HB triumph at APAC
Runners struggle to keep pace as the Corp sprints ahead
Asia-Pacific Continental Championship 15th June 2024 Online (UTC+8) 80 players 10 rounds SSS, Cut to top-16
Watch the Swiss and Top Cut streams on the NSG Twitch.
Find the Top Cut decklists here.
Highlight: Styx (Hoshiko) vs Jai (Asa Group)
A respectable 80 players competed for the title of Asia-Pacific Champion, and a much sought-after Intercontinentals Championship invitation. After four consecutive years of North American interloping, the big question heading into the event was whether someone playing in their home time zone would finally be able to claim the APAC crown.
The tournament took place with the meta in flux. Hoshiko had been expected to dominate the American Continental Championship, but performed abysmally. Would that upset put contenders off from playing Anarch? And, if so, how would Corps adjust to a new world dominated by Shaper and Criminal?
As it happened, the APAC Runner meta was relatively balanced between all three factions. 44% of players did pick Shaper, with all four of the main archetypes from ACC in good attendance: Lobisomem Kit, World Tree Arissana, more conventional Arissana builds, and Sokka’s innovative “boring” Lat. 35% of the field went with Anarch, including sixteen players on Hoshiko and seven on Esa—another runner which performed surprisingly well at ACC. The least popular faction—Criminal—still had 21% representation, with most players on reg builds in Sable, Zahya, Ken, 419 and one Steve Cambridge.
On the Corp side, faction selection was much more polarised. 54% of players brought HB—mostly opting for familiar-looking Precision Design and Asa decks. Only five players stuck with Sportsmetal, perhaps because of an anticipated decline in the popularity of Hoshiko—which was the main target of the Sportsmetal lists from ACC. 17% of players brought Weyland. Six brave souls persisted with NBN (8%) despite the recent Bellona ban. Remarkably, the most popular Jinteki (21%) ID was Issuaq (7%).
After ten hard-fought rounds of Swiss and a gruelling Top Cut, do we have any idea what’s good?
Despite complaints from top players about the lack of strong Corp decks, Corp continued to dominate with a 55% win rate in Swiss that increased to a shocking 65% win rate in the Top Cut. Haas-Bioroid occupied a massive twelve of the sixteen Top Cut slots available, with six PD and four Asa. These two IDs had the highest Swiss win rates of any Corp (with more than three players) at 64% and 61% respectively. They also included the eventual winner— Singapore-based netrunner Jai—who brought the APAC Champion title home to Asia with World Tree Arissana and Asa Group.
On the Runner side, the clear breakout deck was World Tree Arissana (65% win rate), with Jai playing one of five such lists that made the cut. The deck can assemble a doom-rig faster than any other Shaper, and against asset spam it has consistent access to Miss Bones. This might explain why the corp meta is tilting more towards rush decks that can score early, before protecting the winning agenda with SkunkVoid.
Only two Criminals made Top 16—which is somewhat surprising, since the faction is traditionally considered to be strong into PD—but perhaps this can be considered a fluke. Sable posted a respectable overall win rate of 51%, and there were six Sable players in the top 32 who narrowly missed out on playing in Day 2. Hoshiko rebounded from ACC respectably, and achieved a 50% win rate overall. The five lists that made top 16 were a mix of late game focused rigs with K2CP Turbine, and faster versions with Boomerang and Leech. Lat is still clearly competitive (57%), but, as in previous metas, he doesn’t see as much play as his win rate deserves.
Despite winning ACC, Kit posted a dismal 35% win rate. Esâ had a similarly disappointing showing (44%).
A few other decks deserve a special mention. AugustusCaesar defied the Bellona ban to top the Day 1 standings with an almost unchanged Working Prototype NEH. Santa went completely undefeated as the only player in the tournament playing Thule asset spam. Maninthemoon and ThatsNoMun made the cut with a crazy build of PD playing Big Deal and Sudden Commandment. While none of the three Azmari players made the cut, collectively they had a 75% win rate—so don’t discount Neurospike just because it hasn’t killed you yet.
All eyes, then, turn to the next premier tournament. In just two weeks time, more than one hundred players will gather in Bergamo, Italy for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa Continental Championship. Will the Runner meta be able to respond to the pace of Haas-Bioroid? Which Corp is best placed to counter the rise of World Tree? Does anyone really want to shuffle a 65-card deck for two entire days of Swiss?
Whatever the results, we’ll be here to report on it.
Meta-Breaker (Runner): World Tree Arissana
Hoshiko, Sable and especially Lat are all strong, but Big Tree is the clear frontrunner going forward. Jai took home the title but my personal favourite list is Xiaat’s, which plays Light the Fire! as a counter to Anoetic Void.
Meta-Breaker (Corp): Rush PD
Some PD players stuck with the one Anoetic Void version that has become standard, but I’ve spotlighted one of several lists that tried to fight Shaper by going back up to two copies. Rather than cut a Border Control, though, abstracted’s list finds space by going down to one Spin Doctor - a crazy-looking choice that starts to make sense when you realise how rarely you want to shuffle agendas away against Shaper.
Top Cut trivia
# of runner decks playing the minimum 45 cards: 4/16
# of runner decks playing over 60 cards: 5/16
# of Corp decks playing fewer than 3 Spin Doctor: 3/16
# of Corp decks playing at least 1 Anoetic Void: 7/16.
Final Standings
Jai (TAI Breakers) - Asa [7-2-1] / Arissana [7-2-0]
CheekFake - PD [6-1-1] / Hoshiko [5-3-0]
Styx (QTM) - Sportsmetal [5-3-0] / Hoshiko [5-2-0]
Amarum - Ob [6-2-0] / Arissana [3-3-1]
Santa (Muntal Bost) - Thule [7-0-0] / Arissana [2-4-1]
~~~ Intercontinentals Championship Invite Cutoff ~~~
xiaat (TAI Breakers) - PD [6-1-0] / Arissana [4-4-0]
AugustusCaesar (TAI Breakers) - NEH [5-1-1] / Hoshiko [4-1-2]
MainintheMoon (Muntal Bost) - PD [7-0-0] / Seb [2-5-0]
RJorb - Issuaq [3-3-0] / Esâ [5-1-1]
bowlsley - Asa [4-2-0] / 419 [4-3-0]
Toron - Asa [4-1-1] / Hoshiko [3-4-0]
ThatsNoMun (Muntal Bost) - PD [4-3-0] / Sable [3-3-0]
abstracted - PD [4-1-1] / Lat [3-2-1]
RTsa - PD [3-2-1] / Hoshiko [4-2-0]
hotelfoxtrot - PE [2-2-2] / Arissana [4-1-1]
tvaduva - Asa [4-2-0] / Kit [2-3-1]