As much text as it is (and as many times my opponents needed to reach over to read it), Dewi’s ability boils down to one word: RUN! All of the most overpowered IDs reward successful runs: Sable, Hoshiko, and now, of course, Dewi Subrotoputri. Even if a credit or card might not be very impressive, the Dewi-doubters forget that it comes with something very important: an access. An unreasonable amount of times, I'll run a central server for the sake of a Dewi flip and unintentionally steal an agenda. She's just that cracked.

Dewi hype aside, I brought her to Americas Continentals because she genuinely does answer two questions in the meta:

1. How to deal with assets: With Bladdeworts doing constant net damage out of Ob and AU Co, the Lat and Maggie mini-games seemed harder to accomplish whilst simultaneously checking the board. Dewi's reward is a click-compressed credit or card while also trashing assets -- she's basically green Loup! With a Hannah down, naked assets become a full liability into Dewi, providing a server for a clickless credit or card draw.

2. How to have fun: There's a lot of kill in this meta and it's mentally taxing to keep track of all the possible kill lines. Now I'm not saying that you don't have to do that when playing this deck, especially since there's no built-in tech against kill (Airblades and Stoneship were my concession to the meta). But it's good to have a mini game to distract you from ruminating about all the possible ways that you die. Meanwhile, the fun of repeatedly saying "I flip!" happens to reward you with just enough cards and credits that you end up being able to survive Measured Responses and whatnot. When Elevation cards were spoiled, the text on Madani and Dewi seemed extremely underwhelming, but setting up a big Madani and getting double flip turns back to back is simply the most fun to be had in Netrunner right now.

The deck went 3-2 at conts, losing to a rushy PD and thike's LEO also outrushing me (go LEO!). As an ID that snipes value off of open or single-iced servers, it's admittedly less good against more heavily iced centrals. But I was super happy to see Dewi finish the event with a 60% WR (shoutout to my fellow Dewi-defender Harp) and to hear so much enthusiasm for Dewi on the stream. Shotouts to the organizers for hosting a fantastic event, all my friends from NYC, Vancouver, QtM, and SCRUBS, and everyone I met for the first time in Montreal.

The Philosophy of Flipping

That was the high level overview. If you want my detailed thoughts on how to pilot Dewi, here they are.

The Opening: "3+1". It's hard to flip turn 1. And forcing a flip (e.g. by dumping your hand with a card like Illumination) isn't appealing to me if it doesn't set you up for future flipping back. That being said, there are hands that can flip turn 1. Most commonly, I fill up 4 MU by doing 3 + 1: a Muse hosting an SMC (sometimes Azimat), paired with a Coalescence or a Fermenter. Then you can flip back by cracking the Fermenter, cracking the SMC for a Physarum/Propellor, or Knickknacking the Coalescence. (Muse for Azimat is a very tricky play since you're now only left with 1 MU to work with. You'll need a way to fix that: simulchipping, rejigging, or trashing the Azimat all together.)

The Middlegame: Basics. You won't always get this opening. It sucks to have a blank ID for the first few turns, but after some set up, Dewi's ID impressively smooths out the middle-game while you're controlling the board. (An inverse of Zahya, who gets credits from the free central runs at the start of the game before becoming blank when iced out in the early-midgame.)

• To get to full MU: install breakers, Fermenters, Coalescences. It's what we want to do anyway, and even better if an Environmental Testing is on the board.

• To have 1 unused MU: there's only a few good ways to do this. Install a DZMZ, crack an SMC/fermenter, or trash something with Knickknack. Trashing by overinstalling feels awful when that's just waiting to be KK fodder, so drawing into KK early is crucial.

• To get back to full MU: just install another program, it’s that easy! Madani is nice click-compression, but not necessary: the basic action to install is always available. (In the late game, you can also Knickknack useless DZMZs.)

The perfect flow is to make 2 runs in a turn. Start on the flipped side. Click 1: run, Knickknacking a program to have 1 unused MU. Click 2: install a program. Click 3: run elsewhere, now with full MU. It's also perfectly fine to just make 1 run on a turn, setting yourself up to be on the right side for the next turn to be a double-flip.

The Middlegame: Advanced. How do you get back to full MU if you also want to do a Knickknack trash? Madani/Simulchip-install a program before success (but you have to be careful, Simulchips are valuable). You can also simply decline to Knickknack. It feels bad, but he'll eventually run out of fodder so it's fine to keep him waiting a few turns. The most interesting Dewi turns are when you're facechecking, so you have to guess what rig you'll need for that ice. A common line is to run an unrezzed ice with 2 unused MU after Knickknack, expecting to need to chip/Madani-install a Muse + Physarum/Propellor to end up back on full MU. Before running, it’s worth having a plan in mind for what ice you expect and how you’ll respond. If you want to end up with unused MU, it’s best if you know the ice already — though there are funny niche cases where you run expecting to throw your Revolver, or for a Physarum to get purged etc.

Dewi is honestly a “reg” runner. You play some control shaper and challenge servers that are high in density, with a bit more incentive to go poking for singles and facecheck early. Often you need to learn what the ice is to decide if it’s worth being a flip target and to figure out how you’ll break it cheaply. Zahya is honestly a really good comparison for Dewi, giving you a bit of value to reward touching cards. Dewi’s kind of a criminal with shaper tutoring, recursion, and card draw engine instead — mitigating a lot of the worst possible risks of facechecking. (Shoutout to imyxh’s “a beautiful shade of teal” document for clarifying this to me)

The Endgame. But eventually the Dewi value isn’t quite enough, servers are getting expensive, a flatline is on the horizon, and Knickknack and Dewi have drawn you to the bottom of your deck. You’ve stolen a few agendas off singles where you guessed the density was high. Maybe you played control and then swept the hand with Cup. But now you need a way to close the game. So you look down any your board, notice that you have a ton of 2-cost installs (Gauss, Revolver, Madani, Knickknack, 1-3 DZMZs, Muse, Coal, Hannah) and Khusyuk to see 6 cards to close the game! If we're already playing one obscure Shaper card, why not throw in a second.

Some card comments and considerations:

• Rejig: Hate to say it but the Dewi players were enjoying Rejig before it became popular. (shoutout again to imyxh and cado) Rejig Coal -> DZMZ is a great way to create unused MU and give you a way to fill it back up.

• Leech: very tempting as a reward if you ever run archives to flip. But I find it hard to stick programs early that accrue value over time, since MU is limited. A lot of Dewi’s rig is very fluid, ready to be Knickknacked at a moment’s notice.

• Euler: fits with Khusyuk 2 better than Unity. I just felt it was taxing out my recursion too much, and if I left it installed, breaking Flyswatter for 2 was unacceptable. Physarum is really meant to be the early decoder/killer.

• Conduit: might be a better wincon than Khusyuk, admittedly. It has a similar problem to Leech, clogging up early MU, but maybe good enough for some end-game digs. It’s also a fairly expensive program, and you’ll notice all of the programs in this deck are fairly cheap ones that you’re happy to throw down early.

• Cataloguer: tried it instead of Khusyuk during CoS, but didn't like it. Dewi needs a win-con card for when the deck is just about to run out of gas, and not able to play control for 4 more turns if R&D is safe.

You can see this deck in action in Round 3 vs. Aruzan and once on The Metropole Grid. Happy flipping!