Sable 0-7 vs best Corps at Megacity Łódź
LEO Construction: Meta Solutions
Megacity Championship Łódź 2025
10th-11th May 2025
Łódź, Poland
39 Players
8 rounds SSS, Double Elim Cut to top-8
At a venue “strongly reminiscent of Rotterdam 2019, but way more industrial/badass”—Vesper, the first ever Megacity Championship attracted players from across Poland and Europe. By all accounts it was an amazing event, with some attendees already talking about Łódź as a candidate for EMEA continentals 2026. But, for those of us who weren’t there, what did these contenders play? And how did they do? And how are they feeling about the Elevation meta so far?
Corp
Jinteki
Essence.32
I felt like corp is all about Egg and FA Nebula right now (Phat is red light alarm, always trash), and those decks are very different to play against, which creates difficulties for runner
Aku
AU Co was also prevalent so for me as someone not really prepared to deal with asset spam, made it really challenging. You can’t submit decklist without some asset spam tech.
Zombiak
Au Co gives me a bit of an IG prison vibes at times, maybe a bit more interactive but still feels oppressive with the number of toys that are must trash.
AU Co. was the Corp deck to beat, with a 61% win rate (11 of 18 games) and a 2.38x cut conversion. It went 3-0 against Sable, 1-1 against Hoshiko, and 2-3 against Seb.
Buachu (7th) took an asset based AU Co. list that regular readers of The Surveyor and players of jinteki.net will no doubt be familiar with. Notably, this build include Semak-semun—presumably to help in the Seb matchup—and plays Measured Response instead of Clearinghouse. Whether this becomes the new standard for AU Co. builds, or just a variant, remains to be seen—but having to respect Measured Response is going to stretch the Runner even further in a matchup where they are likely already stretched to breaking point.
This is a deck that you need to be prepared to face off against as the Runner—both technically and emotionally.
NBN
Zombiak
Nebula seems like it rolls either very high or very low, and the Crim meta probably did not help since controlling HQ with Maintenance Access, Hermes bounce, S-Dobrado are pretty good. Crim presence also hurt Zwicky FA performance since both decks end up holding agendas in hand quite a lot, obviously.
This seems to be true. While Nebula had a strong cut conversion (2.38x), it was just as likely to be found at the bottom and mid tables as the top, and the Identity win rate was a flat 50% (15 of 30). 1 of the 3 Nebula in the top cut was pure fast-advance, another was playing Measured Response, while the 3rd was packing 2 x End of the Line and 3 x Mindscaping—so it’s not obvious that this difference in results was down to a difference in build. It’s also not obvious that it can be explained by bad matchups—although the Esâ (0-3) and Mercury (0-2) matchups are not looking great. This difference in performance may just be down to variance.
Weyland
gruntownie
You have to play around MR, and touch-ups allows a lot of kill options.
Zombiak
People expect Measured Response, but I like the 'do they, don't they' mindgame if you play it in Weyland or not. Good card.
The Weyland faction win rate was just 47%, with Ob (75%, 9 of 12, 1.58x cut conversion) the only ID to perform well. The only Weyland to make the Top-Cut was a MAD combo Ob that went undefeated in Swiss. This is an archetype that lost very little to rotation, and that can get some easy wins against Runners that aren’t familiar with the game plan, but can struggle into anyone playing Steelskin and who knows what’s up.
Neither Zwicky nor BtL managed the kind of success that they saw at previous tournaments, which may be a sign that Runners have become savvy to Measured Response, and have adapted their play patterns accordingly.
HB
Zombiak
Players have to rethink PD. Core damage PD decks didn't do very well, neither did reg PD. LEO seems like the HB ID you want to use if you like scoring out stuff in a remote server rush/glacier-style.
Aku
PD is garbo now (jan tuno is exception obviously).
In a turnaround from previous tournaments, HB actually had the highest win rate of any of the Corp factions (52%). LEO had a great day (62% win rate, 8 of 13, 1.58x), going undefeated against Sable (3-0) and taking a game off of both Seb (1-1) and Hoshiko (1-1). The previous conclusion drawn by The Surveyor that LEO is not the answer to Deep Dive Sable now looks rather hasty!
Worth noting that the one Poétrï player at the tournament went undefeated (with Poétrï) and was only one win shy of making the Top Cut.
As both Zombiak and Aku both highlighted, PD had a pretty terrible day (25% win rate, 3 of 12).
