RvdH's Engolo-Laamb MaxX (5th @ German Nationals) (MWL2.2)

tl;dr: Engolo MVP, deck went 6-1. Lost because I forgot how many cards I had in hand for the winning Obokata.

The deck went 4-1 in swiss and 2-0 in the top cut. The one loss was due to my own incompetence in counting cards. Together with my GermanToast Argus deck it got me 5th place in swiss as well as 5th place overall.

The tournament was well organised. The registration was fast, communication during the weekend was clear, the software worked really well. I met some really great people over the weekend and I had a lot of fun in King of Servers, swiss and top cut. Just awesome!

MaxX is one of my favourite identities and I've played it for quite some time. With Skorpios restricted, it was one of the IDs I considered for German nationals, together with Find the Truth Smoke.

I played a lot of Bendy-Maw-MaxX over the last year and tried it again when MWL2.2 hit. The CtM-matchup is good, but I felt it lacked significantly in glaciery matchups. I tried Peddlers again, even dropping the Dirty Laundrys, but it felt never great. Patchwork was a necessary replacement for Maw, since you're often just too poor against glacier. And the deck desperately needed tools to deal with Thimblerig, Anansi, Universal Connectivity Fee, Data Ward, and Excalibur.

So meet my friends Engolo en Laamb. They can break ice for relatively few credits and you don't run an AI, so you're safe from IP Block and Chiyashi. They also allow early aggression against Mti. Break-costs:

• Thimblerig: 1
• Tollbooth: 3+3
• Archangel: 3
• Universal Connectivity Fee: 3 (Engolo) or 4 (Laamb)
• DNA Tracker: 5
• FC3: 5
• Anansi: 7
• Excalibur: 5 (Engolo) or 3 with Ice Carver

MU is a little awkward sometimes, because if you have both installed, you cannot have both MKUltra and Paperclip installed at the same time as well. You really want Paperclip for IP Block and MKUltra for some low strength sentries, although I rarely installed MKUltra. Other players considered it blasphemy for not running D4v1d, but you just don't have the MU. You could drop Laamb, but it is fantastic for using Retrieval Run to get Engolo if the corp iced up Archives, or to be able to break Excalibur twice against AgInfusion. Also Navi Mumbai City Grid doesn't do anything against this deck.

Due to influence limitations I went with Retrieval Run over Clone Chip. Most fun plays are when Patchwork is installed, so you can play Retrieval Run and trash the Engolo from hand you actually want to install, for just 1 credit.

Swiss:

• Round 1 against Alexander K. on Sports Metal: I quickly found 5 points in 3 agendas. And the last agenda was found soon after that.
• Round 2 against Jan P. on Mti: win in a tight game.
• Round 3 against Volker E. on Pālanā: loss. He Ark Lockdowned both my Levies which made it really hard to get enough cash. Very tight game. Both players at matchpoint. Here I made the mistake of the tournament, by running R&D to see two cards. The first was Obokata, which I thought I couldn't steal because I thought I had 3 cards and the second a random ice. When I picked up my hand again from the table I realised I actually had 4 cards... I had two credits left and no way to get in again. Install-advance-advance behind a Kakugo sealed the game. Loss due to incompetence.
• Round 4 against Yannick S. on AgInfusion: win. Another tight Jinteki game.
• Round 5 against Marcellus on Argus: I got an early 6-point lead, but both Levies Ark Lockdowned again with 2 cards left in hand. I found another 3-pointer for the win against a deck that runs Snare!.
• Round 6: ID
• Round 7: ID

Cut:

• Round 2 against Matthew H. on Azmari: win. He scored an early Echo Chamber, but I found all his agendas before he could. His ice was also pretty worthless against my two breakers.
• Round 3 against Heinzel on AgInfusion: win. A very tense game. He played really well, but due to time constraints I managed to pull of a win. I went for a late Omar Keung: Conspiracy Theorist when my deck was almost empty for the second time, but I think that was a mistake. I should've Levied again for a third run through the deck.

So overall the deck didn't lose a game, the player did, though. Even though I almost played only against glaciers.

Thoughts:

• Check your hand before you say stays when you see an Obokata.
• You almost always want to Levy at least once when you have Engolo and Laamb installed so you can go for all the money cards again and get maximum value out of Patchwork. This deck can really make a lot of money, but at a certain point of time it will be gone again for sure. Use it wisely.
• The Turning Wheel is the only multi-access you have, so you definitely need two. I tried it with one, but that is a mistake; if it gets milled, there's just no easy way to get it back.
• Salsette Slums is a card I personally like a lot, but I can see people cutting it.
• Spooned was a last minute include. It was useful throughout the tournament, but a Knifed could have been right as well. I’m still not sure which is correct.