North American Netrunner Players Circuit - Who To Watch At Cascadia

Abraham “ManintheMoon” McBride

From: Seattle, United States
Notable Finishes: 1st 2023 Intercontinental Champion, 8th 2024 APAC Continental Championship, 6th 2024 Circuit Breaker Invitational, 1st NANPC Vancouver, 6th Cascadia 2023

Abraham has been a dominant force in West coast Netrunner, alongside his brother Charlie McBride, Abraham has cleaned up tournaments across the coast, while making his mark in a variety of online events. Abraham has shown a preference for Anarch, playing Reg Hoshiko, Esa or recently working on Sebastio. Abraham’s “Shoot the moon” PD list has also taken the tournament scene by storm. Will we see Abraham play his beloved Anarch and latest PD brew? Or instead innovate and take down the tournament with fresh lists?

Henry “Wentagon” Lane

From: San Francisco, United States
Notable Finishes: 9th Cascadia 2023, 4th Online Summer Showdown 2024, 6th NANPC Boston

Henry is a relative newcomer to the competitive Netrunner scene but has been making up for lost time. Henry is a shaper player, having played Lat and Ari to his three highest finishes. Corp side Henry plays a variety of decks, but recently expertly piloted “Barf” Thule to a top cut finish. In the last six months Henry has had his breakout placements, scoring top cut spots at the Online Showdown and NANPC Boston. With Cascadia being an opportunity for Henry to cement himself as one of the west coast’s best players, will his shaper and corp play be up to the challenge?

Jason “Syd7” Ford

From: Vancouver, Canada
Notable Finishes: American Continental Champion 2020, 2nd NANPC Vancouver, 16th 2024 American Continental Championship

Jason is a mainstay of the Vancouver Netrunner community. Known for his love of shaper and immense skill with the faction, Jason has played shaper at a high level across several ID’s, including Wu, Lat and Ari. Jason is also a fan of Sportsmetal, having played it for years across several tournaments and showing a keen understanding of the deck. For Cascadia, will Jason play his classic Ari and Sportsmetal, or will we see him do something completely different to win the event?

With Cascadia fast approaching, the best the west coast has to offer will soon fight it out for first place. Be sure to follow the tournament and catch the stream here to follow the action live!

Congratulations to Stephen “StephenE” Ebery for winning NANPC San Francisco!

Stephen decided to bring his own twist on some established top decks from Jan Tuno, playing altered versions of Tuno’s Ob and Esa deck from EMEA. We caught up with Stephen to ask him some questions about his experience at the tournament!

Congratulations on your win at NANPC SF You chose to bring Ob And Esa to the event, why those decks?

Esa: I brought this deck because I’ve mostly been a Criminal player, but I’m not very happy with a lot of the Crim matchups right now. Aumakua is hurt by Obs all running 2 Maviruses and spicy sentries, and it can be hard for Crim to keep up with the speed of Asa or the glacier or Aginfusion or Azmari. With Esa, I don’t have to worry too hard about individual corp matchups, and can instead force them to worry about my extremely disruptive gameplay.

Ob: I think Asa and Ob are the 2 best decks right now, and I already played Asa at Off the Grid and APAC Continentals. I figured I’d take Ob to test out whether I liked it better, and it worked out pretty well for me!

How did you prepare for the event?

LA did not have a thriving in person scene for a while, but recently we’ve been getting 7-10 people for our casual meetups, which has been great! I’ve also been testing online with a group of mostly SF based players, and discussing our thoughts on the meta and sharing decklists. The particular lists I picked were mostly inspired by Tuno rather than my testing group though.

Did you have any memorable games or moments on the day?

