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Off Meta Month: Focus on Time Traveller

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Off Meta Month concludes this weekend with the Time Traveller tournament, which takes place at 10am UTC on Sunday, 29 December. We asked the tournament’s organizer, Aksu, to tell us how the idea for the format came to him, and whether he had any suggestions of decks for people to use. Please check the event’s Always Be Running page for the full details on how to join!

The idea for this event originated from a fun conversation I had with a group of Finnish players during a drive to a Circuit Opener in Tampere. We were debating what the greatest deck in the history of Netrunner would be. We quickly agreed that decks utilizing Salvaged Vanadis Armory should be banned from contention, a point which was well proven during the PURGE! tournament earlier this month. Nonetheless, that discussion sparked my curiosity about what might happen if we pitted legendary decks from different eras of Netrunner’s history against each other.

Not long after that conversation, Ysengrin hosted the Worlds GOAT Deck Competition, in which decks from every World Championship faced off against each other. Watching and playing in those matches was really enjoyable, and it cemented the idea of running a similar event where people could bring their own favourites.

When Off-Meta Month rolled around, I knew I wanted to organize something for the event. After realizing that implementing  a custom set into Jinteki.net is not feasible, I decided that my event would be a Time Traveler tournament! I decided on the name for the format to reflect the idea that we would be journeying into the game’s past to find the most powerful decks of all time.

However, a major change from the original concept as we discussed it with my friends is that people are not restricted to historical tournament-winning decks, but instead can build their own lists. This introduces an interesting form of metagaming. For example, if you expect oppressive asset-based decks of the past such as IG-54 or Hot Tubs Gagarin to be the biggest Corp threats, you can opt to include tech cards from other points in Netrunner’s history, such as Miss Bones or even Hijacked Router, which would not have been available to the Runners facing off against those decks in their day. 

To me, this tournament is the perfect opportunity for players to relive the thrill of piloting a beloved deck that no longer exists in its original form, or to experiment with strategies that aren’t viable in the game’s current meta. It is aimed to be a celebration of the history of the game.

Clarification: When deciding on your decks, both your Corp and Runner deck must date from the same era of the game (ie. same card pool and banned/restricted list version)!

Deck suggestions

I am also going to outline some decks which I think are wonderful to play as, and which might be unique and interesting for newer players who missed out on them to try out.

Supermodernism

Examples:

This Argus list I think is one of the most archetypal “Supermodernism” decks. Spreading your opponent thin by super aggressively jamming in the remote and keeping them really honest with tags and tag punishment. I admit to bias, as it is also my favourite archetype in all of Netrunner. Before I was a Precision Design one-trick-pony, I used to spend all of my Netrunner time jamming Project Atlases into remotes. Odol’s Outfit version is a very similar version of the archetype from a more recent era.

Adam

Examples:

I think anybody who has not had the chance to play an Adam deck owes themselves a chance to take the OG bioroid identity out for a spin. This identity offers such a unique way to interact with your opponent. Percomis’s list is probably the strongest Adam deck that ever existed, utilizing Adam to gain massive amounts of value during the game and pairing that with a great econ engine that puts many modern ones to shame. The second list is for people that dont want to play this reg game and want to utilize Adam tools to play a really fun mixture of all the other runner factions. 

If you have already tried out Adam, I would also suggest trying Sunny or Apex.

Cerebral Imaging Combo

Cerebral Imaging combo decks are a big part of Netrunner history which no longer exists in any shape or form. The first deck suggestion is a slightly more approachable version that scores out over multiple turns, as opposed to the 7-point combo CI decks. If you want to pick CI up for the tournament I would suggest at least playing 1-2 training games against yourself first just to figure the deck out. And for the bravest players out there you also should look up a Brain Rewiring combo version or one of the many 7-point combo versions.

Geist

Geist is a totally unique engine deck that works in a way that we don’t really see anywhere else. There is a reason people have called Geist the green criminal. A wonderful aspect of deckbuilding Geist decks is that you have to evaluate a large part of the cardpool in a new way. The highlighted list is a version that rips away some of the more engine parts often seen in Geist decks and adds raw powerful cards. The main economy engine still works around Tech Trader, but you trade cards like Hostage, Technical Writer, or Gbahali for generically great cards like Stimhack and Sure Gamble.

Other notable mentions

There are more lists that I would love to recommend but the list can’t go on forever. Some other decks that deserved a mention are:

Hope to see people show up on the 29th and participate in the tournament!

Author

  • Aksu

    Organized play team member and active PD+Hoshiko OTP, on a mission to win Swedish nationals someday.

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