Runner Meta in Chaos at New Years Showdown
Ken wins big at first first major event without Trick Shot
New Years Showdown 2025
4th - 5th Jan 2025
Online
97 Players
8 rounds SSS, Cut to top-16
You can watch the Swiss (hosted by aksu and Jai/Thrantar/monde) and Top Cut (hosted by ctz/radiant and andrej/Wentagon) streams on aksu’s youtube channel.
The first weekend of a new year, the first major event of a new banlist, the last chance for players to secure an invite to the Circuit Breaker Invitational, and the only chance for players to test the waters of a new meta before things get serious.
Does PD and Asa survive the Luminal ban? And is Asa still “the best deck”? Does Shaper continue to dominate the runner field without Trick Shot? If not, then do decks like Punitive RH and Azmari improve? Or are those threats kept in check by virus based Anarch decks?
The stage for the CBI is set, and this is what it looks like.
The Move From Shaper to Anarch
You only need to look at the ID makeup of the tournament to see the immediate effect of the Trick Shot ban. Players switched from Shaper (21) to Anarch (53) en masse—in a complete turn around from the previous season, there were more Hoshiko (27) than all of Shaper combined. There were a variety of different Hoshiko builds on display, but the most performant were variants on Mulch Hosh and Crew Hosh. Notably, both rely on (different) virus based AI breakers in order to crack servers.
Esâ (13) was also a popular pick, but not a particularly successful one.
Is this the first indication of an Anarch meta? It is very difficult to say. On the one hand, Anarch had the lowest win rate of the three runner factions (42%), but, on the other hand, the runner meta has been thrown into disarray by the latest banlist, and it feels like there is still a decent amount to explore in terms of Anarch possibilities. Worth saying that Freedom, an ID with typically less variety in terms of build, was one of the few highest performing runner IDs. So if it is going to be an Anarch meta, it will probably be a virus Anarch meta.
A Bad Day for Weyland
If it is going to be a virus Anarch meta you would think that Ob, an ID that typically plays three copies of Mavirus, and that will have regained some equity against Shaper now that Trick Shot is banned, would perform well. And you would be wrong. Although our favourite superheavy container ship did well against both Hoshiko and Freedom, these gains were counterbalanced by significant losses to Esâ—Begemot making short work of a deck that relies on barriers to protect servers.
In total, The twenty Weyland players managed a 46% win rate—the lowest of any Corp faction—and only one of them (just) made it into the Top Cut.
Meanwhile, it was a fantastic day for NBN (72% win rate). Anticipating the shift in Runner preference from Shaper to virus Anarch, noted Azmari enthusiasts EA Sports made room for Mavirus and Wraparound, absolutely thumped their Anarch opponents, and were rewarded with four Top Cut spots as a result. NEH—the best deck that no one has been playing—also performed exceptionally. Not only did NEH win the whole tournament with an astonishing run from ant1 through the chase bracket, but it managed to dodge the Freedom matchup almost entirely.
Asa Undeterred by Loss of Luminal
Asa also had a great day, with a 60% win rate and a 1.87x cut conversion. This is surprising for an ID that lost its (2nd?) most powerful card to the latest banlist. It’s also surprising that it held its own against Hoshiko (67% win rate)—a matchup that was widely tipped to be Hoshiko favoured.
The four Asa in the Top Cut were a mix of Jukebox and Holo-Man Asa. Most of them were playing Cohort Guidance Program. Some replaced Luminal with Architect Deployment Test, others with a third copy of Ikawah Project.
The Corp Meta Continues
Runner struggled more at this tournament than in any tournament that we’ve seen previously, with no runner identity* even managing to break even on their win/loss ratio. Overall, Corp enjoyed a 55% win rate in Swiss, and a 58% win rate in the Top Cut.
It’s notable that two of the players that made it into the Top Cut had a +2 Corp bias** at the end of Swiss—this means that they each played five games as Corp and only three games as Runner. For comparison, you have to scroll quite a long way down the tournament rankings—all the way to 68th—to find a player with any Runner bias.
* no runner identity played by more than one person. If a few more players start to play Ken as well as ant1 does then I might have to change the scale on some of these charts
** a phenomenon caused by a very large number of player drops (36), rather than the tournament software
Meta Breakers
Aniccam Crew Hosh
Played by OF15-15 (2nd) and TorpedoTyrus (9th).
A variant of the Crew Hosh build from last season, but using Aniccam and Lago instead of Patchwork. Dropping Boomerang and Alarm Clock means that the deck has less answers to a full server lock out and purge, but the extra speed from Lago more than makes up for this weakness. The deck also plays some tantalising win conditions in Twinning and Eye for an Eye.
sNarE(H)
Played by ant1 (1st)
A variant of False Lead NEH that plays SNARE! instead of Reaper Function, effectively punishing you for running (when you shouldn’t) instead of punishing you for not running (when you should).
So remember to always run when you should, whilst also being careful not to run when you shouldn’t. Got it? Also, try not to access BEHOLD! out of centrals.
Final Standings
ant1 - NEH [8-1-0] / Ken [6-2-0]
OF15-15 (NWE) - Asa [4-2-0] / Hoshiko [5-2-0]
not_yeti (EA Sports) - Azmari [4-3-0] / Sable [4-1-0]
CobraBubbles (EA Sports) - Azmari [5-0-0] / Hoshiko [3-2-0]
Ollie (EA Sports) - Azmari [4-1-0] / Freedom [4-1-0]
AnOddRadish - Azmari [6-0-0] / Kit [3-3-0]
davz131 (EA Sports) - Azmari [5-0-0] / Hoshiko [3-2-0]
Buachu - Ob [2-4-0] / Seb [5-0-0]
TorpedoTyrus - PD [3-2-0] / Hoshiko [3-2-0]
tzeentchling (Logic Bomb) - Asa [4-1-0] / Lat [2-3-0]
ChonkySeal (Scrubs) - PE [4-0-1] / Hoshiko [2-4-0]
Ish - Issuaq [3-1-0] / Sable [3-3-0]
xiaat (TAI Breakers) - Asa [3-2-0] / Lat [4-1-0]
cat - Thule [3-3-0] / Hoshiko [2-1-0]
ginkgo - Asa [3-1-0] / Alice [2-3-0]
Nykride (Logic Bomb) - AgInfusion [2-3-0] / Freedom [3-1-0]
Online tournaments are fine, but nothing beats hanging out and playing face-to-face.
The UK regionals season kicks off in London on Saturday 8th Feb. Come compete for your chance at a Megacity Bye, a Wooly Mammoth Playmat, and a set of unique UK regionals alt arts.
I bet NSG are really regretting letting Reeducation stay off the banlist right about now. Top Cut was blazing fast.
Any comments about the Seb deck that went 5-0-0? And there's a different Azmari flavour that went 6-0-0 too!