I played former World Champion Limes once in Swiss and once in the cut, and the cut game was really exciting! Limes had an 8 strength Bran (it’s base 6 strength, and they played Next Activation Command to boost it to 8), and I had to shuffle 2 Running Hot into my 9 card deck deck with Labor Rights, draw them with Nuka on my 2nd click, and play them with my 3rd and 5th clicks to get Begemot to 8 strength! After that, my deck was small enough that I could just shuffle a few Chastuskas in, draw them, and mill the corp. I didn’t really want to run archives because I figured (correctly) that it had an Ablative Barrier on it and it would just install a spin that shuffled back agendas.

Should we expect you at any NANPC events in the future?

Yes, I’ll be at Cascadia, and I’m running a NANPC event in LA on Saturday, September 7th! It’s very close to the Burbank airport if anyone wants to fly in that morning.

Anyone you want to shout out?

PJ20 has been my most frequent JNet sparring partner, and dezigerator has been my most frequent in person one! They’re great practice partners.

A big congratulations to Stephen for his win in San Francisco! August looks to be another packed month as Cascadia will take place on August 3rd to 4th and NANPC Montreal will take place on the 24th and 25th of August. The competition is heating up as the fight for NANPC circuit points only grows more fierce!

Congratulations to “Benvelopment” Blum for winning NANPC Philadelphia

Bblum won the event with Ob and Kit! The Ob was their own brew of the classic “tempo” Ob list, while they picked a homebrewed Kit list tuned to take down the event. We caught up with Bblum for their thoughts on the event!

Congratulations on your win at NANPC Philadelphia You chose to bring Ob And Kit to the event, why those decks?

I don’t think I need to tell anyone why I brought Ob but one thing worth pointing out is I wanted to prove that Arella Salvatore is the better upgrade in a rush deck. I bought Kit because Inversificator gives you the sort of deep multi-turn, controlling the board, advance planning feeling you used to get with Prepaid Kate and is really the first time I’ve had fun playing runner in several years. and also it’s another pittsburgh homebrew so my whole team has been trying to get it noticed for a while.

How did you prepare for the event?

I don’t know, we prepared like we always do, jam games against known top decks for about a week and argue about whether we should play the third bravado or a tech card (it should have just been the bravado though).

Did you have any memorable games or moments on the day?

Honestly all 3 cut games vs Brandon, he’s such a delight. In the last one, vs Esa I got stuck with both Magnet and Thimblerig unrezzed on HQ and he wouldn’t let me rez them so I eventually had to trash the Magnet and spin it back just to have access to code gates (which is critical vs Esa’s breakers). afterwards I asked why he never ran hq and he said “well I could tell something was wrong and I didn’t know what, I had accessed both archers so I thought you were trying to shuffle it back so you could get it with eminent, and if I ran HQ it would let you feed tithe to Stavka to get spin so I shouldn’t run HQ and just focus on what’s already rezzed.” His reasoning was completely wrong but led him to make the right decision anyway and I thought that was really insightful.

Should we expect you at any NANPC events in the future?

Unlikely but I will be at worlds, and also Pittsburgh is definitely gonna have a regionals next year so please come to our beautiful city 🙂

Anyone you want to shout out?

Marcus, he’s done a lot of work growing the community in Pittsburgh and also invented the kit deck. Colin, he’s a great testing partner and has come a long way for being a recent convert to the game. Ysengrin, he knows why. barts bagels near redcaps, that horseradish cc is the bomb.

A huge congratulations to Bblum for taking down NANPC Philadelphia. August looks to be another packed month as Cascadia will take place on August 3rd to 4th and NANPC Montreal will take place on the 24th and 25th of August. The competition is heating up as the fight for NANPC circuit points only grows more fierce!

Jonas “TBU3K” Wilson

From: Washington DC, United States
Notable Finishes: American Continental Champion 2021, 2nd at Worlds 2021, 15th at Worlds 2017, 16th at Worlds 2022, 5th at US Nationals East 2023

Jonas is one of the most prolific deckbuilders and players on the east coast. Having played Netrunner for 8+ years, Jonas has repeatedly brought innovative decks to the format, including Potential Unleashed Grinder, Hard Hitting News Asa and refinements to Worldtree Ari. Jonas has also proved himself as a competitor, netting multiple top 16 finishes at Worlds. Jonas looks to be a favorite for NANPC Philadelphia. The question is whether Jonas will bring a new deck to this tournament, or continue to refine existing archetypes such as Worldtree Ari.

