Quantified Quetzal, 7th @ London Regional

Hi, I'm lif3line // Quinn, and I have a question for you, do you ever have silly ideas about card games late at night? Because I do...

I was going to be "sensible" (we may have different definitions), I was going to play something very similar to @not_yeti's Mining Assassin list that I had been playing for a few weeks (except I was calling it Mining "Accident"). It's awesome, highly recommend. Buuut, I flicked open NRDB and lo the Deck of the Week had 15 ICE and 10 were barriers. I took that personally.

I'll be the first to tell you that Quetzal is good actually. But, at least in the sort of decks I play with them they do have some notably bad matchups. Typically assets, dedicated fast advance, and decks leveraging Amani Senai or other econ warfare. Not insurmountable, but if these are in-fashion at your tournament then you should probably look at other IDs.

Quetzal shines against a lot of off-meta decks for the same reason they are decent against a good spread of fair-ish decks: they completely up-end many scoring / Rashida-ing windows. Plus basically no one practices against Quetzal, which definitely helps.

I sat down 3-4 days before this tournament and made a guess that there would be less assets + econ warfare and more Weyland in various flavours, PD, EAzmari, and various off-meta things given the results of the CBI. Which meant if I could deal with faster versions of Weyland and setup fast enough for EAzmari, then Quetzal probably had decent matchups :D

Take a deckbuilding journey with me..

Quickly Questioning Qualities (of Cards)

I started from my previous list, I like it, but I'm biased. A fair criticism of it is that it needs awhile to get properly set up. So I ask myself some questions:

• Ugh, why do I have to play Twinning?? It takes soooo long to get set up
• Chastushka, you so funny, but are you actually good here???
• How hard are people gonna try and kill me with End of the Line?
  • Amazing alt art at this tournament btw @ams
• The Price is sort of an econ card right? It definitely goes "Vrooom"..

This build basically follows these thoughts. Put in 3x The Price, we already have Steelskin and Strike Fund now we just gotta cut back other events to make sure it works. I want somewhat more than half the deck to be hits and ideally at least a quarter to be 2-3 credit cards that I'd be happy playing for their actual cost..

So we can start with the econ; Dirty Laundries can become Daily Casts, maybe more questionably so can Raindrops Cut Stone. Then multi-access / disruption tools, Chastushka I'm fine to let go, and I love Divide and Conquer but it's less good without Twinning so those are out. Now I need some other decent source of multi-access..

Manuel is good enough that the cool Netrunners are slotting him in Criminal. Good enough for me. The crew already lets me tag myself during a run, that's neat.. but I also want to run Daily Casts so I guess I mostly want to take one tag at a time then clear it.. Should I be playing Seb? No I'm committed to this bit! (maybe later)

OK Quetzal, time to bring in a favourite card of mine: Eru, multi-access, an archives threat, and I might want the tag? Sign. Me. Up. Still feeling a little light on HQ pressure though, so Eye for an Eye rounds things out nicely.

Previously I had Stoneship Chartroom in here as draw + extra kill protection but with that a little faded from the meta I think we can afford Miss Bones, which is awesome since she helps against most decks but especially our dicey asset matchup.

I also heard Praxis was pretty good, and Friend of a Friend seems plan-relevant plus a good Price hit so lets drops those in there for fun.

Soo anyway that's how I changed 13 cards in a functional deck and maybe didn't completely destroy it in the process. Played some games, managed not to lose and so sleeved it up irl. Sorted. Totally would have won the tournament if I hadn't got knocked out of the cut by submitting the wrong corp decklist. Honest guv.

Questionable Flight Path

How to pilot this deck? Mmm, well, how's your improv?

As with previous iterations, this deck is like a musical improv show. We sure have some ideas, but where are we going? There's only one way to find out!

Our breaking toolbox is all over the place. Quetzal +/- Poison Vial often beats a significant portion of their End-the-Run ICE. Bankhar breaks the outermost. Crew + Charm, Botulus, and Laamb are wildcard breakers. Unlike many runners who steadily improve their breaking abilities our ability to get into a server will likely vary wildly across a game. This isn't a weakness, this is our strength.

Criminal can behave like this between Inside Job + Boomerang + breakers and so do various other Crew decks but they're typically building to a powerful late-game with a full set of breakers. We sacrifice that end-game for a much more exciting mid-game. With only a few tools + Quetzal most servers are unsafe if we decide we want in, even with big ICE like Archer in front of them, and often for cheaper than in other decks.

Sooo play like it's a bluffing game, ask yourself, "Do they know I can just install Laamb and waltz in?", "Would this look like a scoring window if I was Hoshiko?", and just uuuhh run the right cards? You are more limited on how often you can get in than similar decks so bluff calling feels like the core on the remote and timing HQ runs.

Central pressure is more a function of board-state, get Manuel out and if there's not an immediate fire needs putting out then I think the ideal scenario is setting up a central-rush turn. Aim to take a tag first-click (Crew, Eru, Eye for an Eye, Praxis, Hannah, Friend of a Friend) and then run HQ and R&D several times. Bonus points if you crew a single piece of ICE on one of those servers so the runs are free. Actively trash cards on early clicks to search deeper, classic stuff. Finish up by clearing the tag last click.. or don't, sometimes baiting out a trash when the corp is low on credits can be just as useful especially if you have a Praxis or backup Manuel in hand and this gives you an extra click for seeing more cards.

Otherwise, sometimes you just draw Eye for an Eye and think "Yeah I bet PD does want to keep those Seamless Launches in hand, shame".

What I'm saying is, like, sometimes it depends.

Some things which are fun:

• Choosing to not approach an ICE-less server with a Hannah run to clicklessly take a tag
• Praxis run to bring back Manuel and Botulus the ICE on a central you're about to run for extra accesses
• Eru + Manuel to dig 3 into R&D (truly Finality at home)
• Eye for an Eye to trash Steelskin or Strike Fund
• Installing 2-3 breaking pieces from hand and obliterating a "secure" remote
• Breaking a 12-str Logjam for 0 + 1 counter

Quaking Foundations

I won't lie to you, this deck is a little bit of a fever dream, but in a fun way! Getting this down to 45 would certainly improve it, I'd recommend considering cutting Finality (especially as many decks seem to be running low agenda densities atm). Praxis is pretty cool and fits the vibes, but might be overkill. Hannah is good and fun, but also possibly cuttable.

Probably don't cut down on the amount of money although the specific cards are flexible.

For meme potential you should try and find room for Divide and Conquer.

Quest Ends Here

Thanks to everyone who was at the London Regional. You were all cool and lovely to hang out with:) Thanks to all the beautiful people who continue to make Netrunner such a fun and welcoming community. And thanks for reading <3