozen people showed up, but I think we are at twice that number.

I had my coffee at the Starbucks after I arrived. The app told me it was free because of my upcoming birthday; a pleasant surprise.

I’m not sure a peppermint mocha was the best choice. It was tasty, but I’m feeling a little bit twitchy. Hard to tell if its the caffeine or the nerves.

Still, I’m not here for victory, as much as I might covet getting a cool play mat, I’m here to have a fun social Saturday.

Afterwards I’ve got to run some errands and then I’ve committed to heading down to Noir. In theory I should take my violet wand with me, and do some electrical play demos.

And now, it begins.

—

The first match up is over. My runner deck lost, a combination of card draw issues and memory issues. My corp deck won due to the timer rule. It was close though. Initially my adjustments and his choice of runner threw me off, as the math was slightly different than I was expecting.

Time for a bite to eat, then the next round.

Dimestore lost one and tied one, the tie being one he had the advantage on, but the time wasn’t on his side. He tends to play rather slowly, so this isn’t unexpected. His matchup had the amusing coincidence of a set of neutralisation elements for the other players ability.

—
Next round was Dimestore and I, which was a brutal matchup. We’d played each other a few times, so it was a semi predictable battle. Our first battle took forever, but I managed to just barely win. Our second match was high speed, as we had less than 20 minutes to play the entire game. My opening hand was amazing, his was a stalled hand. He had a deadly deck, but I managed to stay alive.

—
My third match up is against Nels of Terminal Seven.

—

That was a hell of a pair of games. I’ll need to actually write them up in detail for the Netrunner geeks, but suffice it to say that it was bizarre. The first game was one of the longest I’ve played in a while. We finished with less than 10 minutes left. And then started the second game, which ended with a 4-3 time over victory.

It was some of most fun I’ve had in a while.

—

Fourth game, I’m feeling burnt out. I suspect a sugar crash. I should have planned better in terms of caffeine and snacks.

I lost both games, my worst pair of matches of the day.

—

Fifth round, I got a bye. I’m not sure what that means in terms of my overall ranking, but I don’t think it’s a good sign. Still, it’s been an interesting day. I’ve still got to run those errands before heading down to Noir, but I’m quickly running out of time.

—

So, got the final rankings, and I came in 15th out of 20 players. Dimestore came in 19th. He was happy not to be dead last.