Decisively Tier 2 Faust Lock - ANRPC Labyrinth 2nd Qualifier

Background: Just started playing Netrunner 2-3 months ago as a hobby with the long-distance GF.Had some time this weekend so I just went to ANRPC and decided to play without any expectations but to have fun. I was 4th overall and was the 2nd qualifier as some others had already qualified. Went Reina because I'm a jerk and I want to have fun at the corp's expense. :)

Report: Only went 2-3 unfortunately. I usually play corp with the lady so I've been trying to grind runner games against random opponents online as my runner game, admittingly, is pretty poor in general. Peddler also let me down twice with it hitting 3 events today twice... I believe in the hands of a more skilled runner, this deck has more potential than was illustrated today. Anyways there's always next time for improvement. :)

Game 1 v Butchershop - Runner baited a casting call + explode out early on when I didn't have enough money to safely take it. (I didn't do the math correctly) and I actually took it anyways but there was no midseasons. The runner later told me he was bluffing and hoping I wouldn't take it which I shouldn't have if I could do math to make a free early score. I believe he actually did well at the end of the day; I just wasn't 'good' enough to do be afraid xD. Eventually he did get 16 tags on me but next turn I Mediumed into R&D for the win.

Game 2 v Titan: Falco eventually won first seed in the tournament and he was an extremely cunning opponent. Every time I broke into his scoring server I found junk and every time I left it open he had an atlas waiting to be scored. I had a good lock at the start but I made a major mistake by jumping into an archer. I had a mimic/faust/data sucker out and could have just got a few tokens but I got greedy and it set me back. I had to deja vu a faust back costing me a lot of tempo in credits and time. Another mistake was leaving the Mark Yale just sitting there. I should have ran it once just to get him to use it for the 2 cash. It cost me at the end because I had a hostile and he had a hostile scored (archered) so there was one left while he had 1 credit + atlas token. Nerve agented (4) his hand and got an agenda but it wasn't enough. Plan was to run the yale that turn to make him use it to get to 3 money and quality time out an account siphon (I levied earlier) + peddler into a siphon (and something else to dump siphon into heap) + same ole (already installed). Obviously an incredible long shot but worth a chance. Then I could buy a turn to run R&D and break archer with faust + data for a 1 card Hail Mary dig and nerve agent HQ again for 5 in case he drew an agenda. Anyways the game was lost at mistakes long before this.

Game 3 v NEH: Got the headlock + imp going and dug out the agendas from R&D. I had a trapped peddler this game with Account + 2 dejas but was luckily able to win.

Game 4 v HB:ETF - Made some misplays. Should have trashed the assets before I attempted siphons. Had some nice headlock in the mid game and got to 5 points but the early tempo losses eventually allowed ETF to slip out of the lock and win. I also queen's gambited an ABT lol.

Game 5 v NEH Butchershop: I made a huge mistake by not checking an astro turn 3 and tilted after. Got 2 IHW + (deja?) stuck in a peddler and didn't get good control of the game after. I couldn't find an Imp until my opponent got all 3 marked accounts out so my siphons were a desperate struggle at best. At the end I just took the Beale -> Seasons to end my misery. Leaving it would have only gotten my opponent 6-0 + astro tokens and full board control regardless.

Decklist:

Events: I went for a levy + quality time instead of 3 siphons which wasn't as good as many of my opponents were NEH compared to play testing where I ran against more RPs. Nonetheless, there was never a time where I got a levy and wished it was an account siphon so it didn't matter. Because of faust, I'm afraid of milling my deck too fast and a 2nd wind actually mattered a lot in play testing. Quality time is a "stimhack" for faust and just provides some draw when I'm looking for w/e. I stuck one queen's gambit in there for some quick cash and I don't want more of these because of peddler and after you use one of them, the runner tends to play around getting queened a 2nd time anyways. Overall it worked out except that one time I queened into an ABT. Vuja De siphons / parasites / etc is a mandatory include.

Hardware: The only thing I need is Grimoire. I'm running quite a few viruses and programs so MU is nice and a free token is awesome.

Resources: Peddler is a good card but it let me down today. Nonetheless it usually is amazing. In playtesting it only triple event once out of 20+ games. This deck is average on draw and peddler helps you get the program you need. 3 Armitages if you need short term money. You don't care if it gets trashed if playing tagme anyways since you only install it when you need it and the corp might not want to waste the limited money they have to get rid of it or the click. SOT was kind of weak since you don't really want a turn to be SOT siphon -> clear 2 tags against my butchershop opponents. It's only useful if you are going tagme with it or to recur a ditched levy. Can replace one of them if needed.

Breakers: No yog.0 as common code gates are easy to break with faust or parasite. 3 mimics because komainu is the 'only' truly scary ice to face check. They need 6 money too since you're Reina. 1 corroder for deck space. Other common barriers are faustable or easily parasited. D4vid is a solution for wraparound. I didn't really have problems breaking in today or in play testing. You just have to be really crafty in which servers you care about and which breakers you have available at the time. Face check everything to find out except komainu if they have 6 credits v RP. Make the corp rez something each turn. If they don't rez then you get free access. Just don't play passive and let them collect cash.

Programs: You gotta play with what you have. The key is to be flexible with your goals and not focus on one server. Most of the time your opponent is stuck on one or zero rezzed ice because you crescentus anything expensive with d4vid. Bioroid ice gets crescentus too. Medium / Nerve Agent for your multi-access. Parasite to wreck anything low-strength. Datasucker to combo with Faust/mimic/parasite. Imp is needed to trash corp operations or money assets. You shouldn't be super rich as Reina because that means you're not playing aggressively enough so you'll need Imp to trash things that are costly.

Stuff Cut: Lamprey: You can stick it in. I have enough viruses and I need all the tools I have to make sure I can get in the first place so I cut the lamprey.

Wanton: I had this in before the Queen's Gambit but I just inserted a nerve agent anyways for multi HQ access. I don't really have to wreck all of HQ so Wanton wasn't that helpful but Queen's when I'm poor is nice.

Final Thoughts: Don't forget your 1 link. :) Overall I still need a lot of work and I'm sure a better runner will be able to pilot / design this deck a bit better. Faust makes it so that being poor isn't a factor in making runs or at least not as much which lowers the inconsistency with Reina that's been locked out of siphons.

Overall: I played astrobiotics as my corp as my tournament staple and played a high risk/reward runner deck since I knew my runner game was weaker. Definitely need to practice more runner decks overall and watch more competitive runner games. :)

Shoutout to the DC crew for playing with me. Also to TeamworkCast. Watching intermediate / high-level play really helped me understand nuances in competitive Netrunner. It also gave me nice entertainment during lunch. :) Finally one last shout-out to the lady for grinding 100+ runner games out with me since I started. She only likes to play runner so it helped me develop a reasonable corp game.

*Will fill out full report + card choices later.