Thank you!

Thanks to NSG for keeping the game alive and for making Worlds happen. Thanks to psk especially for putting so much care and love into making it work for everyone. Thanks so much for having fixed seating as an option, which made the tournament much more accessible with chronic fatigue.

Thanks to my opponents in both days for the tight plays, kind words, and for being lenient with missed triggers (this deck is difficult!).

Thanks to judges for being great literally any time they were needed.

Thanks for QtM for being exceptionally good kissers, great at Netrunner, and my friends, lovers, favorites.

Thanks to Jai, our token cishet collaborator, who provided invaluable testing help and kept helping me with matchup advice and cut maths during the event.

Thanks to all the people who I had never talked with before this weekend but came to me with words of encouragement and admiration: The King, jaypumpkin, awildturtok, sauc3, and more I cannot remember. Thanks to theo for giving us the biggest confidence boost. Oh it's so cute!

Thanks to people who supported me emotionally while I tested positive for COVID, especially Ams, Council and swearyprincess. Thanks to krys for keeping me alive.

While I didn't get to properly play into the tournament until the end, and I would have likely ended up in a very rewarding spot, I feel really good about what I got to do. This was my first time playing in a big IRL event, and I thought it was quite likely that the sensory overstimulation from being packed in a room with hundreds of people would have made me crack. I underslept a lot, I felt very overwhelmed at the venue, my chronic pain acted up, and yet when I sit down at the table for my first round I got a big adrenaline rush and everything I knew about my lists came together, and then I played tight lines for hours. I have always considered myself a "mostly online" player, and finding out that I could do this was such a big confidence boost. I really hope I get the opportunity to repeat it next year, and to play to the end that time.

MULCH

Mulch was QtM's main Runner for Worlds 2023. Going into Worlds, we saw this as very clearly one of the best runners, if not the single best. While some new Corps have come up during the event that we're not exactly sure how good this can be against, we are still confident that this has a great place in the meta and might very well be a tier 1 deck, even if it's a brainpower-intensive and time-consuming list that definitely requires ample practice.

mondegreensleeves brought this to the cut and ended up 15th; Paillu went 4-1 with it and came 24th, also carried by eir amazing PE deck. I went 5-1 into ID into positive COVID test, dropping out of a guaranteed cut.

The deck had a long growth arc. Like many QtM decks, it started from crowphie musing about something that didn't sound practically feasible, and then we tried it and it looked better than expected, and it just kept looking better and better the more we iterated on it. We went crazy about it, and it lead to the longest thread in the history of QtM, beating the Sparrow one. It went something like this:

Essentially we thought it wouldn't work, then we noticed it worked against PD but thought it would obviously fold into Ob with 3x Mavirus, then we played that and it worked, but thought it would fold into assets, then we played it into assets and it was still good. We noticed a couple of clearly disadvantaged matchups, like PE, our own Ob list, Glacier Jinteki (which we thought wouldn't be workable anyway), a theoretical Front Company + SYNC Rerouting NBN deck, and a theoretical Maninthemoon Ob with more tech for it. Overall, the matchup spread was amazing. Brains were all mulchmulchmulch.

Deck Guide

What follows is an adaptation of a guide I initially wrote internally for QtM. It's obviously not updated to the Corps that we didn't foresee for Worlds. In particular, I don't really know how this does against Glacier BtL and Punitive RH, and am pretty sure it has trouble against NWE's Tempo NEH. The matchup into the new NEH kill lists with False Lead is likely a little trickier than into the previous ones, but given that it was massively favored before I'm not especially worried. Kimberlite Ob is like BathtOb but easier.

Deckbuilding philosophy

The idea behind the deck is that we want a very synergistic package that allows us to compress lots of value into single slots. The cards that make this work overall are Cookbook, Knobkierie and Simulchip. Cookbook and Knobkierie ensure that many of our cards perform very strongly and give us value and versatility: Fermenter can net immense amount of money, Imp is a 1-card solution to all your trashing needs, Audrey can break pretty much anything including the moment it enters the game, Conduit is the only multiaccess card we need. Simulchip ensures that we can do all of this pretty much whenever needed without having to include many slots of any of our programs, and allows us to mill lots of cards from our stack with The Price and Lago Paranoa Shelter and then use the milled cards. Labor Rights works similarly, giving us 1x tech cards back for matchups where they're crucial.

