We just had our first Netrunner LCG Tournament in Belgium, and I must say it was great. It was held in Outpost Ghent, part of the famous Outpost Gamecenters, and we had 11 players turning up. I have never before witnessed a new game with that many players competing.

Anyhows, the Tournament was very enjoyable for everyone participating. It is truly amazing to see how FFG have managed to make a core set, with a rather limited cardpool, with yet so many deck building possibilities: I played against six decks, and I never saw the same build twice. NBN combo, Weyland combo, HB fatties, Virus Aggro, Stable Kate, Criminal Virus, you name it.

We were a bit concerned the 65-minute time limit would be a problem, but it didn't. Nearly all games finished easily within time. The Tournament started at 20h00, and at about 23h00, we had finished our three rounds of Swiss. We especially liked the Prestige-system: even after only three rounds, we didnt need any stupid tiebreaker rules, as nearly all players finished with different Prestige totals.

As price support, we opened a core set box. The winner would also collect the two first data packs for free, courtesy of Outpost Ghent. I won the Tournament myself, but since I was also the organiser, I decided to pass on picking any cards from the core set. In doing so, all other players went home with a second or third copy of their favorite cards.

We immediately planned a second Tournament, this time in Outpost Antwerp, where we expect even more players. We dont' have an exact date yet, as we would like to do it when the first data pack has been released.

Hi madmanmatt666,

It looks like you and the other players had a lot of fun!!

Actually I’m also from Belgium and I’m quite surprised that Outpost held this kind of tournament because I just read their website and they did/do not mention this initiative at all… Could you explain how this kind of events are organized and where can I find information about upcoming events?

I would really like joining you for the next one!! Good runs!!

Sounds like a good time indeed. Nice to hear everything went smoothly and people are getting into the swing of things with regards to tournaments. Can you provide any more info on the kinds of decks people played, which were the winning factions, etc.?

@nikkov

We didn't post it on our website, because I wanted to test how the game worked in a tournament environment. Next time, somewhere in December after the release of the first expansion, we will post it very clearly on our website. Also, if you make yourself member of the Netrunner Belgiumpage on Facebook, you will know when we plan to do anything.

@saturnine

As I mentioned before, there were a lot of decks present. I won the tournament with a Criminal deck, that relies heavily on keeping the Corp low on credits (Forged Activation, Account Siphon, crazy runs just to force the Corp to rez…). On the other hand, I had many cards in the deck that generate credits: Bank Job, Easy Mark, Armitage, Sure Gamble, but also less expected (Anarch) cards like Stimhack and Cyberfeeder. As far as Icebreakers concerned, I mainly ran with Crypsis and an occasional Femme Fatale, Yog.0 and Ninja, although most of the time I played with only Crypsis on the board.

Because Crypsis was so important to me, I played 3x Special Deliveries and Djinn, which I also used to fetch Datasuckers, that go very well with Crypsis (and tend to put pressure on all Central Servers). All together, I had a very low-cost engine, so didn't have to worry too much about Trace and other sorts of pesky Corp-stuff.

The card that won me the tournament, was Crash Space. While testing some hours before the start of the event, I was flatlined all the time by a combo-Weyland deck, but the player behind the deck was so kind to advice me on what to use to counter his tactic, which I did, with success.

My Crop-deck was much more straightforward. Haas-Bioroid, with again a lot of credit-gain, lots of ice (22), with high rez-costs (Heimdall, Archer, Tollbooth…). Tactics were rather simple. First turn Hedge Fund into a 8-drop on a remote server, rush an Accelerated Beta Test, then sit and relax (unless the Beta Test goes ugly, which it constantly did during the tournament). At one moment I had five agenda points in Archives, with 8 pieces of Ice to protect it, including three Tollbooths

The card that proved a game-winner was Experiental Data, which made an Ichi unpassable against the Mimic of my opponent in the final and deciding round. He went 'ouch' and the tournament was in the bag.