A reversal of fortune for Runners at EMEA Continentals
The 25.08 ban-list update boosts Corps of all flavours
EMEA Continentals
1st - 3rd August 2025
Germany, Köln
106 Players
10 rounds of SSS, Cut to top-16
You can watch the Swiss and Top Cut livestreams on the NSG youtube channel
You can find the Top Cut decklists here
The EMEA Continental Championship in Köln was the first of six Continental Championships to be played over the next 5 weeks, and the first tournament to be played with the 25.08 ban-list. Twinning Criminal and AU Co. were widely tipped to be the decks of choice going into this event, with some suspicion that Shaper may turn out to be uniquely well positioned. But how would this new ban-list really shake out once the cardboard started to hit the mat? Would Sable still be the default Criminal ID even with Info Bounty now gone? Would the Deep Dive ban tempt Corp players away from the delicious win rates of the golden egg? And is Anarch at all playable without Bankhar?
I asked players at the event how they felt about the tournament, and dug into the tournament statistics to get a feel for how things are playing in this new meta.
Runner
We saw a fairly even split of Anarch, Criminal and Shaper throughout the 25.04 Megacity season, but, as expected, the 25.08 banlist update has shifted that balance significantly towards blue decks. 57 players sleeved Criminal decks for the event in Köln, roughly twice the number that chose Shaper (28). Anarch, while the least popular faction, still had a semi-decent showing (21), which is perhaps surprising given rumours of the faction’s demise in the face of the Bankhar ban.
Has Bankhar really just been an Anarch deck-building crutch all along? Is infinite in-faction late-game drip economy—in the form of companions—enough to make up for the loss of the early-game pressure that comes with being able to break ICE with just your face? These tournament results suggest not.
Anarch
MrVellis
I got talked into switching to Sable (over Hoshiko) last minute, because Hosh really did feel gutted when I played it in the team tournament
Anarch had the lowest win rate (42%) and Cut Conversion (0.32x) of all three Runner factions, with only a single Hoshiko player making it into the Top Cut. One Hoshiko player that I spoke to at the main event—and who lost all of their Runner games—blamed the increase in Corp diversity. While the AU Co. matchup is perfectly fine without Bankhar, they claimed, the Ob and Nebula matchups are unwinnable. This tallies with the broader data from the event, where Hoshiko went 5-5 against AU Co., but 1-6 against Nebula, and 0-6 against Ob.
Shaper
lostgeek
Lat was a mixed-bag. Really good when it drew key cards (mostly Knickknack) in time. Bad when it didn't.
AugustusCaesar
Arissana did very well, almost going undefeated except for that one incident. I would definitely play Ari again.
The latest ban-list hit Shaper as well, of course, but nowhere near to the same extent. While the Shaper win rate (43%) was not much better than the Anarch win rate, the green faction still managed to put six players into the Top Cut. That being said, there is nothing remotely close to consensus on which cards you should actually put into your Shaper deck.
Arissana, for example, did particularly well, with a 54% win rate and 1.66x cut conversion. But what does an Arissana list look like? Well, NewPuldrix placed 13th with a remarkably sensible 45 card list—the spiciest include being a single Paladin Poemu. Meanwhile, ChonkySeal placed 16th with a 49 card Arissana deck that plays 2x Transfer of Wealth and 2 x Illumination.
There seems to be no agreement on win-condition either. Pinsel (8th) and ZomZraft (9th) both played Madani Lat, but where Pinsel used Cataloguer to close games, ZomZraft used Drones. Minstrel (15th) played Madani Mags with Khusyuk, and only a single KnickKnack. Meanwhile, self-declared “Shaper Player” not_yeti (6th) was just happy to be playing Rejig.
What does this tell us about Shaper? I have absolutely no idea. The faction is either a promising lump of clay waiting to be worked into shape, a game of rock-paper-scissors where each different configuration solves a different matchup problem, or it’s a pile of elaborate green engine cards that you hope to draw in the correct order.
Criminal
The Info Bounty ban seems to have had a significant—and dare I say welcome—impact on Criminal ID diversity. Sable was still the most popular Runner ID (22), but the symphonic prodigy managed a rather underwhelming 49% win rate and 0.6x cut conversion.
Zahya converted better into the Top Cut (1.99x), but it was Matryoshka MuslihaT that emerged as the Criminal ID to beat—with 4 of the Top Cut on almost identical decks, and davz131 leveraging the power of the multifarious marketeer’s passive draw to win the whole tournament.
MattOhNo
I think I'd play MusilhaT blind if you made me do a second Continental tomorrow
Interestingly, while MuslihaT did well into Ob (8-4) and other Corps, she seemed to struggle into AU Co. (6-10) and Nebula (3-8).
Corp
giventofly
I was really scared that the latest banlist would result in AuCo being 50-75% of the field. It was an incredibly nice surprise how wrong was my intuition
wowarlok
People were very eager to play HB, other than that the meta looked more or less like I expected.