We are happy to mill as quickly as possible, because our late game once we've done that is usually very strong. We can recur as many Simulchips as we need, and keep being versatile in the last crucial turns while having big bursts of value that help us steal a win. As long as it doesn't risk locking us out of a recursion late game, we're basically always happy to mill more to draw more. Lago basically only stops being valuable when the deck is over.

The deck is built to usually respond to the Corp's gameplan rather than act proactively: Botulus and Audrey really help us camp remotes consistently in a way that can't be taxed out economically. However, we do have the option to switch gears dramatically at any time, thanks to our ability to reposition Botuli and especially to Conduit (which synergizes with Knobkierie and Cookbook in a way that makes it way more explosive). This provides us with both a way to get out of bad games where Corp tricks made it difficult for us to interact, and with a trick to try and suddenly win games that are going to time by getting a points advantage when it matters.

Breaking ice

Mulch is very complex when it comes to dealing with ice. Many decks have a "full rig" and "support" for that, such as Cleaversaw + Takobi supported by Botulus or Bankhar. Mulch is different in that you have multiple options that can be correct and what you end up doing depends a lot on the matchup and the draw. Everything is kind of a support breaker for everything else, and your "normal breakers" often are just supporting your holes in other areas rather than being the main way you break ice.

Botulus is an essential 3x in the list. It tends to be parked on a remote ice to make it completely irrelevant; more copies can come to clog the remote more, and promise to get Simulchipped back on new ice if the old one is overinstalled on. You will sometimes have Botulus on central servers if you have specific kinds of pressure that make it palatable (Fenris/Imp/Conduit), but the usual function, at least against decks that score behind ice, is to make that plan completely unfeasible.

Audrey deals with mostly everything else, at some cost. You usually don't have much trouble finding cards to throw away, and counters on Audrey will be more of a bottleneck for your ability to get into tall servers. You can kind of get locked in a similar way to Aumakua, but Imp and Knobkierie help a lot. In every matchup where you're not expecting to be taxed on HP and where the Corp builds some kind of iced remote, you should probably expect to install Audrey at some point.

Cleaver, Buzzsaw and Revolver have very different functions depending on the matchup. Sometimes they will act as backup to your other, better tools; but often, at least one is going to be important enough to install; some matchups require all three. Knowledge of ice suites is essential for figuring out what you should do with each of these breakers, and it's important to know that, because sometimes that makes a difference between Moshing this turn or the next!

Leech is a very important card in the list and should be thought of as another piece of your breaker suite - again, kind of irrelevant at times, very important at others (you would never mosh Leech against Jinteki!). It often gives the little bit of help that makes your normal breakers great, and it can also mean card discounts for Audrey. Audrey + Imp + Leech + Knobkierie is a whole breaker suite that can often get you through whole games with the help of a Botulus or two; its longevity (and even its ability to survive through a Mavirus and keep working!) should never be discounted.

"What do I do with this breaker" depends on both the matchup and your draw order and setup, and it's too difficult of a matter to give strict rules here. However, consider that for each of your breakers you have three main options:

1. Install it from hand, taking a small hit to your economy
2. Pitch it to something else, because you don't need it or it wouldn't be efficient
3. Pitch it with the intention of Simulchipping it back in, because your chips aren't that taxed and you like the cheaper cost and flexibility.

... and a secret, more advanced fourth option:

1. Pitch it to Audrey and chip it back, but only in the middle of the run where you're going to use it, as a surprise. Not super common but holding it as an option can lead to big Corp misplays.

Chips

Decks will tax you on chips in different amounts and ways. You can start a game knowing that you will need about N chips to have a good chance in this matchup. This is important because it tells you whether you should mosh your Labor Rights away, set up to install Fenris and run HQ, use them for more frivolous things, mosh breakers because "you can always chip them back if needed", decline to use Lago out of fear of milling your recursion, etc.

