Prizes and Art for the 2026 APAC Showdown

by ManintheMoon

I’m proud to announce the first APAC Showdown! The Showdowns are online, international community events designed to bring players of all skill levels together to celebrate Netrunner. These events feature a wide range of prizes from community artists. For the APAC Showdown, I specifically picked a collection of prizes primarily featuring APAC local artists. This article showcases this art and a bit about the artists behind the canvas.  

The 2026 APAC Showdown will take place on March 21st*

BUY A TICKET HERE

For more information about prizing at the Showdowns, check out our article on everything you need to know about the 2026 Showdowns! And now, we’ll get into the art for the 2026 APAC Showdown!

 

Poétrï by Kira L. Nguyen

The first prize you can earn for the event is this Poétrï by Kira L. Nguyen. How can I get this beautiful card, you might ask? Well, this one is simple. If you buy your ticket during the first 48 hours, this Poétrï will be included as a free bonus! Any Patreon members also get this included with their prizes, regardless of when they register. Here is a little more about the artist: 

Kira L. Nguyen is an artist/illustrator based in Vietnam. He started his career as an artist in 2015 as a 2D Artist for a number of gaming companies, but left the career path for the desire to create arts in his own style; which mostly focus on science-fiction and fantasy themes. Kira’s style and digital medium is a combination of his background of studying in traditional painting and designing, and his love for gaming and technology. To Kira, drawing and painting is translating what's in one's mind into visuals that everyone can see; he loves doing it and his style is naturally shaped by this simple idea, and it is still and will keep evolving as long as he still holds the pen.

Kira’s response to "What inspiration do you draw on for your art?"

I grew up as a drawing kid and surrounded myself in media like the Dragonball Z manga and cartoons like the X-Men Animated series. I just love the characters and their stories and especially the way they were presented to the world: by awesome looking artworks. To me, becoming an artist, learning the skills to translate my own ideas comes naturally. I just love doing it for myself and others, to learn their ideas and grow my creativity.

Socials / website link:
Website: ArtStation - Kira L. Nguyen 
Contact Kira L. Nguyen for commissioned artworks: Lan.nguyen.hnn@gmail.com

 

Whenever you get a Showdown ticket, there is a collection of participation prizes to choose from. During this event we are featuring art by ManintheMoon (that’s me, I made an art), ElessarEllie and V4lvi_. The alt-art I created is Ping, which can be seen in the Everything You Need to Know article that was also released today. Now, back to the APAC artists. 

 

Fujii Asset Retrieval by ElessarEllie

ElessarEllie lives in Malaysia and has been doing Netrunner alt-art as a hobby for two years. They started by doing a “Daily Cats” (Daily Casts) art for her partner, which later snowballed into making more alt-arts. Ellie used to draw a lot in a chibi/cartoon style which later changed to more watercolours. They mainly use Procreate as a digital drawing medium. Ellie likes creating art that focuses on plants and is more nature heavy. They also sometimes create art from other interests, such as Lord of the Rings.

What inspiration do you draw on for your art?

I tend to browse through photographs of flowers, scenery and animals. Using those as a reference for most of my artwork. I tend to draw a lot of flowers during my free time and eventually it became my way of doodling. I also tend to get inspiration from my partner who always makes a joke about a card and I find myself drawing it for laughs.

Socials / website link:
Instagram: Elessar_Ellie
Website: https://kristinafoong1505.wixsite.com/mrellie
Discord: elessar_ellie

 

Dr. Nuka (participation) and Hannah (2 wins) by Alvi Ahmad

Alvi Ahmad lives in Indonesia and has been working in the design and illustration world for 10 years. The majority of his professional art career has focused on artwork for album covers, posters and t-shirt designs. He graduated with a fine arts degree in 2019. Alvi incorporates a combination of hand-drawn and graphic design techniques into his artwork, and enjoys using a more hand-drawn style in digital media environments like Photoshop and Illustrator. He likes creating art that's unique and different from others. Striving for authenticity and always trying to create something different, his style is continuously developing and evolving.

What inspiration do you draw on for your art?

I really like the freehand style, which is messy and untidy, but the meaning in the artwork is clear and the characters are recognizable. I just want to express freehand work not only on a real canvas, but I also want to interpret a digital canvas so that it looks like a real canvas. I'm happy when people can use my work. When they're happy with what I do, I'm more enthusiastic about creating.

Socials / website link:
Instagram: v4lvi_

 

3 Wins: Stained Glass Dragon Magdalene by Aleksandra Simonović 

This is the prize for 3 wins (or final round played). You can see this image in the Everything You Need to Know article. 

 

4 Wins: Maskirovka by Lucius Felimus

Lucius Felimus is a professional architect and multi-disciplinary cyberpunk artist who specializes in 3D software to envision the distant future - both meatspace and cyberspace. He started as a photographer with the goal of showcasing the streets, cityscapes, and urban life of Manila as the forgotten Asian cyberpunk megalopolis of the present day, then later applied his decade of experience in 3D software to add to his cyberpunk worldbuilding repertoire. Getting into Netrunner as an alt-art card artist was a perfect fit for the next chapter of his creative career.

 

5 Wins: APAC Showdown Key

This APAC Key can be used to redeem special prizes when you register for the next two Showdowns! Here’s a look at one of the prizes you can unlock with your Key during the 2026 Showdown series.

AugustusCeasar’s Ultimate Showdown Champion Card:
Slash and Burn Agriculture by Matheus Calza

6 Wins: Foil Telework Contract by Kira L. Nguyen

Yeah, the same Kira from the beginning! You can see this art here.
There are more special goodies for players who make the top 16! Read more about the event on the Always be Running page!

 

We’re looking forward to seeing you at the 2026 APAC Showdown on March 21st! Come out and meet new players in the Netrunner community, play some great games and earn some awesome prizes from community artists in the new Vantage Point meta! 

Speaking of Vantage Point, I have a little treat for you 🙂