Contrary to fears of an AU Co. dominated tournament, the Corp field was split pretty evenly between the four factions. In fact, against all expectations, HB (31) was the most popular faction—even if it was not the most successful.
Purple Corps have been a little lost at sea since the release of Elevation, with HB win rates dipping as low as 37% by the end of the Megacity series. The unbanning of Luminal was a direct attempt at restoring those win rates, and to a certain extent it has done that, but HB fans may say that it has not gone far enough. HB win rates improved to just 47%—still significantly short of their rivals at Jinteki (57%), Weyland (60%) and NBN (63%).
The Big Three Corps
Suipe
I'm a bit tired of the corpside top tier meta being dominated by the same IDs for so long regardless of archetype variety within the IDs. Nice variety a bit lower down, though.
While they weren’t the only Corp IDs to be found in the Top Cut, it is certainly true that there are three Corp decks that you need to be aware of going into your next Continental championship.
AU Co.
First, there is AU Co.—the favourite from the Megacity season, and unscathed by the latest banlist. The build of choice seems to be Oppo + See How They Run, which makes some sense given the runner shift towards Criminal.
eden
I played tag-kill AU Co because I'm used to it, it's quite linear which helps make decision making easier, and it just wins games. I anticipated crim/bankharless anarch struggling to break Semak-Samun. Ultimately, everyone had practiced enough into it that the fragility of the lines really showed - I'm excited to learn the new builds of Ob for next tournament.
dainestevens
I played Au Co even though I hated it. I also played against Au Co 2 times and hated that too. My deck won 3 games almost in spite of what either I or my opponent was doing and it felt bad and unfair every time
The marmite of the current meta—you either love it or you hate it—this deck continues to enjoy wide success with a 62% win rate and a 1.74x cut conversion.
Nebula
Calinjar
I struggled a bit with finding a Runner deck I would enjoy playing which could also hold its ground against the common meta threats. I did not expect to face so much NBN.
not_yeti
Before the event my team mates asked me "how is your nebula matchup?" and I said "don't worry, no one is going to play nebula!" Oh how wrong I was...
Second, there is Nebula—A forgotten menace that has come back to haunt us now that Bankhar and Info Bounty are no longer threats. End of the Line Nebula appears to be the build of choice, with a very minimal (7) ICE suite augmented with an array of traps that punish the Runner for making R&D and HQ accesses.
wowarlok
I picked Nebula because I expected a lot of people to flock to Criminal and this felt like the best way to abuse that.
Lucy
Does anything not struggle with nebula?
The stats suggest that every Runner struggles into Nebula. The only Runner to achieve a positive win rate into Nebula at the event was Sable (52%). Interestingly, Sable was also the only Runner to achieve a positive win-rate into AU Co (57%).
Ob
Thirdly, there is Ob. There are multiple builds out there, but the most successful was tuno (2nd) on a deck that uses Bladderwort and Measured Response to create very similar forks to AU Co., but in a slightly different—and possibly improved—way.
Lucy
I arrived believing Ob was the best deck in the format and that you don't even need to do anything clever to make it that, I left continuing to believe this fact.It's not just that Ob is busted good, it's that there's like 4 really good Ob decks and I don't believe there's a world where one of them isn't the best deck in format
jan tuno
I think my ob is a potential best deck in the format. I felt very in control basically all the time except with very very bad draws
It’s difficult to analyse the stats with confidence, because of the variation in builds, but if you were to tell me that Asset Ob was simply a better version of Oppo AU Co. then I might be inclined to believe you.
Win Rates swing strongly into the Corps Favour
The overall Corp win rate was 55% in Swiss (508 games) increasing to 73% in the top Cut (30 games).
This is as high as any Corp win rate that we saw last season, and is a sharp reversal of the 46% win rate that Corp had settled into by the end of the 25.04 Megacity season. Has banning Deep Dive taken things too far? Or do Runners simply need time to adjust to their new win conditions? We have five more continental championships in which to find out!
Thoughts on the Meta
Opinions on the state of the Meta are much more polarised than they have been—with some players enjoying the challenge of playing under the constant threat of flatline, while others struggle to enjoy a game where a single mistake can cost you dearly.
davz131
I had more fun and tense games this weekend than in the previous month and a bit of tournaments where I mostly felt the path of games was mapped out before they started.The Corp games in particular were fun, playing scrappy, small Oppos and hanging on to marginal advantages felt great
lostgeek
The meta feels very fun. Strong decks all around, but multiple good options on all sides.
Alice
I miss bankhar.
AugustusCaesar
Meta is pretty fun, but I like playing into degenerate corps
JackMade
The meta is awesome, I don't think a meta was ever this diverse and fun to play.
jan tuno
I find the meta a lot more fun than before the banlist
Salwen
I like this meta a lot, I'm glad to see bankhar gone for good, and hope deep dive [comes] back when the time is right
dainestevens
I don’t think I’ve hated a meta more since the Mumbad cycle. I know there are fun, interesting things happening elsewhere in the meta, but the absolute disease that is kill Au Co is a blight on the game.
