What should I play?
A look back at the most popular decks from the continentals series
As we find ourselves in the brief lull between continentals and UK regionals, it seems like a good time to reflect on how the 24.05 meta has developed so far, and to ask ourselves “what decks should I sleeve for the next tournament?”
Important caveat: the honest answer is that you can play whatever you want to play. Gone are the days of homogenous top cuts. NSG have—I assume deliberately—crafted the cardpool in such a way as to close the gap between Tier-1 and Tier-2 decks, to the point where this distinction has become largely meaningless.
The most important thing is that you:
play a deck that you enjoy
practice your matchups
tune the deck as appropriate
With that said, if you’re struggling for ideas, then here’s a summary of some of the most popular competitive decks of 24.05 so far.
Runner
Although slightly behind in win rates (~49%), there are a wide variety of successful runner archetypes to choose from.
Shaper
Shaper is in a good place right now, and is probably the most successfully competitive that it has ever been.
Arissana
Statistically, Arissana is the standout identity of the season (56% win rate). Specifically, World Tree Arissana’s win rates are even higher (I would guess at something approaching 70%), and is almost certainly the “best deck”. That being said, it is probably also the most difficult runner deck to “pick up and play”. If you are thinking of bringing this deck to a tournament then I suggest not worrying too much about tech slots (which actually don’t particularly matter all that much) and, instead, focus on practice.
Difficulty Curve (World Tree Arissana): 5/5
Matchup to practice: Asa
Lat
If World Tree Arissana is “the best deck”, then Lat is an incredibly close second place (55% win rate). Two varients have proven popular: Swift Deep Dive Lat has a straightforward and proactive game plan, where as “Boring” Lat is a control deck that is equipped to counter all and every strategy that the Corp might bring to the table. I suspect that “Boring” Lat is (probably) the better deck, but it relies on an encyclopaedic knowledge of Corp game plans, and both decks have proven themselves to be solid choices.
Difficulty Curve (Swift Lat): 3/5
Difficulty Curve (Boring Lat): 4/5
Matchup to practice: PD
Kit
Kit has proven her ability to get into top cuts time and time again this season. Lobisomem Spark, and Rhahi’s Hyperbaric + Mantle list both stand out from continentals, however, a new Inversificator Kit list also just entered the battlefield…
Difficulty Curve (Spark Kit): 2/5
Difficulty Curve (Hyperbaric Kit): 3/5
Difficulty Curve (Inversificator Kit): 4/5
Matchup to practice: Asa
Anarch
Anarch has been on a downward trend since the 24.05 banlist was announced, but is still highly competitive.
Hoshiko
Ashnikko win rates are not what they once were, but it is still a highly competitive deck with a relatively low barrier to entry. Tweak the tech slots as you see fit, but please try and stick to 45 cards. I know it’s tempting to add all the lovely Anarch value cards to the deck, but Hoshiko’s main weakness is failing to find breakers against rush decks, and going above 45 cards only makes this weakness worse.
Difficulty Curve (Ashnikko): 3/5
Matchup to practice: PD
Esâ
Esâ has shown promising results all season—but it’s been a real challenge to get the list down to a consistent 45 cards. However, in roads have been made, and now that jan tuno may have finally solved this deckbuilding problem, the sky is the limit.
Difficulty Curve (Esâ): 4/5
Matchup to practice: PD
Criminal
Criminal is in a weird spot. Win rates are down across the faction, and no ID is consistently making it into top cuts. What’s interesting, though, is that the decks that do make it into the top cut are all doing something either unique or unorthodox. Reg crim no longer seems to be a thing—a possibly consequence of the Bellona ban.
If you do find yourself wanting to play blue, here are a couple of decks that I think are worth considering.
Zahya
Zahya is probably the closest thing to reg crim to emerge from the 24.05 meta. She has a particularly poor win rate, but encourages the most basic of netrunner fundamentals: make runs, make money, touch agendas, win.
Difficulty Curve (Zahya): 2/5
Matchup to practice: all of them
Bankhar Steve
I’ve had a lot of feedback that the Bankhar Steve deck that I took to EMEA is both “good” and also “fun to play”. I certainly still enjoy it.
Difficulty Curve (Bankhar Steve): 4/5
Matchup to practice: Punitive RH
Other lists
There are a myriad of other weird criminal lists that have made cuts this season: Jetinho Sable, Twinning Ken, Jackpot 419, to name a few.
If you are wanting to do something creative and unique then I think that Criminal has the most space of all the runner factions for you to do that—but it’s going to be a high effort, high risk, high reward strategy.
Corp
Despite still being (slightly) ahead on win rates (~51%), there is not as large a variety of competitive Corp lists to talk about.
HB
Possibly because the worst matchups are Criminal, HB has become the go-to Corp faction of choice this season.
Asa
Asa group is the highest performing HB Identity (57% win rate), and holds up remarkably well against Arissana (60% win rate). The two most competitive builds seem to be SkunkVoid and Holo Man.
