Mawile: 1-3 @ New Years Showdown

The Maw was the least interesting piece of the deck.

Summary

I built this list using a frame of Bankroll Sable, then asked myself "What if I used Maw as my console?"

The idea was that operations are pretty good right now, so finding ways to remove them from corp hands would help me out a ton in some particular matchups.

Since the tournament was also giving these awesome looking Embezzles as participation awards, I also wanted to build a deck with Embezzle in it.

I ended up making some more tweaks to the OG list to fit in influence + add an Embezzle, then last minute changed out that copy for Exploit.

Card choices

Exploit

• This card was my "fun card" of the deck. This definitely can be cut.
• However, after playing in this tournament I've come to completely change my outlook on this card being completely unplayable. I've put a bunch of my thoughts on the card page itself as a review.
• Long story short, I think it's a very interesting tech card for glacier matchups, which crim in general currently sucks at.

The Back

• I wanted some extra way to get Bankrolls and lost Boomerangs back, as a backup. Didn't really work for the bankrolls. And I definitely played it super slow when I actually installed it.
• Honestly not a huge fan, but if I keep this in the deck I'll probably be using it with only one or two counters on it to pull very specific tools, like No Free Lunch and Flip Switch against heavy tag decks. Probably just drop it though.

Stoneship Chart Room

• Didn't have the influence for Nuka, so I threw a 1x in instead.
• Has some nice synergy with The Class Act and could theoretically be used to charge Curupira or WAKE (I never did, but hey you never know).
• Having even the smallest form of anti-kill is nice, and it's effectively a third No Free Lunch in that regard that's flexible on the card draw side of things.
• Honestly I'd love to have more of them since my other card draw is fairly high cost.

The breaker suite

• Normally crim has been running 1x breaker, plus some amount of Mutual Favor. I was a bit scared of rigshoot being a threat, so i added an extra copy of the main set.
• Abagnale and Revolver were there for 2 reasons: Having more targets for The Back, and being nice alternatives that I can theoretically high-roll for in certain situations (Revolver against Winchester or Drafter, Abagnale post threat-4 against Hortum and Virtual Service Agent).
• Definitely should've had 2x Aumakua. Probably wanted 1x Mutual Favor to get the exact breaker I want too.

Maw

• Honestly was it useful? I'd say not really. It's great for asset spam and the +2 is great, but it didn't get too much value in most of my matchups. Maybe 1 or 2 triggers for the others, and I really don't know how much value that was at the end of the day.
• Costing 6 is also just WAY too much if you want to be pressuring early game sometimes.
• Hermes is still great in crim, and if you're not planning on having all the Bankrolls and Cezve all out at the same time you're fine without the mem. And it's got a killer ability! And it doesn't cost influence! And it's 4 credits cheaper! Yeah maybe this was a mistake.

At the end of the day, I'd probably cut The Back and maybe 1x Bankroll to get to 45, and remove the Exploit to get a second Aumakua or a Mutual Favor.

If you aren't as scared of rigshoot as I am you could probably go -1 Curupira, Revolver and Abagnale, +1 Mutual Favor and Aumakua, and +1 Carpe Diem or Career Fair for some more money. Earthrise Hotel and The Class Act are expensive sometimes.

Matches

Game 1 loss vs Ob:

• I wasn't able to move fast enough and got rushed a bit. Sandstone covering centrals and Tucana value to cover any bases really slowed me down through the game, and I wasn't able to get a good setup going.

Game 2 loss vs Barf Thule

• The matchup that I was ready for. I wanted revenge after my Los loss the last time I met Santa in tourney :D.

• This was the only game I think I got consistent real Maw value, but getting rid of one of the Oppos and a few Riot Suppressions gave me a ton of early safety which helped be aggressive early.

• I ended up overextending trying to trash a Spin Doctor and MCA Austerity Policy in one turn, which opened me up to the second Oppo Research without a way to easily clear 2 of the tags. I delayed death for a turn with the Stoneship Chart Room, then went all-in and whiffed on finding the Gaslight, and was killed the next turn.

Game 3 win vs Azmari

• Early game was a bit slow, facechecked some Mestnichestvos and took a big tempo hit, allowing a Bellona score.
• Reeducation kill might've been on the table but I looked back at the replay and found that I had enough safety with Stoneship Chart Room and a The Class Act play that protected me on my most vulnerable turn. My opponent then decided to score out the Reeducation instead and at 6 points went for the score out.
• At this point I has found my Aumakua and built up my credits and went for the all-in play to Exploit as much ICE as I could. I ended up scoring 6 points from my RND and HQ runs either way too, which put me in a great position.
• The corp was too poor at this point to defend both a The Twinning HQ/RND run and their exposed support, so I ran RND, got stopped, and stole the installed Bellona.

Game 4 loss vs BTL

• Early/mid game I was able to hit a big Exploit on two Pharos and a Mestnichestvo, which cost me a ton but brought the corp to <5 creds and only one rezzed Winchester on HQ.
• The Back got some value this game as I was able to pull back a killed Boomerang and my No Free Lunches for some extra money + power.
• Got to 6 points, but lost to the final score out of the Above the Law after my two copies of Curupira died (I think I could've made it in, but went for RND instead which got Sadaka'd instead.

Big thanks to @maninthemoon for hosting the tournament, and to everyone else helping or playing! Had an absolute blast, and I'm excited for this new year of netrunner!