Akiko Dearest (24th at OTG) (I promise it's a good deck)

evie 106

I legitimately think this deck is quite good, but my tournament run happened to be mired in bad luck. I got some rough matchups, playing against two Restoring Humanity who both took Akiko out back and shot her, and my corp play was merely okay. It really was not my day.

This deck is an evolution on @harmonbee's girls 2, polishing it to a fine sheen. The core remains the same, but there are some notable changes:

  • Hermes instead of Pantograph: Hermes does a lot of things for you. It can open up scoring remotes, Archives, HQ, and any ice on R&D you haven't hit yet, as long as you draw it. Every other version of girls only ran one console, and treats the console more as a bonus than a necessity, and this is more of the same.

  • Spec Work over Bahia Bands. I think Spec Work is a Just Good card. It synergizes with Muse and Coalescence, and just gives you lots of things you'd want in this deck. Also, Spec Work goes credit positive while Bahia Bands goes credit negative (although you get a run out of it).

  • Paricia. This was a suggestion by jan tuno (Hermes was too), and it tries to cover a bit of your bases with asset spam. Don't feel too attached to it, it's completely okay to trash to Aesops for some quick cash if you don't think you're going to need it too much.

  • Daily Casts. It's okay. I needed a 45th card and there wasn't much better in regards to making money. You could sub this in for a Sure Gamble if you wanted to, Harmonbee did, but I think Daily Casts is marginally better. Regardless, it's the worst card in the deck for sure. Bonus tip: when you start the turn with it at 4 credits remaining, you can take the credits off and then trash it with Aesop's to net 5 credits in 1 turn. Can Sure Gamble do that?

  • No In the Groove. Spec Work gives you a similar amount of draw to your In the Groove pop off turn, with better control. Also a the consistency of a 45 card deck more than makes up for it.

  • No Sure Gamble. I think Sure Gamble is too slow for this deck.

Regardless, the game plan is the same. Get your big stupid rig and grab your big stupid pieces and make your big stupid runs. Make a million bones off of Coalescence if you want. Hammer R&D until they kick you out. Then, hammer Archives until they kick you out of that too, and if you haven't won yet then try to do some Cupellation shenanigans or run a remote or something to try to scam out the last agenda. It's an overall very solid deck, and I did win every friendly after the round with it, except one.

Overall, I came away from OTG feeling disappointed. Not because I felt like I deserved to score better, but because I think Akiko dearest deserved better than the performance I displayed. I still have very high hopes for this deck, and I think the deck has a bright future ahead of it for anybody else who wants to show what it's really capable of.

Thanks to @harmonbee and @jan tuno for the assistance with the deck building, and thank you for everyone at OTG for the endless amount of kindness given to me at the tournament, with special thanks to @Stwyde for bringing out a playset of Psych Mike and Ika just for the deck. My appreciation for you all is endless and there's nothing I can do to demonstrate how much you all mean to me.

Tournament highlights include:

  • Getting to play 8 clicks in one turn with Asa Group.
  • Hitting R&D off of a Trick Shot, getting to access 4 cards in a row, and scooping 3 agendas off of it, bouncing all the ice off of the remote, and then using the second run off of Trick Shot to scoop the game-winning agenda in the remote.
5 comments
9 Jun 2024 Council

Congrats! Amazing stuff, I am very glad this deck exists

  • one (1) gun suggester
9 Jun 2024 harmonbee

because I think Akiko dearest deserved better than the performance I displayed

as I said to you a few days before the tourney, I honestly think that she's just happy to actually get to see play!

Genuinely though, thank you for giving this deck a shot and polishing it, particularly for something as important to you as your first big tournament. Your changes are smart and definitely form the basis of my current experimentation with the deck, and I've shown it to the other people I know who've been playing with it so that the deck can continue to improve.

The RH matchup is definitely a shaky one, because girls pushes you towards early digs of R&D - and that is one of the scariest places to steal agendas from against RH because they can feed you six points with Bacterial Programming. In matchups like those, you may have to build up a little more before digging I think, or steal the first agenda from the remote instead of R&D because they can't force you to steal more than three points at a time in the remote. It's something I need practice with also, so I wouldn't feel bad for losing those games.

(Also, regarding Daily Casts and its late game potential - this is very true! My personal line is that the deck has enough money once it's set up through Environmental Testing and Aesop’s Pawnshop, so I prefer having a safe 4c through Sure Gamble. I agree that it's the weakest card in the deck in either case though, so we'll have to see if we can find something better to replace it. Some considerations that I've heard are Privileged Access (@AceEmpress) and Raindrops Cut Stone (@Hello), turning Hermes into something more boring.)

Anyway, thank you again for playing this deck, and I hope you keep enjoying it and iterating on it! :)

girls 4 eva

10 Jun 2024 NotAgain

I know what must be done with this now, thank you 🫡

10 Jun 2024 PiCat314

Girls girls girls!!!!!!

Great to meet you at the tournament! Sick deck, you'll get em next time!!

11 Jun 2024 squeeeeeege

Sick deck!!! I'm excited to try it out on jnet.