Difficulty Curve (SkunkVoid Asa): 4/5
Difficulty Curve (Holo Man Asa): 4/5
Matchup to practice: Lat
PD
PD is as solid as ever, but is performing slightly better this season compared to last. There are two varients to consider: the traditional SkunkVoid build, or the more modern Midnight-3 Big Deal build.
Difficulty Curve (SkunkVoid PD): 2/5
Difficulty Curve (Midnight-3 PD): 3/5
Matchup to practice: World Tree Arissana
Sportsmetal
For whatever reason, Sportsmetal seems to do well in swiss, but worse in top cuts. That being said, it’s still a very competitive choice. If you like fast advance, there is an Audacity build, and a Moon Pool build. If you prefer assets, I recommend Amani Senai.
Difficulty Curve (Audacity Sports): 2/5
Difficulty Curve (Amani Sports): 3/5
Difficulty Curve (Moon Pool Sports): 4/5
Matchup to practice: Criminal, World Tree Arissana
Jinteki
Although at the beginning of the season it looked like there might be a plethora of interesting Jinteki asset strategies, the dominance of World Tree Arissana has mostly reduced Jinteki to Punitive Counterstrike decks.
Punitive RH / AgInfusion
I’m grouping Punitive RH and Punitive AgInfusion together under one archetype, because the game plan is the same—they are both creating a kill fork using Regenesis, Bacterial Programming and Punitive Counterstrike. Of the two, RH seems more straightforward, but there may be subtle reasons for choosing AgInfusion that I haven’t appreciated.
Difficulty Curve (Punitive RH): 3/5
Difficulty Curve (Punitive AgInfusion): 4/5
Matchup to practice: Lat
Glacier AgInfusion
Despite some mixed results, Glacier AgInfusion is a decklist still favoured by such tournament heavyweights as AugustusCaesar and Sokka. NotAgain recently found success by importing Skunkworks. At it’s core, these are all decks that are using Charlotte Caçador to propel themselves towards a board state where the runner is completely locked out and simply cannot win.
Difficulty Curve (Glacier AgInfusion): 3/5
Matchup to practice: Lat
Weyland
Weyland has struggled to find it’s way into top cuts this season, which is a little strange given how strong rush Ob was last season. There’s only really one stand out archetype to speak of.
Facet Ob
The latest incarnation of Facet Ob—a portmanteau of fast advance and asset—is a complicated deck that is doing a bunch of different scary things, including: scoring Eminent Domain to tutor, install and rez Archer; using Calibration Testing to tutor, install and rez Holo Man; using Wall-to-Wall with Hearts and Minds to double advance an installed agenda for free. It’s a very difficult list to play, but it’s also super impressive when it all comes together.
Difficulty Curve (Facet Ob): 5/5
Matchup to practice: Lat
NBN
NBN is probably be the most under-explored faction in 24.05. Unlike Weyland, players aren’t even trying to build NBN lists—or, if they are, they certainly aren’t bringing them to tournaments. Which is a shame, because NBN seems perfectly positioned to punish aggressive runner builds (such as Arissana, Hoshiko and Esâ). If you wanted to have a go exploring this archetype, I would start with R+, Public Trail, Self Growth Program and see where it takes you. Otherwise, the only obvious NBN option is…
Kill Azmari
A terrifying kill deck that aims to only ever score one agenda (Reeducation), and to close the game by turn 7 (one way or the other). A minimum deck size and an insane amount of draw cards propels the deck towards this win condition faster than the runner can respond. Punitive Counterstrike provides the kill fork that keeps centrals safe in the meantime.
Difficulty Curve (Kill Azmari): 3/5
Matchup to practice: World Tree Arissana
I would suggest that there might be a slightly different use of terms when we talk about Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks.
Tier 1 - WT Ari, Control Lat, Esa
Tier 2 - Bankhar Steve, Hoshiko, Most Shaper
Tier 3 - Zahya, Spark Kit
....
Tier 12 - Los, Gnat, etc
imo there isn't a big gap between tier 1 and tier 2 but there is a big gap between those decks and stuff further down the ladder
" close the gap between Tier-1 and Tier-2 decks, to the point where this distinction has become largely meaningless"
Not sure I agree. While player skill can certainly create confusion on this issue (e.g. Whiteblade with Zahya) the vast majority of players are going to do a lot better in a tournament with Arissana, Esa, and Sable than with Tao, Sebastiao and Zahya (and let's not consider Tier 3 IDs like Akiko*, Gnat and Los). In fact, the worse you are at runner side (like yours truly), the more important is is to pick an ID that just does the work for you. Nothing like being bad at Netrunner but then Esa triggers puts all their agendas in the bin. The Spark/Kit deck does so much of the hard work for you a large percentage of the time: Spark->Lobisomem, there now you can run anywhere until they double ice.
And on the Corp side, due to the pressure the best runner decks are able to mount, bringing a Tier 2 deck is potentially disastrous unless you have a billion reps with it.
*The "Girls" deck is fun, and not bad, but certainly far from the most busted thing you can be doing in the Green faction right now.