Things the Corp can do that tax your chips are:

• Requiring you to Clot
• Popping Mavirus (which when done in the middle of a run, usually requires a chip from you to save yourself)
• Using Magnet (variable consequences, but often steals a Botulus away from you which you'll need to reposition)
• Doing a Stavrun
• Taxing you really badly on credits (meaning you need to recur more Fermenters)

Simulchip is the best card in the deck in terms of how much value and options it can give you, so you should always try to maximize it anyway. If you're not sure what you should be using it on, it's probably more Fermenters.

Remember, the best time to use Simulchip is right after popping a Fermenter, because that translates to an install rather than a trade. This also means that in cases where you get to choose between a Fermenter and another program with The Price, it tends to be correct to get the Fermenter, because it will "turn" into the program later if needed anyway.

Also, remember NCIGS!

Labor Rights

Some games don't come down to Labor Rights, but most do. There are faster and slower ways to go about them, depending on what kind of help you need.

It's unlikely that it's correct to play LR before your deck has run out: it's an "extra gas" card, not an "improve my deck" card, and anyway you can probably get through the rest of that deck faster than you think you can. I believe the exceptions are pretty much the following:

• What's left in your deck is pretty much worthless, or it's Strike Funds which are very happy to be trashed by LR. (this is still less likely to be true than you might think: even worthless cards are still Audrey food! maybe draw them and play LR later instead?)
• You're playing against PE or another deck that seriously threatens to snipe that LR away from you before you mill yourself anyway, so you might as well play it as a deck fixer right now.
• You milled both of your Knobkieries by accident and you really need to get them back quickly or lack of MU will strangle you. (you can still do without them until you fully mill sometimes, but you often can't)
• You're playing against some kind of combo kill deck, such as Rongy NEH, and you need more Steelskins for safety. In this case you hope not to get to the end of the stack anyway (because then Steelskin stops being insurance from combos).

• There's something that you need to get back as soon as possible, maybe right now, or you will lose. That can be Simulchip, Pinhole, LtF, Fenris.

  Exceptions aside, LR says "recur three cards and draw one". Let's see what we can get back:

• Simulchip is the default option. It's just that good, it does what any program can do because it is any program. Most of your LRs will be triple Simulchip.

• The other LR. You'll usually get it back, it's pretty rare that the game is so close to ending that something better would be better in its stead and forgoing the rest of your recursion is fine.
• Pinhole Threading/Light the Fire. They fix slightly different problems, which one is better kind of depends on the situation. You might in rare cases get both back just because you need to maximize your chances to draw one of them right now.
• Fermenter. You often can just pick Simulchips because you have some way to trigger them and get started a big chip chain, but sometimes you just have like an Audrey and an Imp and a Cleaver down and you need a starter; this is the best one.
• DJ Fenris. If you have access to double LR and still feel a need for more recursion, that probably indicates that this is a long game, or one where you expect to be very chip taxed still (for example, BathtOb can tax you on chips with many of its tools while also asking you to keep a Clot lock up, so it may require Fenris).
• Strike Fund. With Audrey allowing you to turn it into bucks on tap, this is the fastest money you have in the deck, and sometimes that's what you need to make sure you can steal the winning agenda. Remember if you LR for three Strike Fund, you have drawn one, which translates to 2c and an Audrey boost, and you can immediately play the other LR to mill the other ones for 4c and then recur whatever back (maybe the Strike Funds again).
• Steelskin Scarring. This is very uncommon, but LR for 3x Steelskin is the fastest and surest way to get as many cards for Audrey boosts as possible. If you LR again, the Steelskins allow you to draw the cards from the second LR immediately, which can mean even more cards, and maybe something like a guaranteed Pinhole. LR for 3x Steelskin, pitch Steelskin, LR for 3x Strike Fund is definitely a line you can do sometimes when getting into a server is the clear game-winning move.

(more on the above: just generally keep in mind that a Steelskin in hand draws you your whole LR stack, so keeping one in hand until the late game doesn't make it worthless)

Economy

Your economy in this deck consists of 3x Raindrops Cut Stone, 3x Moshing, 1x Dirty Laundry, 3x Strike Fund, 2x Paladin Poemu, 3x Fermenter.

