im bankhy, 10/22 @ District Champs 2025

Before I get completely into this overlong write up, I wanna say thank you to maninthemoon for running an amazing, flawless buttery smooth fast-firing tournament. I don't get out to local events very often outside of bigger regional tournaments, and I'm always struck by how well ya'll run things!

Secondly, that Netrunner is my favorite card game of all time. I loved it back in the 90s playing it as a wee child, I loved it (mostly) during the FFG years, and I love it even more now. No other card game has the freedom of expression Netrunner has with its PnP and proxies OK! nature, nor has a card game community felt so welcoming. Everyone is there for the love of the game, purely, and it rocks. Okay onto the write up.

Hello. When the District Championships were first announced on ABR, I spotted the extremely sick SDS Drone Deployment alts, and decided I had to have them. But; I hadn't played Netrunner in weeks; my own jank builds were feeling especially middling, and there wasn't anything I was really tuned into playing.

But I really wanted those SDSes.

My last Runner, a very silly Tao deck using Poison Vials and single use Resource breakers was funny but not reliable, especially with Trick Shot on the ban list. Also, I'm a Criminal player first and foremost, and who's the first and foremost Criminal? Monsiuer Steven Camembert, of course.. I finally landed on Kikai's excellent Bankhar Steve. I subbed out 6 cards in total to tune it more to my tastes, Emergency Shutdowns became Window of Opportunities, Paragon became Hermes, a Revolver became a Miss Bones (never installed once), and Dockland Pass became Cupellation. I then just ran this over and over into the wall of jNet randos, and man.

Bankhar Steve is really fun. Like really really fun. Who needs the draw of Lat when you can know what you're gonna draw via Steve? Plus playing Tremolo was extra funny, even if I'll never ever install that awful card PAN-Weave.

I've written a couple deck reports before, but nothing even remotely high placing. Is 10th out of 22 a high placing??? I feel good about it at least and I felt really good about both my decks going into this District Championship, mostly because I didn't design the bones of either of them. I ran a barely modified version of IonFox's FA BTL. With that, let's get to the match reports!!!

1st Round Loss vs ThatsNoMun - Ob
Early gas, Bankhar lands turn two with a Hermes to snipe off single agendas off R&D. At a certain point both HQ & R&D were parked with Afshars but I thought they were Ankhets so I kept digging for a Tremolo I didn't need and even burn off my Shibboleths accident.. Managed to steal a 3rd 2-pointer with a fully charged Wake but ended up 1 credit short of the big hail mary R&D run, and he Audacity'd out the winning agenda next turn. I think I had first game jitters to tell you the truth, and misplayed a whole lot. I even missed a Boomerang early in the game as well that really cost me!

3rd Round Win vs James - A Teia
I open with Gamble Bankhar Career Day Class Act and proceed to keep him as low on credits as possible . At a certain point I eat a full Anansi to trash a Charlotte out of a remote and sending him to 0. Bankhar gets me through a Karunā on HQ for less, and Revolver shows up when I don't want to eat the damage. Steve generates so much advantage here for me that I'm able to keep an economic head with Diversion of Funds showing up right when I need it for once, Eventually I find a Fujii and a Bacterial, with time called he extends his hand.

5th Round Win vs Cadenze - PE
I mull a decent hand into a terrible one that lets me stick an early Bankhar, but running R&D has me faceplant into a Snare!. The power of Bankhar means all those bad cards areactually sub breaks though!!! I stay pretty poor for the first two turns; I manage to snatch a Fujii on the 3rd turn, and spend the next few turns moneying up and manually drawing like 10 cards. They score a Longetivity Serum naked installed on the board with a Moon Pool (I ain't touching 6 different servers against PE, no no), but I keep them constantly rezzing ice to stay poor. Eventually a Cupellation trigger lets me see 3 cards and I find the final Sting! and Fujii for exactly the cards in my hand for the win.

In the end I bubble out of top 8, unfortunately with the worst SoS. All in all though, I'm satisfied with my results, and I feel like my mistakes were obvious in hindsight. It's always a treat to come out to Netrunner events and all this did was encourage me to come out more. See ya'll on the other side!

P.S.: I really got those SDSes.