Home Town Hero wins EA Regionals
Unlikely Runner IDs find success at one of the first events of 24.09
East Anglian Regionals
21st Sept 2024
Cambridge, UK
44 Players
7 rounds SSS, Cut to top-8 (single elim)
Watch the Swiss and Top Cut streams on Massisi’s Twitch channel.
The first weekend of the new 24.09 meta got off to a strong start at the 5th UK Regional in Cambridge. With sizable metas in Norwich, London and Nottingham all close by, it was bound to be truely regional in attendance and feauture an abundance of local talent.
With EA Sports playing on home turf would visitors be prepapred to face the fearsome EAzmari? A deck that picked up the top place finish at Scottish regionals just two weeks prior. Would the World Tree ban unlock those asset Corp picks that had been largely missing from 24.05? And what decks would any former Arissana players bring?
The faction spread on the Corp side appears relatively unchanged from 24.05, with HB (17) outnumbering Weyland (8) and NBN (8). Also worth noting that PE (6) outnumbered Aginfusion (4) in Jinteki (11).
The runner spread, on the other hand, was highly atypical. There was an almost perfectly balanced split between the three factions (Shaper 15, Anarch 15, Criminal 14), as it appears those players affected by the World Tree ban looked to recent NRDB stars—Freedom and 419—for their runner picks.
Those HB players who did make the switch to assets appear to have been rewarded as Thule (71% WR [10/14]) and Sportsmetal (71% [5/7]) both performed well, although neither was able to secure a place in the Top Cut. Whereas the more familiar PD underperformed (48% 11/23) but was able to convert.
Other notable corp performances include every yellow deck, with Azmari—somewhat unsurprisingly at this point—achieving a 70% winrate (14/20). The best record of the day, though, went to AgInfusion (73% 11/15). Both of these Corp IDs carried their success all the way to the finals.
Runner results continue to surprise with all three factions achieving exactly 22 wins across Swiss!
The highest performing Runner—by far—was Kit (75% 12/16), significantly outperforming Lat (40% 6/15) who was widely tipped to be the “best” runner deck available. Both Kit players that did make the cut were packing copies of Mad Dash—a meta call that easily turns Kit into Azmari’s toughest matchup, and one that paid off handsomely.
The overall Corp winrate was 57%, which is a continuation of a pattern that we have seen throughout tournaments since the release of Rebellion without Rehearsal. But, there were some incredibly strong—and somewhat unexpected—performances from the more specialised Runner decks, meaning that players preparing for worlds will have some interesting decisions to make.
50% of the cut being claimined by NBN when they only made up 18% of the field is another continuation of an existing pattern. Since the 24.05 banlist, NBN has, at the same time, been both both hugely unpopular and massively successful. Are players continuing to underestimate the threat of running against EAzmari, and giving the Corp free wins? Or is the deck simply that good?
Fittingly, the second highest performing runner ID—Steve Cambridge (62% 8/13)— would be piloted to first place by Cambridge local Kikai (who did not write this article), who showcased the deck’s incredible capability to exploit any weakness in a corp’s defenses and explode them.
Expect to see one or two Bankhar Steve decks in the cut at worlds.
Final Standings
Kikai (EA Sports) - Azmari [3-1-0] / Steve [5-1-0]
Bowlsley - AgInfusion [3-2-0] / Kit [4-0-1]
Stuart - Azmari [3-1-0] / Lat [3-1-1]
Bartimaeus (EA Sports) - Azmari [3-2-0] / Esâ [3-2-0]
Fridan (EA Sports) - PD [3-1-1] / Hoshiko [3-0-0]
cablecarnage (Snare Bears) - Outfit [3-1-1] / Kit [2-1-0]
clickonerun (EA Sports) - PE [2-1-0] / Esâ [3-2-0]
lif3line - R+ [3-0-0] / Freedom [2-3-0]
There is one chance remaining for you to complete your collection of (specially comissioned) UK regionals alt arts, and to win the beautiful Angel of the North playmat.
05.10 (Sheffield) - North Regional - TICKETS AVAILABLE
Speaking of specially commissioned alt arts, tickets are also on sale for UK Nationals. It could be the biggest netrunner event in Europe this year…
15.11 / 17.11 (Bristol) - UK Nationals - TICKETS AVAILABLE
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chuckles softly
UK Nationals bigger than EMEA? Perhaps...and it will be a blast either way.