What this basically translates to is that you have some burst economy and some drip economy that lasts well into the very late game. As a consequence, you might have setup speed problems, but you partly deal with that by basically not needing credits to break ice. You really only need the money to install Knobkierie and a couple of other key cards, and maybe trash a few Corp things along the way. This translates to needing some burst but really not that much, so you can Mosh burst away, actually! Not that you should necessarily do that, but if a Moshing puts you in the place where you're happy with money, RCS is a fine card to throw away for that.

Your first Fermenter is probably going to be the card that helps you reach financial stability, and after that, Fermenters are for the longer game. You can still use them in a bursty way: if the Corp presents some threat, you can Simulchip one in immediately and click it at the start of your turn for 6c (assuming you have Cookbook), but you're trying to get some more significant payoff usually.

Managing Hoshiko flips is very important. Once you have Knobkierie down, it might be correct to try and run every turn, but before that, it's actually quite important to flip back with near-regularity. It's easy to underestimate this: the mental pitfall that many fall into is to believe that if you choose to stay flipped rather than flipping back, you are choosing to "trade 1c for a card". That's not the case, because you're not just losing a credit next turn: you're also denying yourself the 2c gain from flipping again later on! So really by choosing to stay flipped, you're trading 3c for a card, a much worse proposition, and one you'd often want to avoid if your early econ is looking sketchy.

It's easy to see Mulch as a poor deck but it's not necessarily so. While the Fermenters are few slots, they can get very big, and you also have the ability to recur them many times. This means you actually get really rich against slow decks that give you time, such as R+ Assets or Azmari Glacier, where it's common to get your Fermenters to 6 or 7 counters. Faster decks like PD require more of other sources of burst (and more reliance on Audrey over reg breakers) because you don't have as much time to grow your Fermenters or set up all the recursion you want. This burst will often include just popping the orbs early and immediately chipping them back in, them LRing the chips early because there's no time to mill your deck against PD, etc. All of these decisions are always very complicated and hinge on the contingencies of the game.

Card-by-card

Some cards still deserve to be written about a little. I'll do some of that here.