Holzpubbnsubbe
This time finding a runner was hard. I am so annoyed by all decks Phat and how hard I have to tech into it to stand any chance
Calinjar
I think the recent banlist opened up an interesting set of Runner decks to explore in the upcoming weeks.
Lucy
How I feel about the meta: idk ban stoneship there aren't enough shaper cards on the banlist
Player Interview: davz131
EMEA Continental Champion 2025
Basel Megacity Champion 2025
Paris District Champion 2025
Toulouse District Champion 2025
davz131 first dipped his toes into casual Netrunner waters in 2021. In 2023, after playing at a few tournaments run by RainbowMonkey, he decided to take the plunge and sign up for the World Championship in Barcelona. He hasn’t been able to stop running the nets since.
I asked him the secrets of his success.
At first, it was about being entranced by the game, leading to me playing an enormous amount of games, and developing some form of pattern recognition. Then, EA Sports—and too many other people to mention—kindly pointed out to me all of the mistakes that I was making, both in deckbuilding and in play, which I hopefully improved on. So... Trial and error mostly?
Deck Choices: Matryoshka MuslihaT and Oppo AU Co.
I saw Cobalt's MuslihaT deck on the ride back from the Hasselt Megacity and it was one of the few decks I built to test out in a post ban-list meta. It looked unconventional, but the choices in it seemed very smart, which quickly became apparent when playing a few games with nervousnightjar. Then we built other corps, and the deck chewed through those as well. Winning against Au Co is a pretty good metric these days! I showed the list to Kikai, who immediately dropped an in progress Baz list for it. From there, it became a team effort to tune some of the slots, only to then revert most of them, keeping very close to the original list.
My favourite games of Netrunner, as Corp, involve scrappy exchanges where both players are playing low on resources, forcing a lot of interaction. This AU Co. deck plays exactly that way—forcing the opponent to interact out of the gate with powerful assets, which can otherwise quickly build into a kill threat. Most of the games I played over the weekend were played with both players under ten credits at all times and it was a delight! All in all, this Oppo backed Jinteki deck reminded me of the Arctic moon decks which I loved, so it was a natural choice—pressuring runner econ at different times and in different ways than most decks in the format.
Final Standings
davz131 [Paris + Toulouse District Champion, Basel Megacity Champion] (EA Sports) - AU Co. (Oppo) [6-0-0] / MuslihaT (Matryoshka) [5-1-0]
tuno - Ob (Bladderwort) [9-1-0] / Zahya (LilyPAD) [4-3-0]
MattOhNo (SCRUBS, QEH) - AU Co. (Oppo) [8-0-0] / Zahya (Finality) [3-4-0]
MotionBlur - BtL (Djupstad) [5-4-0] / Sable (Twinning) [6-1-0]
rubenpieters [Hasselt Megacity Champion] (TAI Breakers) - Nebula (Byte!) [6-0-0] / Hoshiko (Keiko) [3-2-0]
not_yeti (EA Sports) - Nebula (Oracle) [6-1-0] / Magdalene (Rising Tide) [3-4-0]
Fridan (EA Sports) - Nebula (Behold!) [5-2-0] / MuslihaT (Matryoshka) [4-3-0]
Pinsel (NWE) - PD (Midnight-3 + YDL) [5-2-0] / Lat (Madani) [4-3-0]
ZomZraft - AU Co. (Front Company) [5-1-0] / Lat (Madani) [3-3-0]
Ollie (EA Sports) - AU Co. (Oppo) [3-2-0] / MuslihaT (Matryoshka) [5-1-0]
l0velace (QEH, QtM) - Ob (Phật) [3-3-0] / MuslihaT (Matryoshka) [5-2-0]
NecroB - LEO [5-2-0] / Zahya (Eru + Manuel) [3-3-0]
NewPuldrix - Nebula (Kingmaking) [3-2-0] / Arissana (Conduit) [4-2-0]
MrVellis (SCRUBS) - Ob (HR) [3-1-0] / Sable (Twinning) [3-2-1]
Minstrel [Wrocław District Champion] - AU Co. (Skunkworks + Scatter Field) [3-2-0] / Magdalene (Madani) [4-3-0]
ChonkySeal [EA + Scotland District Champion] (SCRUBS) - RH (Clearinghouse) [3-3-0] / Arissana (ToW) [4-2-0]
The Surveyor is looking for contributors!
If you are interested in writing a tournament report, or an opinion piece about competitve netrunner, then please get in touch! You can contact me on discord (kikai.noraneko) or via substack.
"AU is fun and interactive, runners! Look at what fun I'm having!"
I do feel like there is a best deck Ob in the format, even if Au Co is the best overall ID. That said, one thing I find a little frustrating about the format is that there's no Corp (except maybe LEO) that can really afford to play less than 9 agendas. This makes for every like 4th or 5th game being "oh I'm holding 3 agendas I'm cooked".