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

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.