Runner
giventofly
even though there were a couple of popular picks, meta felt very open and there were a lot of different strategies played
This was less true of Runner than Corp, but the meta was still reasonably diverse. Sable (8), MuslihaT (7) and Hoshiko (6) were the most popular picks, but there was a decent variety of other Runner Identities on display as well.
Criminal
Half of the field chose to play Criminal, which is a similar proportion to the recent Reading CTK. It’s interesting that this preference is not just a UK phenomenon. Criminal had a 57% win rate in aggregate, and players are feeling good about the faction’s prospects.
Aku
Overall crim feels really good at the moment - I went for chill reg Baz myself and it turned to 3-1 score. Fine for fresh brew.
Essence.32
surprised how Baz was useless, it still may be good ID, but not at this metaI was just looking for blue ID to utilize new great criminal toys, and Baz felt like a little bit of disappointment. MuslihaT for next torunament probably
Some mixed feelings about Barry, but a 54% win rate (winning 7 of 13 games) and a 1.58x conversion rate is much improved compared to other tournament results.
Worth noting that, despite going 3-2, Essence.32 (top Barry) was disappointed with how infrequently the ID ability fired, and is considering playing MuslihaT at the next tournament. Essence.32 tried him, but didn’t like him.
gruntownie
MushlihaT feels very easy to play against, since you know the gameplan
Zombiak
MuslihaT may be predictable but still it is a very easy-to-pickup deck that you can easily modify to your liking, which is a good thing.
MuslihaT may be easy to play but, at least at this event, that did not convert into strong results. At a 46% win rate (12 of 26) and zero top-cut placements, the multifarious marketeer had the poorest performance of all of the Criminal IDs.
Unsurprisingly, the strongest performance of any Criminal ID was probably Sable.
Aku
Sable seems really strong in this meta - mostly due to deep dive being such a game changing piece in the deck
Krasty
there are just very limited moves (fewer than in old meta) how to stop Deep Dive, which is strong card/deck/strategy
Bookkeeper
Deep Dive Sable is a problem on its own in this meta, for sure.
Sable had a 62% win rate (21 of 34) and a 1.19x cut conversion, with 2 of the 8 Sable players making it into the top-8. This is impressive—possibly even problematic—and will not surprise any reader who follows Sokka’s youtube channel. What may come as a surprise, though, is that Sable was not the best performing runner…
Anarch
Zombiak
Anarch is still good thanks to Bankhar, and Seb Praxis installrunner is very good. Happy to see Amanuensis played, but it means that tag punishment is either not good or too rare.
There were 4 x Seb players at the event, and between them they managed a 64% win rate (14 over 22), with 2 of them securing spots in the Top Cut. We’ve seen Seb results improve each week since the Elevation launch, to the point where it’s now debatable whether Deep Dive Sable or Siphon Anarch is the bigger threat.
Remember to ICE archives.
Essence.32
Hoshiko still strong and anarch in general, crim at the same level, shaper far behind
Technically, Anarch (53%) performed less well than Criminal (57%), but they are both so far ahead of Shaper (39%) that you wouldn’t notice. Worth saying that Hoshiko was a mixed bag—with some builds doing very very well, while others struggled to get results. Hoshiko is a generic value ID, so there is a lot of room for different styles of play. We don’t know what all the Hoshiko outside of the Top Cut were playing, but we do know that the 3x Hoshiko in the Top Cut were all playing regular Anarch breakers (Buzzsaw, Rising Tide), a generic value console (Keiko), and were mostly spending influence on economic run events (Bravado, Clean Getaway), as well as Nuka and Azimat.
Honest Corps at a disadvantage
giventofly
felt runner favoured - honest hard-working corporations felt at a disadvantage
The overall runner win rate was 52% (76 of 146 games) in Swiss increasing to 64% (9 of 14 games) in the Top Cut. While there are much fewer Top Cut data points, which makes the data both unreliable and the statistics coarse, you could argue that Top Cut results are a lead indicator for how the meta is developing. If that is the case, then we can probably expect to see the runner win rate continue to creep towards 55% over the megacity season. It will be interesting to see where things settle, or whether results swing back in the other direction at some point.
