Neal's Last Words

by Byron "Neal" Massey

"What's Netrunner?"

Friday, June 26 Get in the car at 11:30 AM and drive to the bank. Realize I have forgotten some things at the house. Get them and make it out of town by noon.

2:30 PM Arrive in Eugene, Oregon. Visit with family until 8:00 PM, then get back in the car and head out.

10:30 PM Pull into Portland, Oregon. Visit with a friend until 12:30 AM, then crash on the couch. Awakened at 6:30 AM by the cat. Get in the car at 9:00 AM and head out again.

12:00 AM Nearly rear-end a long line of cars stopped on the freeway. Avoid collision by swerving into the path of a van who nearly does the same thing to me.

"I'll pay good money for information leading to his arrest and capture."

12:30 PM Arrive at the Crossroads Mall in Bellvue, Washington, just outside of Seattle. Drive around the parking lot for a while, looking for the WotC game center. Finally decide to park and go inside. Once inside, choose to turn left and walk down the mall. No sign of any WotC store on the mall directory. Ask the Information lady where to go for a Netrunner tournament. She points to the other end of the mall. Head out.

12:50 PM Arrive at the WotC gaming center for a 1:00 PM tournament. No one I have ever played or met before is there, including Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, who is running the tournament. See a young man standing behind the counter in the WotC equivalent of a McDonald's uniform. He is trying to grow his first beard with mixed success. Ask him if there is going to be a Netrunner tournament here. He replies, "What's Netrunner?"

Epilogue

I got third place in the tournament (yes I was in the right place) despite losing only one game all day. I played two different opponents who took way too long. The official tournament rules for Netrunner say that the judge is supposed to penalize people who take too long, but that didn't happen here. Truthfully, I didn't mind, it was fun to play and I avenged an earlier loss to a Seattle-area player.

Krash

Krash is the only one-card breaker suite that runs no risk of blowing itself up. That reason alone is enough motivation to try it. My last really fun Runner deck that actually had a chance of winning consisted of the following cards:

Hardware (4) Preps (36) Programs (6)

4 Armored Fridge

1 Krash
1 Enterprise, Inc., Shields
1 Afreet
1 Taxman
1 Vienna 22
1 Disintegrator
4 Edited Shipping Manifests
13 Drone For A Day
3 Hijack
4 The Personal Touch
10 Bodyweight Synthetic Blood
2 MIT West Tier

It's a TagMe stack, so try to get the Armored Fridges down as soon as possible. You are an obvious victim for Power Grid Overload, but no plan is foolproof. You could trade the Fridges and Hijacks for Full Body Conversions but you would still be vulnerable early.

HQ is the sole focus. You could take out the Disintegrator and Afreet and replace them with an Imp, False Echo, and two Demoltion Runs. That might make the effect of the virii and Shipping Manifests more dramatic.