• 3x Moshing: Just immensely strong, you keep most hands with at least this and another good early game card. The timing is always very difficult (do I wait to draw a SF/SS?) but good nonetheless. You should feel relatively free to mosh your less important breakers unless you've accidentally milled your chips or something.
• 1x Pinhole Threading: Remember that this is a guaranteed way to get your Knobkierie trigger (giving you your much needed Audrey counter, maybe?) even if Mavirus is in the heap. Some skateboard tricks require abusing this.
• 3x Raindrops Cut Stone: Just burst, accelerates you, it's very nuanced but in similar ways as in other Anarch lists.
• 3x Steelskin Scarring: Just good draw. It's also tech against kill combos. You can trigger it at any time with Audrey down, which is always better than playing it anyway (you save a credit, and then you get to choose whether to spend that click on the third card or not). This also means that against some decks, it's effectively impossible to not have this hit by part of the combo, as long as you have either an Audrey or a Simulchip on the board. Just don't blunder there, it could mean a loss when you could have had guaranteed safety.
• 3x Strike Fund: Similar to SS in patterns. Very common DJ Steve target actually.
• 3x The Price: Gas, always play it asap. Remember to play Cookbook first, Audrey will be very happy. Don't play this if you're so low that you couldn't install a Knobkiere from it, because that can be game losing. Whether to play this at very low deck size depends on a lot of factors, but you like your 6x Simulchip endgame so much that it's correct more often than you think.
• 2x Knobkierie: Essential, important to have on the board at some point, your plays are slightly awkward until this gets online. Enables infinimp, consistent Audrey, a very scary Conduit, big money from Fermenter, can sometimes charge your Botuli when PD runs you through the remote a lot of times. Only three of your programs are non-virus, so you don't need to ever worry about the "mu is for viruses only" clause.
• 1x Buzzsaw: Very good at Magnet, cold Gatekeeper, Enigma, Afshar; necessary for Virtual Service Agent. If you have a Leech, it deals very well with M.I.C. and Vampyronassa, and it's actually the deck's only good way to deal with the latter.
• 1x Cleaver: Similar to Buzzsaw: chops through Ping!, Ablative, BC, Tatu-Bola, sometimes Sandstone. Remember this is quite meh against Hagen in this deck, usually, because you don't get to install many breakers.
• 1x Revolver: The only killer we could find that was actually good. Good into Tithe, Anansi, Hydra, a hot Stavka, Drafter, Ansel, Trebuchet. Some of its breakpoints improve a lot with Leech, especially Anemone and Anansi (one more reason to never mosh Leech into Jinteki).
• 1x Clot: The uses are obvious. Remember that you can always install it from hand in the matchups where you need it, even if it works better in the heap it's never bad to force the Corp to purge one extra time. Even if you don't need it you can always install it to charge your Simulchips!
• 1x Conduit: Digs deep and wins you games. We constantly disagree on when it's correct to shift your tempo to this exactly, but it's just very strong regardless. Be very careful because if you overextend on this and are a little more lax when it comes to remote pressure, hitting a Mavirus with it can be game losing. Make sure you have a plan to come back from that.
• 1x Imp: does a lot of things. Provides great board control power against asset decks, removes pieces from hand, ensures your Audrey stays big even after a purge, just generally ensures that HQ pressure feels much scarier. Makes Daniela cry.
• 2x Cookbook: You ideally want this as early as possible, it makes Botulus and Audrey much more effective to recur, it also makes your economy much quicker and makes it so that Simulchip+Fermenter is very quick at getting you up.
• 1x DJ Fenris: Completely useless in some games but somehow feels essential in others. Often recurs chips or Botuli or Fermenters, sometimes will get you an essential card you unfortunately milled (Knob/Cookbook/Labor), sometimes Strike Fund or Raindrops. Helps keep Audrey relevant in the late game. You can probably get fancy with it and target two different relevant cards quite often but that often feels scary. Against Rush Ob you can sometimes pick Los with it if you think your economy needs a boost, we've found that it's pretty decent if they're going to rez a couple of ice with Tucana.
• 3x Lago Paranoá Shelter: Fundamental card to have in the opener, 2c can be annoying to have to commit as soon as possible in a deck that sometimes can miss burst, but it's still game changing every time. Need to be careful about not triggering sometimes (to avoid milling key cards, or to not lose HP against some decks; actually just don't install it against PE). Also IRL you'll have to remember to trigger it, which can easily be forgotten, especially when it's installs during your turn from Ob!
• 1x Light the Fire!: you install this and Mavirus gets popped, which is often great because you don't want the Corp to be controlling the timing there. Remember to make a few runs to clear BCs before installing this. Apart from Mavirus, this works on Spin, NGO, Skunkvoid, Vovo, Daniela, Warroid, Angelique, Overseer Matrix, ambushes, Hokusai, Ganked, Tucana. Sometimes worthless but will often just completely solve problems for you, even better than Pinhole at times. You can even The Price for it as a clutch play!
• 2x Paladin Poemu: The fucking rat, it's great and it should be banned.