Dhairya “Notagain” Patel

From: Boston, United States
Notable Finishes: 5th at Off The Grid, 9th at NANPC Boston, 18th at US Nationals East 2023

Dhairya has been a rising star in the east coast tournament scene. While Dhairya can be spotted playing any and every local CO in the boston area, Dhairya has also traveled for a variety of tournaments, including playing up and down the east coast in NYC and other cities. Dhairya is also an innovative deckbuilder, experimenting and finding success with new ideas in R+ and The Outfit. For NANPC Philadelphia, keep an eye on Dhairya as he looks to continue to climb the NANPC Circuit Points Leaderboard

Lucas “Coldlava” Crandall

From: New Jersey, United States
Notable Finishes: 4th at February AMT, 14th at US Nationals East 2023, 26th at EMEA Continentals 2023, 20th at 2024 Circuit Breaker Invitational

Starting in 2023, Lucas has had steadily more success at tournaments, placing in the top fitth of a variety of major events. Now in 2024, Lucas has progressed to coming within striking distance of the cut at several events. Known as a prolific Ob and Reg Anarch player, Lucas can often be spotted grinding out Ob games at tournaments

With NANPC Philadelphia shaping up to be a large competitive east coast event, it could be Lucas’s opportunity to crack the top 8 with his Ob gameplay.

NANPC Philadelphia is looking to be an exciting event! Pay attention to these players as the event begins, and check back in with us after the event as we recap who won!

The NANPC Circuit returns to the east as players get ready to compete at the iconic Redcap’s Corner! Come on down and enjoy a great weekend of Netrunner as players from across the east coast head to Philadelphia.

Prizing will be of the standard NANPC Fermenter Promo, NANPC Dice and a variety of other prize support! Day one will consist of the main standard event and 8 rounds of single sided swiss with a cut to top 8. Day two will have a variety of side events, including Startup Pods, Cube Draft and Pack Draft. In addition, Sanjay will be running a narrative campaign event! More information can be found here.

Get excited for NANPC Philadelphia as the best the east coast has to offer competes for first place!

Congratulations to Sebastian Kocz for winning Off The Grid!

Sebastian took down the event with his signature “Big Ob” weyland deck, using Mutually Assured Destruction and a deluge of installed cards to overwhelm the runner. His runner deck was a value oriented Lat list, aimed at grinding down the corporation.

We caught up with Sebastian for his thoughts on the event!

Congratulations on your win at Off The Grid! You chose to bring Ob and Lat to the event, why those decks?

I’ve been playing this Ob on and off since Worlds. It is a comfort pick which I also expected to be good in the meta following a tournament where many non-hoshiko runners shined: I couldn’t pass up the chance to play it. My favorite runner right now is World Tree Ari, but I didn’t want my wrists falling off from too much shuffling, so I went with Sokka’s Lat from continentals. He claimed in his writeup that it could deal with a multitude of threats, and a good all-round deck was what I wanted in a corp meta that hadn’t solidified yet.

How did you prepare for the event?

I had just come off from preparing a lot for American continentals the weekend before, so I was already running pretty hot. I knew Ob well enough that I didn’t need to practice any more with it, so I focused on Lat. I was able to get in about 15 smurf games against randoms and a few more games against fellow TAI-breakers. I also asked Sokka for his game replays from continentals, which he graciously shared along with some notes about each game. Watching him play helped me get in a more reactive mindset, which this Lat requires.

Did you have any memorable games or moments on the day?

