Decklist of the week

How To Win Worlds (170th At Worlds 2026)

Description by the author: rongydoge 1922

I’ve spent the past ~3 years thinking about how to win worlds.

I think there are 3 main things that have to happen in order to win. Probably there’s some mathematical breakpoint where if you sum your score across all three things and beat that number you’ll win, but since this is all vibes anyway that’s irrelevant. You can overindex on one and underindex on another – the main point is to try to max out each one.

There is a part of you that is unable to lie. Practice listening to that part of yourself. It will tell you how well you’re doing and how well you will do in each category.

1. Prep

You have to know your decks like the back of your hand. That means knowing every card in every slot, it means knowing what your deck can do and can’t do, it means knowing how your deck wins and how your deck loses.

It means knowing every common matchup in the meta on both sides and knowing them cold. Know how each matchup feels early, mid, and late game. Know in each what your opponents can do to surprise you, what you can do to surprise them, and overall how favored or unfavored you are.

The feeling you are going for is feeling on top of the meta. Try to feel totally comfortable into every common matchup. Try to feel like you know the full win-space that corps and runners have access to (regardless of whether each idea or wincon is expressed in a commonly played deck). This doesn’t mean you won’t get surprised on the day by some new brew, but it does mean you know everything you can reasonably expect and that you feel comfortable into all of it.

Listen to the part of yourself that can’t lie. If you feel panicked or underprepared, explore the feeling and be honest with yourself about where the panic is coming from. Then practice intentionally to resolve that panic.

You’ll know if you’ve accomplished this step when you feel no panic about the decks you’re playing or what you might play into. You will feel totally calm, totally prepared, and totally collected.

2. Surf

Worlds is a long tournament that takes extended focus the entire time. In order to win you have to play at the highest level for ~20+ games. It’s extremely difficult to sustain that level of concentration and performance.

Here are some of the best ways I’ve found to do that:

A) Feel prepared going in

Did you do step 1?

B) Narrow your attention

Focus all of your attention on only the game in front of you.

When you sit down and see your opponent’s ID fall back on your meta knowledge. Tap into the part of you that feels calm and comfortable in that matchup. Walk yourself through what you know to be true and how you expect the game to go.

Do not think about any future game while you’re playing. Do not think about what score you need to make day 2/make the cut. Do not think about how many more losses you can “afford”.

Focus all your attention on your opponent and on the game you are playing.

C) Let go

If you lose a round, process it and let it go as quickly as possible. Regardless of the reason – heartbreaking RNG luck, unexpected lines, bad decisions – you need to let it go.

Carrying any negativity from a previous round into the next one is a death sentence. There is no negative emotion that will serve you if you hold onto it at worlds. It will wreck your vision, concentration, and tournament – no matter how painful it is you have to process it and let it go.

If you win a round, process it and let it go as quickly as possible. Unless you learned something that will serve you in your current game, dwelling on your last game will unfocus your attention on the one you’re currently playing.

The ultimate goal is to smooth out your emotional state. Feeling highs and lows during a tournament is normal. Your break between rounds is your time to process and return yourself to your base state of calm, collected, focused, and comfortable.

Listen to the part of yourself that can’t lie. If you’re carrying something from a previous round into your next one, it will tell you. Do what you need to do to let it go before the next game starts.

3. Catch Breaks

Netrunner has chance baked into it. Chance is what obfuscates player skill and makes the game compelling to compete in at the highest level. Without it, the same player would win every game.

You have the least amount of control over this aspect of your tournament. You can’t control your luck, but my experience is that you can influence it through your attitude.

A positive, calm, comfortable attitude can attract luck and good outcomes. A negative attitude combined with a negative outlook and negative thinking can attract bad luck and bad outcomes.

If you’re following step 2 and surfing well that means you will be playing at the top of your game and playing to your outs. This can look like luck from the outside- keeping your mental positive will help you to catch breaks.

I think the part of you that can’t lie is the part that can influence your luck. If that part is telling you today is not your day, you’ve been getting unlucky, you’re fighting a losing battle – you will be. If that part of you isn’t thinking about luck at all – if that part of you is calm, collected, and comfortable about how you’re playing – you’re in the right spot.

The last thing I want to cover is:

4. What To Do When You Know You’re Not Going To Win

Sometimes you find out you’re not going to win worlds while you’re playing in worlds.

This is painful in proportion to how close you felt you got to winning and how much you staked with yourself on accomplishing that goal.

When this happens, be generous to yourself. Try to give yourself what you need in the moment. Sometimes that’s being alone, sometimes that’s being with other people. Listen to the part of yourself that can’t lie.

Sometimes you know you’re not going to win before you even play.

A powerful part of this preparation is that you will always know whether you are on track to win worlds or not. The part of you that always tells the truth will know.

If you still feel panic during step 1 – that’s your truth letting you know you’re not prepared to where you need to be.

If you feel panicked/unprepared/uncollected during the tournament – that’s your truth letting you know you’re not surfing.

If you feel like you’re constantly seeing bad omens – like you’re locked into a negative track that will end in failure – that is your truth telling you that you messed up in step 1 or step 2.

As worlds approached this year the part of me that can’t lie knew I wasn’t going to win. I spent ~3 months wrestling with that knowledge, and my worlds prep was colored by fighting the part of myself that can’t lie.

I tried blaming other people for knowing that I wasn’t going to win. I blamed my friends for the meta and for the cards that got banned. I blamed them for the ways that the game changed and made me uncomfortable in the meta.

The truth is much simpler – I felt resentment about which cards were banned and let that resentment stop me from playing for 9 months. By the time I decided to go, I was 9 months behind in meta-sense and game-sense, and couldn’t catch up in time for worlds.

If, like me, the part of yourself that can’t lie believes you’re not going to win, my advice is to do two things:

1.Try as hard as you can

When you try as hard as you can, you learn things that help you in the future. You learn more about how your body deals with worlds. You learn more about what competing at that level means. You allow yourself to see the gap between your best this year and what would be required to win, which gives you the map to get where you need to go.

2. Be generous to others

The most effective way I’ve found to process the pain of losing is by helping others. It obliterates the self-oriented pain in a kind of incredible way.

Acts of service will help you remember why you’re at worlds in the first place. I didn’t win, but I supported friends as they competed and cheered on my friend when he won – that is an incredible consolation prize.

This was my eighth worlds. I’ve participated every year since 2018 except for 2022. This year was the most fun I’ve ever had at worlds and it’s not particularly close.

See y’all next year.