Matchups

• PD: You're pretty okay here. Keep pressuring the remote as hard as you can and they will falter at some point, they don't have infinite pieces. Hope you draw into Pinhole and LtF, recur them if needed. Imp is great for clearing remotes, trashing Ikawah with no clicks left, and removing Seamlesses so your opponent can't play the NA game. Cleaver sucks, Buzzsaw can be good but is kind of conditional (murders cold gatekeepers, but Audrey kind of does that anyway if you have room to maneuver).
• Sports: We don't quite know what build we should be testing against, but overall you're doing great. Try to challenge remotes to remove Mavirus. Imp the hand or go for a deep Conduit. Audrey gets you anywhere by itelf, you have free reign.
• Asa: Undertested so far but we expect it to be kind of similar to PD in dynamics.
• AoT: Untested. No clue.
• Stegodon: Untested but probably okay.
• PE assety or grindy: one of the most difficult matchups. Money is not much of an issue because you have time for Fermenters to grow, but HP can just get grinded out if you don't draw Fenris. Getting your hand taxed when challenging the remote is a risk, Imp to trash agendas helps a lot with that, especially with Daniela around. Most importantly, you need both Revolver and Buzzsaw to consistently break ice even with Botulus help, and Leech is quite important to make them work well.
• PE Neurospike: Untested, don't know. If you hold Steelskins and keep an Audrey ready you're immune in theory. I think we might be very good here?
• A Teia: not too different from PD in practice, you can rely on Botulus a little less cause they'll stack higher, but they have fewer evil upgrades to trick you with. Also there are more trash targets to charge Audrey with so you should be able to get through servers even if they look scary, just be a little wary of what the options are. Remember Clot does pretty much nothing.
• Aginf Glacier: untested. We don't know how much of a problem it could be, the deck doesn't look great in general so probably not much?
• Birds R+: the deck is laughably bad if you keep a tight lock on the remote, which you're great at doing. Be careful about Retribution/SGP which can be game losing. Just take your time and prevent them from doing anything, then Imp the shit out of them.
• 6mari: You should be okay, they give you time to get lots of money from Fermenters, and then your breaker options actually slot pretty neatly into their ice. Take your time, make sure they can't score, then get in and touch the points.
• NEH Kill: I believe this is just a clean win for you if you don't mess up, but it's easy to and we all keep doing it. Hold Steelskins, keep your Audrey armor up, and it's already kind of impossible to die. If you also trash Regoliths and stack your Fermenters up there's no way you get proactively tagged, and then you can start chipping away at them as long as you don't give them Big Oppo. When you do that you should be able to win very quickly. Remember to NEVER throw away your Audrey armor to steal a Degree Mill that doesn't win you the game, it's never worth it. The most important thing here is not to check too much: you have tools that prevent you from dying from even very big boards especially if you keep moneying up, and a Behold! can actually spell death for you.
• R+ Asset: These decks are often kind of low on punishment, which means the downside of letting an ARES get scored early is not as bad as it looks. You can also come back from Market Forces with a good Fermenter, and prevent Shipment from Vladisibirsk with Clot (which is actually great here in general); SGP/Retribution is the only scary punishment, but I don't think many run it at the moment. Still try to prevent an ARES score if you can, and you should be winning easily if you take your time to. Your reg breakers are great here.
• Outfit: our best matchup, in both remoteless and remoteful versions. You just have too many Clots for them to deal with, you can get to their Mavirus easily so they can't really use them the way they want to. Ice is actually easy to deal with as long as you Botulus the Valentaos. Imp or Conduit are pretty much equally good as wincons here. Just prevent them from doing anything.
• Rush Ob (BathtOb): this is the most complicated matchup, and one that can easily go either way. They tax you on chips a ton, so you need to make very complicated choices on how to use them. All of your breaking options are useful but also your Botuli will get eaten by Magnets; Envelopment is just always difficult; you'll often need Cookbook+Simulchip to be ready to fight Stavrun; you need to keep Clot lock up at the same time. Balancing longevity vs recurring as quickly as you need can be difficult. Light the Fire! is great, but only if you made them pop their BC already (you often want to run, make them pop, then install LtF, then use it). The Imp+Leech+Audrey rig is great here, if you manage to keep them low on cards and play off topdecks they will end up losing.
• Mitm Ob: the intercontinentals list is pretty manageable. Oppo never gets big until late in the game so you can clear it; you're being required to deal with Urban Renewals early, which sounds scary, but the lack of Border Controls means that Botulus and Audrey are actually very reliable here. If you deal with early threats well then you have a lot of breathing room for Fermenters, and you can win comfortably. Remember LtF is great for dealing with some scary stuff (it even turns off the text Hostile Architecture if you're running it!) If Mitm Ob starts running BCs, that already impairs our ability to interact with its threats a lot; if it moves some influence towards Mavirus, that's also quite scary. I think a version of the deck that has these tools can be a pretty bad matchup here, so we could get teched against by stuff that's also just reasonable to include, but I don't know how likely that is to happen.
• Facet Ob: (our list only). This happens to be quite difficult actually. It just stretches you too much and asks you to both find economy and many breaker options quickly, and then you also have to Clot? You need a fast start to handle the multiple things you're being asked to do.

look at my corp