Earlier this year, EA Sports showed the world the way of 'make them have it' with the debut of EAzmari. A nasty kill deck focused on forcing the runner into a position where they take exactly one more damage than they have cards in hand. This deck aims to do the same in Startup, provided they are not playing T400 Memory Diamond which let's be honest they aren't.

• Round 1: Win vs Dungeonmxter on Kit with Punitive Counterstrike
• Round 3: Lose vs Lap on Mercury, notes on loss at end of article.
• Round 5: Win vs Cobalt on Tāo with Punitive Counterstrike.

While both it's wins were on punitive counterstrike, it's worth noting all of them were forced through requiring the runner to interact with and disarm a kill line. All the runners successfully disarmed the kill, but only Lap found a way to survive afterwards.

The kill lines are plentiful:

• Fujii with 3 advancements: Double Advance, Neurospike.
• Fuuji with one advancement and a Holo Man: Holo Man, Advance, Neurospike.
• SHTR with 3 advancements: Advance, Neurospike, Neurospike
• SHTR with 1 advancements: Holoman, Neurospike, Neurospike

All of these produce 6 damage, in addition to double Punitive off of a Holo Man. You can also throw Daniela Jorge Inácio on a central or on a Fujii to all but guarantee the follow up punitive.

The ice suite is designed to wall up and keep them out as quickly and aggressively as possible. Often by turn 6 or 7 on a similar timescale to EAzmari, using the many econ tools in the deck to make sure you are ready to afford the combo.

The Loss

The one game this deck lost at the event was against Lap, who put on a masterclass of disarming the combo. I had the kill on table four times through the course of the game, and in a combination of Hermes and forcing me to rez ice to the point where I couldn't afford to close the combo he was able to prevent me bringing it home. In hindsight, if I had chosen discards slightly better, I think I might have had the win on the final disarm as I'd have been 2 credits richer (due to keeping a Hansei Review where later I ended up clicking for credits), but I don't even know if that would have been the correct line at the time I discarded the Hansei, just another world where a worse play would have led to the win!

I was fortunate enough to get to meet Lap again in the finals, where I was able to find the win through a very spicy BTL deck with some good accesses on centrals. It was some very fun and engaging Netrunner, and I'm very glad to have both had the opportunity to play in it against so many other excellent Startup players, and been able to convert it and take home the bragging rights!

• Runner List