Decklist of the week

A River Upstate (Undefeated and 4th at NA Online Distrcts)

Identity

Description by the author: coldlava 1073

On the Extract Ban

Our parents told us Ob has to go to a river upstate. It's been too aggressive, and even when we tried a few things to calm it down it just got defensive. I've heard old dogs can't learn new tricks but it seems to keep learning. I hope one day our parents will let me visit it at the river. I hope Ob enjoys the open rivers.

An Ode to Ob

I started playing Netrunner during Ashes startup and made the jump to standard when Midnight Sun released. During spoiler season I saw Ob and knew I wanted to play it. I jumped straight into standard playing Ob, eventually settling on the Rush/Combo Kill variants. From there I played lots and lots of Ob.

How and why to play

This is the deck I brought to the Americas online districts. It went undefeated and I was able to take it to 4th place. It is a variation on Scrobs from last meta. While Svytagor was banned, a local player realized Plutus with Extract in the bin does an adequate Svyatogor Excavator impression, even bursting 6 clicklessly instead of 3. The deck plays relatively similarly to that. Rush to score a The Basalt Spire as soon as possible using any of your many tools, and now your new ones enabled by the Plutus. It puts pressure on the runner by both scoring out quickly and using Measured Response if they try to do anything to stop it. Read the original Scrobs writeup for a better description of how to play outside of the Plutus include.

Looking forward

I am going to miss Ob. I am of the belief that the Extract ban kills the deck from a competitive standpoint, but more importantly from an interesting standpoint. Being able to turn any card into another card, either through Extract or Svyatagor allowed very creative plays from pilots. Yes, the numbers on both were way too pushed, but it's what made the deck fun. Now that all the trashes are forced through self trashing cards, the lines get way more linear. I'd love a fairer extract, maybe something like a Hansei Review so it's 5c to play and nets 5c, but I doubt it's worth design's time to make a card like that exist. Even without Ob I'm sure I'll still play. Netrunner is a great game; it's amazing that it can support a card like Ob without it being banned in a month, let alone last 4 years at a relatively competitive level.

We should take life lessons from our hobbies when we can. In Netrunner, play the decks you love while you can. In life that lesson is even more important.