My last Lat game in swiss was wild. I was against RH, and we were both on game point after many twists and turns. As the clock was running out, my opponent installed and double advanced a card in the remote. There were two facedown upgrades in the remote that I hadn’t managed to deal with, and I only had 1 Pinhole threading. Fearing two Anoetic Voids, I pinholed archives to trash one, and then ran HQ to force the corp to give me back another pinhole with DJ Steve.

Archives was iced, and I wanted to save the revolver counters, so I pinholed a remote that had a single unrezzed ice. The ice on the scoring server still wasn’t rezzed, so I figured the corp may not have enough money to rez something like an Anansi. Turns out, the ice was a Konjin, which could force me to encounter an Anansi for cheap and ruin all my math. I had to win the psi game. We put our hands under the table to prepare the bid. Absent-mindedly in the lead up to the event, I had been practicing the motion of bidding zero on a psi game. So, it only seemed right to bid that. When we open our palms, they are both empty.

The pinhole revealed that the second upgrade was a mavirus, so all that effort was wasted, but thankfully I still had just enough credits to break in and steal the winning Fuji (and one left over, so I could have trashed a second void if there was one!).

Should we expect you at any NANPC events in the future?

There is a chance I’ll go to Cascadia, it will have to be a last-minute decision though.

Anyone you want to shout out?

TAI breakers for the great comradery so far this season and welcoming me into the fold, and Sokka for the tips on playing the Lat. Also Orbs for organizing, and CTZ and cranked for some hilarious commentary.

July looks to be a packed month for NANPC events, with NANPC Philadelphia running from the 13th to the 14th of July, and NANPC San Francisco running the week after on July 20th! Circuit points have also been updated. Keep your eyes peeled as we reveal our end of year prizing for the top 8 finishers on the NANPC Leaderboard!

Check out below for some photos from the event!

Congratulations to Eric “Whiteblade111” for winning NANPC Boston!

Eric won on a pair of aggressive decks: A Fast Advance Sportsmetal list and a Zahya deck that used central pressure and multi access to rush down defending corporations. The finals was a confrontation between two west coast players, with Eric coming up from the losers bracket and winning twice to cinch the tournament, including a nail biter game versus Charlie’s Thule!

Congratulations on your win at NANPC Boston! You chose to bring Sportsmetal And Zahya to the event, why those decks?

My testing team (Snarebears) had worked on the Sportsmetal internally and was happy with it. I didn’t have a lot of time to practice but I love the archetype. I also expected a lot of value oriented Hoshiko decks in the field, so an aggressive orthogonal corp seemed like the right decision. I was supposed to play Hoshiko runner side but pivoted to Zahya at the last minute. Zahya is my favorite deck in the game, and if I think it’s even remotely reasonable to play her, I will.

How did you prepare for the event?

I was graduating law school the week before I left for NANPC Boston so I didn’t have a lot of time to practice. I jammed a lot of Jnet before the event and just totally faceplanted online. I had to trust my team had cooked up a sick corp deck and I could remember how to run. I played some last minute games in paper against tf34 at 2am the night before the event in which tf34 wrecked my Hoshiko with PD, so I swapped to Zahya.

Did you have any memorable games or moments on the day?

It was so lovely to see everyone at the event. The atmosphere was incredible and it was nice to just hang out with my friends. My games against the “Barf Thule” over the day were interesting and playing against Charlie in the finals was great. I have a lot of respect for Charlie as a player, and it really felt like we got to play some high level netrunner against each other. Playing against my friend Chris in the semi finals was also a treat. He’s a really great guy, and it was fun playing a high stakes game that was also friendly and fun.

Should we expect you at any NANPC events in the future?

I’ll be running Cascadia on August 3rd to 4th, so come attend! As for playing, I think my year might be done. You’ll probably be able to spot me at some local west coast stuff, but this was my big travel event for the year. It was nice to cap it off with a win!

Anyone you want to shout out?

