Netrunner’s new world champion is a humble but deadly newcomer
From choom to champ.
Eskil “ZomZraft” Sandblom, the newest Netrunner world champion, says he feels like quite a small part of the card game’s community. He summited a three-day competition held in Edinburgh, Scotland from October 17 through 19, which included 360 other competitive hopefuls. The Swedish player, understated and a little quiet in an interview with Rascal, dominated his opponents in 3-0 matchups through the international event’s first 12 rounds, and only lost two games ahead of the top 16 cut. It’s the kind of clean ascent any veteran runner would be proud to publicize, but Sandblom is no veteran.
He’s only been competing since last year.
“I’ve competed face-to-face since last summer [2024]. I went to the Swedish National Championships in Malmö, and that really ignited my passion for the game,” Sandblom said. He predominantly plays online via Jinteki but mixes in semi-regular games within his local and regional scene. Netrunner’s tight-knit community thrives within Discord servers and internet enclaves, though the stewardship of publisher Null Signal Games has allowed real-world organized play to flourish over the last half decade.
“In April of this year, I bought tickets to the World Championship and decided to take the whole competing angle more seriously,” Sandblom said. His competitive journey started in Sweden before attending the Continental Championship in Cologne and ending with his crowning in Scotland. “I knew I was a pretty strong player, but I didn’t think I was good enough to win the world championship.”
Netrunner is the worst kept secret of competitive card games and a genuine anomaly in its class. The first iteration of the asymmetrical battler, created by Magic: The Gathering’s father Richard Garfield, took place inside the setting of the Cyberpunk 2020 RPG. It was later produced by Fantasy Flight Games under the name Android: Netrunner before finally landing wholly in the hands of Null Signal Games (formerly, Project Nisei) in 2022. Players pilot decks as either Corporations, guarding company servers with layers of protective Ice, or as Runners equipped with enough skills, guts, and chrome to raid those digital coffers.
But it’s the economics of the game-as-product that set it apart. Instead of booster packs, Netrunner’s entire catalogue is available to download for free and print at home — those cards are legal in tournaments, too. NSG sells officially printed cards and a small selection of related products, but a central pillar of the game’s politics is not letting money gatekeep who can partake. NSG itself is a non-profit run predominantly on volunteer labor, and they only pay card artists and the people who package and ship physical products.
