Measured Responses from Reading CTK
We ask tournament attendees what they think about the Elevation meta
Reading Elevation Release Casual Tournament
3rd May 2025
Reading, UK
30 Players
7 rounds SSS, no Top Cut
It’s only been two weeks since the release of Elevation, and we already have another decent sized tournament to sink our teeth into. This time in Reading—the ancestral home of UK netrunner—and featuring not only some of the top players from the UK, but two of Canada’s best as well.
This is what some of those players had to say about the Elevation meta.
Free Wins for Weyland
KamiKami
I was speaking to several opponents, and it really feels like any Weyland deck can just put 3x Measured Response in their deck, without any other kill plan, and get free wins every now and then, and otherwise keep the runner honest
Weyland had the most success of any faction on the day with a total win rate of 61%. Zwicky Group came in 2nd overall, but every represented Weyland identity went home with positive stats. BtL won 4 of 7 games, Ob won 9 of 16, and BANGUN won 3 of 4.
Jinteki also did well (55% win rate), but not every Jinteki player was feeling optimistic that this success will continue. Despite AU Co. winning 58% of games (11 of 19), the asset AU Co. deck in particular seemed too fragile to some.
swabl
It feels like runners are able to reasonably contest the board even in this reduced econ era, and so unless you are able to get certain things to line up very quickly you end up flailing.
EV
Gioan kind of ends up as the key card that makes it work, you need some sort of steal punishment to slow down the runner over just credits, otherwise you end up feeding agendas.
What really carried Jinteki as a faction, though, was a rush PT Untaian build that relentlessly pushes cards in the remote—aiming to fire the PT Untaian trigger every turn for value. It won 6 of 8 games, and came 4th and 8th overall. It’s a very fair deck—if you can call playing 4-click Corp fair—but “it feels strong and it wins games,” according to not_yeti.
Nebula found only 9 wins in 19 games, significantly down from the success it found at the Sunrise CTK. Is it definitely the best Corp deck? Maybe for now, but it isn’t clear where this deck goes in the future, and unless someone is able to innovate it’s difficult to imagine that the results for this ID do anything but decline—such is the downside of having a linear game plan, no matter how strong that game plan might be.
HB had another disappointing tournament, with a dismal faction win rate of just 28%. Suffice to say that if you are looking for an answer to Deep Dive Sable, LEO is probably not it.
There was no Top Cut at Reading CTK, but if we look at the final positions we can get a feel for whether each Identity was playing games at the top or bottom tables. PD, for example, while losing most games (43% win rate) was at least losing them at the top tables, and generally finished better than Ob which had a positive win rate.
Looking at the results through this lens, it’s PT Untaian that stands out as the strongest contender.
Will Elevation be a Runner Favoured Meta?
The overall Corp win rate was 49% over 105 games, down from 54% over 114 games at the Sunrise CTK. This is hardly conclusive, but it could be the first indication of the Elevation meta being reasonably balanced. Certainly, all of the players that I spoke to were feeling much more confident about their Runner than their Corp.
KamiKami
I found that currently so far no corp felt oppressive or dominant, and that runners mainly could really play whatever engine for economy they like, but as long as they were prepared to trash assets they were all feeling strong
Anarchs were well suited for trashing not just assets but ICE as well. Nebula, PD, and AU Co. all struggled to find wins against the orange scourge. The only Corp decks that seemed to give Anarch any pause were rushier IDs: PT Untaian and Zwicky. Esâ did particularly well, winning 5 of 7 games and taking 5th and 18th place.
Jade
Reg Esâ is still a good deck, it has basically not changed at all though, I've slowly cut almost every elevation card I added
Criminal was the most popular faction at the event, and Criminal players were generally rewarded (53% faction win rate). Deep Dive Sable was clearly the best runner deck, winning 9 of 15 games and taking 1st and 6th place, but MuslihaT (10 of 18) put in a respectable performance. Zahya won 5 of 9 games, but not at the top tables, and Barry is still struggling to win many games at all (3 of 9).
Meathir
I went into the tournament knowing that my Facet Ob list had a weak Crim matchup. I left realising I had grossly underestimated how bad the matchup was.
Shaper was the least popular faction at the event, and those few players that did choose to sleeve green did not have a good day of it. Despite being naturally resistant to Measured Response, Lat could not pick up any wins against Weyland, nor Nebula. In fact, the ethical freelancer won just 1 of 7 games. The Trick Shot meta is a long way behind us.
Meta Breakers
Asset AU Co.
As played by BucketHatBen (7th)
Asset AU Co is a deck that has been terrorising jinteki.net for the last week. It fills the board with lethal threats like Reaper Function and Clearing House, protected by Hostile Architecture, Mahkota Langit Grid, and sometimes Front Company. If the runner drops too low on cards—which is very easily done—then some combination of Phật Gioan Baotixita, The Powers That Be and Blood in the Water finish the job.
It’s a similar strategy to the Asset PE decks that we saw last season, but with a draw engine that’s fueled by the AU Co. ID ability.
Deep Dive Sable
As played by Sokka (1st) and The King (6th)
It’s hardly a new deck—Deep Dive Sable was 17th at worlds last year—but it is a deck that you need to be aware of. If you sit down across the table from Sable, then you should assume that they are playing Deep Dive. If this is the first time that you’ve asked yourself “how does my deck defend against Deep Dive?” then I am afraid to say that it might well be too late. We really need to be thinking about how we defend against Deep Dive when building our Corp deck.
Almost all of the common answers to Deep Dive from the previous season have rotated. Border Control, Nisei Mk II, AgInfusion, Crisium Grid—all gone. What we are left with is Anoetic Void and Skunkworks and lucky Anemone hits. If we’re not playing any of these cards then we might need to get creative. Argus Crackdown anyone?
This weekend there are Elevation tournaments happening in San Francisco, Vancouver, Adelaide, Reading (they just can’t get enough netrunner), Washington DC, Fargo, New Jersey, Montréal and Bristol. There is also the first (ever) Megacity Championship that’s happening in Łódź!
If none of these locations work for you, the monthly online AMT is on Sunday. All of which are great reasons to get out there and play some netrunner!
Tournament details can be found at alwaysberunning.net.
The Surveyor 25.04 meta analysis spreadsheet is available here
Really liking the little interview quotes!
They wanted Click for Credit to feel bad, fine. They created Bad Kate Opus, fine. They banned Trick Shot for good reason. But they both nerfed Aseop and cut money across the board? If they want runners running, what is an acceptable way for Shaper to run and break ICE without getting annihilated by a Mestnichestvo that is not offensive to the senses? Because Knicknack is not it. Bring back Rezeki?