I want to thank Notagain for organizing the event, Andrej, Eric and Cado for running the stream, Ysengrin for judging, and everyone for attending and playing the event. It was an awesome day of Netrunner, and I’m very proud that the community made it happen. I’d also like to thank the Snarebears for the hard carry on the corp side, while entertaining my delusions that “Zahya is totally viable trust me guys”

Check out photos from the event below! A big thanks to Izzy Miller, Dan Bouchard and Andrej for taking photos on the day!

The NANPC journeys to the midwest as one of the most iconic North American Netrunner events takes place this weekend: Off The Grid! Hosted at the Gamezenter in Roseville, Minnesota, Off The Grid is one of the longest running fan tournaments in North America. This year Off The Grid is hosting a National Championship, so stay tuned as players compete for the title!

Prizing will include the standard NANPC alt art Fermenter and Dice, as well as the NSG prizing from the 2024 Nationals Kit.

Interested in more coverage of Off The Grid? Watch a series of a community spotlight videos put together by Joshua Swaner, celebrating the community members that make Off The Grid great: Check out the videos here!

NANPC Boston will be the first major event to use the new Standard Ban List. Competitors have been practicing and testing with the new ban list, so expect to see new decks hit the competitive scene! We’re spotlighting three players attending NANPC Boston that you should keep an eye on:

Dee “DeeR” Ruttenberg

From: Princeton, United States
Notable Finishes: 6th at Worlds 2023, 14th at Worlds 2021, 2nd at East Coast Championships 2023, 6th at EMEA Continentals

Over the last two years, Dee has proven themselves as one of the fiercest competitors to emerge from the east coast Netrunner scene. Dee has played a variety of archetypes at the top level of Netrunner play, including Keeling Aginfusion, Big Hoshiko, NEH Kill and World Tree Wu. Known for their precise style of play and ability to play a variety of decks, you never know what to expect from Dee. Will they innovate on the meta and play something unexpected, or dominate the field with an old favorite?

Andrew “CTZ” Cortez

From: San Francisco, United States
Notable Finishes: 3rd at Cascadia 2023, 4th at American Continentals 2020, 1st at Various Store Championships.

Ctz is a pillar of the netrunner community. They cut their teeth on the competitive San Francisco meta, before breaking out onto the national scene as a serious contender. While Ctz has contributed to the community by co-running the SanSanfrancisco stream and co-designing the Roseville cycle, they are also a strong competitor. While Ctz may appear to play loose and have a carefree attitude, he hides a killer instinct and a sharp mind that can unravel complex boardstates. Ctz has seen success on Reg Crim and forms of Rush decks in the past. With the new ban list, will we see Ctz crack the top 8 with Reg Crim?

Holly “Onholiday” Hilliard

From: Boston, United States
Notable Placements: First at various Boston Circuit Openers

A Boston native, Holly is relatively new to Netrunner. In her time with the game she has made her mark on the Boston scene, winning most of the Circuit Openers in the Boston area. Holly is known for their strong command of Reg Hosh, being able to set up fast and dominate corp boardstates. Holly has also been known to be an enjoyer of Personal Evolution in various forms. With the new ban list, will we see Holly crush the field with Reg Hosh, or give a new runner a try?

With NANPC Boston fast approaching, anyone could take the top spot. Be sure to tune in to Neon Static who will be livestreaming the entire tournament from May 25th to 26th!

The NANPC continues east as players up and down the coast prepare to play in Boston! With players attending from all over the East Coast, NANPC Boston is shaping up to be the largest NANPC event so far this year. With so many vying for the top spot, who will be the champion of NANPC Boston?

Prizing will include a H1 CO kit, store credit to the top 8, special Boston themed top 4 click trackers and the standard NANPC prizing including the Fermenter Alt Art and NANPC Dice! Additional prizing for side events will be announced at a later date.

As of the publication of this article, NSG Organized Play has indicated that a new Standard Ban List will be implemented a week before NANPC Boston. The New Banlist will be LEGAL at NANPC Boston.

All eyes are on Boston as players gear up for one of the highlights of the tournament season!