Player Interview: yaba
Łódź Megacity Champion 2025
Katowice District Champion 2025
yaba has been playing netrunner since almost the beginning of the FFG release. He took a break for a few years when his first daughter was born, but now he’s back, and he’s taking the Polish meta by storm. He came in 3rd at Wrocław District with Big Deal Outfit and Reg Hosh, 1st at Katowice District with BCP Azmari and Reg Hosh, and now 1st at Łódź Megacity with LEO and—of course—Reg Hosh.
I asked him what the secret of his success was.
Naprawdę nie wiem! Myślę, że na pewno zdecydowanie regularne granie. Gram prawie codziennie na jinteki.net i nie przejmuję się przegranymi, tylko traktuję je jako lekcje. Więc raczej standardowe, nudne rzeczy!
I don't really know! I think it's definitely regular playing. I play almost every day on jinteki.net and not worrying about failures but accepting them as a lessons. So I guess standard boring stuff!
Deck Choices: Holo Man LEO and Bravado Hosh
Hoshiko była oczywista. Uwielbiam grać Anarchem od samego początku, bardzo lubię przewijać talię tak szybko, jak to możliwe, a umiejętność Hoshiko jest najlepszym sposobem, aby to zrobić z obecnej puli Anarchów. Lubię też grać agresywnie od pierwszych tur i włamywać się do serwerów tak często, jak to możliwe, niekoniecznie niszcząc je po drodze, stąd większość wyborów w tej talii, a także większość influence wydane na Bravado.
Jeśli chodzi o wybór korporacji, od czasu powrotu do Netrunnera nie miałem żadnego faworyta. Grałem różnymi taliami, np. Outfit BigDeal przed rotacją. Po rotacji nie miałem pojęcia, co grać i trochę bałem się grać po stronie korporacji w Megacity. Zaraz po wyjściu Elevation zainteresowałem się Leo, ponieważ był jedynym, który miał rotacyjny odpowiednik Border Control. Testowałem różne wersje przez tydzień, ale nie wpadłem na pomysł, żeby zaimportować Holomana. Znalazłem tę wersję kilka dni przed turniejem na Netrunnerdb i od razu spodobał mi się ten pomysł. Nie rozegrałem wielu gier testowych, ale po tych kilku wiedziałem już, że talia ma duży potencjał, szczególnie przeciwko bardzo popularnym Deep Dive Sable i Criminal w ogóle.
Hoshiko was a no-brainer. I've loved playing Anarch since the beginning, I really like to cycle through my deck as quickly as possible, and Hoshiko's ability is the best way to do that out of the current Anarch pool. I also like to play aggressively from the first turns and break into servers as often as possible, not necessarily destroying them along the way, hence most of the choices in this deck, as well as most of the influence spent on Bravado.
When it comes to choosing a corporation, since returning to Netrunner I haven't had a favorite. I've played different decks, like Outfit BigDeal before the rotation. After the rotation I had no idea what to play and I was a bit afraid of playing on the corporation side on Megacity. Right after Elevation came out I was interested in Leo because he was the only one with a rotating Border Control counterpart. I tested different versions for a week but didn't come up with the idea of importing Holoman. I found this version a few days before the tournament on Netrunnerdb and I liked the idea right away. I didn't play many test games, but after those few I already knew that the deck had a lot of potential, especially against the very popular Deep Dive Sable and Criminal in general.
Final Standings
yaba [Katowice District Champion] - LEO [5-1-0] / Hosh (Bravado) [4-1-0]
davz131 [Paris + Toulouse District Champion] (EA Sports) - Epiphany [3-2-0] / Seb [5-2-0]
nervousnightjar (EA Sports) - Nebula [3-3-0] / Seb [5-2-0]
ojciec - AU Co. [3-2-0] / Sable [6-0-0]
Essence. 32 - Nebula [5-1-0] / Barry [3-2-0]
gruntownie - Nebula [4-2-0] / Hoshiko [2-2-0]
Buachu - AU Co. [3-2-0] / Sable [3-2-0]
Krasty - Ob [3-1-0] / Hoshiko [2-2-0]
The next Megacity Championship will be in Brescia (IT) on Saturday 17th May, but there are also casual tournaments happening this weekend in Sarasota (FL), Baltimore (MD), White Bear Lake (MN) and Shoreham-by-Sea (UK).
If you can’t make it to a meatspace tournament, ManintheMoon is running another in his popular series of Online Showdown events. With over a hundred registered entrants it could be the biggest showdown yet.
The Surveyor 25.04 meta analysis spreadsheet is available here