Hoshiko and Ob top two at Notts District
Audacious East-Anglian crew takeover Midlands top-cut
Nottingham District Championship
15th March 2025
EMEA / UK
33 Players
7 rounds SSS, Single Elim Cut to Top-8
Top Cut recordings to be made available at a later date
While thirty-three of our American friends were fighting it out in netspace at the Americas Online District tournament, an equal number of netrunners met in the side room of an undisclosed address in Lower Parliament Street to eat delicious home baked almond cookies, and to compete for the title of Nottingham District Champion, and the Sheriff of Sheffingham—which will be awarded for the most Corp wins in Swiss across both Nottingham and Sheffield district championships.
An unpopular protagonist
Continuing a trend that we’ve seen at all UK regionals so far, Nottingham was attended by a large number of Criminal decks. There was no consensus on which specific Criminal ID to play, however, with Sable (4), Mercury (3), Zahya (3) and Ken (2) all in the mix in Swiss, and a similarly even spread of Mercury (1), Zahya (1) and Sable (1) in the Top Cut. For those readers that are looking for some guidance on which of these IDs is best, I’m afraid to say that Mercury was the only Criminal ID to actually perform well (10 games, 60% win rate, 1.38x conversion).
Shaper players favoured Lat (6), and were rewarded with two places in the Top Cut, despite a rather lacklustre 45% win rate. Ob proved to be a particularly difficult matchup for the ethical freelancer, which bodes ill for any Shaper die-hards.
Hoshiko (4) was unusually unpopular, but she performed incredibly well for those few who did play her (15 games, 80% win rate, 2.06x cut conversion). Both finalists were on Aniccam Crew Hoshiko, which—after winning both the CBI and London regional—is making a serious case that it’s a cut above Mulch Hoshiko and other top runners.
Esâ’s win rate struggles continued (40%). It may be that no matter how strong xir game is into Ob and HB, those matchups can’t compensate for what seems to be a dismal performance against Jinteki.
Boats don’t have brakes
“If NSG really wanted us to score out of the remote then they wouldn’t have given us seven 3/2 agendas”
It’s been a long time since Ob has consistently performed well, but now that our favourite Supermassive Container Ship has gotten up to speed there seems to be no slowing it down. The Nottingham winner and runner-up both played a Fast-advance variant, which replaces the somewhat brittle Eminent Domain + Archer remote plan, and instead aims to score most—if not all—agendas from hand. When asked for comment, Kikai explained that “Eminent Domain is good, but if NSG really wanted us to score out of the remote then they wouldn’t have given us seven 3/2 agendas in one faction.”
With consistently strong results at recent events, the two Ob variants are emerging as the decks to beat for what remains of the district season. Building a Runner deck to take on both will be tough. You need enough multi-access to win a pure points race against the Fast Advance build, while still having enough money to go toe-to-toe with the builds that play Svyatagor Excavator. Oh, and you’ll need a cheap way to break Archer as well.
Jinteki was a diverse mix of PE (5), AgInfusion (3), A Teia (2), Issuaq (1) and RH (1), but only AgInfusion (13 games, 62% win rate, 2.75x conversion) really shined. PE racked up a nice 69% winrate, but mostly on the lower tables, and struggled to convert into the Top Cut (0.83x).
Somewhat unexpectedly for a UK event, there were only three NBN players at Nottingham District Championship—two Azmari and one NEH. Perhaps less unexpectedly, two of those three made it into the Top Cut. The tiny sample of sickos who are actually willing to bring EAzmari to a tournament are doing well enough to suggest that it’s one of the best decks in the game—the rest of the playerbase doesn’t care, and is patiently waiting for Reeducation to quietly go away.
Unfortunately, NBN’s success left no seats at the table for HB. Sportsmetal performed well enough (7 games, 71% win rate), but PD and Asa had such a terrible day that the overall HB win rate was just 47%—compared to the Corp average of 53%.
Final Standings
Kikai (EA Sports) - Ob (Fast-advance) [4-0-0] / Hoshiko (Crew) [4-0-1]
Ollie (EA Sports) - Ob (Fast-advance) [4-1-0] / Hoshiko (Crew) [3-1-0]
not_yeti (EA Sports) - Azmari (Reeducation) [3-1-0] / Sable (Jetinho) [2-2-0]
Kamikami (EA Sports) - AgInfusion (Punitive) [2-2-0] / Lat (Aesops) [4-1-0]
aashbo (EA Sports) - AgInfusion (Charlotte) [4-1-0] / Lat (Aesops) [1-2-0]
KingSolomon (QEH) - Nuvem (Ganked!) [2-2-0] / Zahya [3-1-0]
lif3line (Steel City Grid) - NEH (Crypto + Amani) [1-2-0] / Quetzal [4-1-0]
Clickonerun (EA Sports) - PE (Mitosis) [3-1-0] / Mercury [2-2-0]
The UK district championship season will continue in Sheffield on Saturday 22nd March!
