Critical Val (8th Polish Nats 2019)

5N00P1 833

This is the deck that carried me to the 8th place at Polish Nats 2019 together with my DRM Palana Deck. I want to congratulate Matuszczak for becoming Polish Champion, after becoming 2nd twice as far as I know!
I was not sure what to play, but I was in the need of a new runner. So I decided to try out Val, as she is always good and is able to play Film Critic.
I decided to give Mystic Maemi a try, the card is good and I want to see it early so my draw was going to be event based. Deuces Wild is a totally different card, when you can use it for 0 or 1 credit! As often it means gaining 3 creds & 2 cards for 1 click, isn't that bonkers? And of course complimented by I've Had Worse and Inject. Also Deuces can be used to: remove tags after stealing an Agenda from Argus as it usually loads Mystic Maemi or to load Aumakua.
All these horrible 5/3 agendas, I wanted to try Film Critic so badly as there are so many punisher cards and of course Punitive. It's kind of a nonbo with Turntable but usually also with Mystic Maemi you want to steal the agenda and maybe swap it and it's mainly for the punisher cards like SDS, SSL, Obokata (or Obokata when you are < 4 cards), Bacterial, City Works and of course the decks that base their kill on this.

Games

Game 1: Matuszczak

AgInfusion, not the matchup I like due to their boops, on the other hand Hippo can do something and Aumakua too. He was on a Jinja version and able to score a Nisei (0 - 2). I got Turntable and was able to swap a Philotic against his Nisei (2 - 2). He got to score a second Nisei as I was not able to contest his double Excal remote (none rezzed) with Aumakua on 0 counters (2 - 4). Loaded Aumakua to contest the remote. And found an SSL. Do I swap it against the other Nisei? My decision was "No", maybe questionable (5 - 4). He was preparing for a purge, although his R&D was only protected by 2 Cortex Lock, which did max. 1 damage, but still. So I decided to unload my The Turning Wheel to either hopefully score and win, or force him to use his Nisei counter. He didn't and I was able to find another SSL for the win.
The best feeling was, when he got his SSL credits and I had 3 PAD Tap!
1 - 0

Game 2: Ojciec

6 Agenda Azmari. He tried to rush out his points. Scored an SSL (0 - 3), tried to score the next one. I was going to HQ, find an Agenda (3 - 3) and Stimhacked his remote to pay throug 3 Slotmachines with the 9 creds to steal Degree Mill (6 - 3). He HHN me and I had to go Tag me. He got a Degree Mill out. I assumed a Border Control, so I went: Install Aumakua, Run Archives, run Remote, but it was an Enigma, but I would not have been able to steal it anyway.... with only 1 installed card (6 - 6). Time finished the game. Draw. 1 - 0 - 1

Game 3: murass

Argus, I was not able to find my money cards and draw was an issue. So I tried the best but he got to 6 points. When drawing I was able to get into HQ 3 times, unloading my The Turning Wheel missing the last Hostile for his win. 1 - 1 - 1

Game 4: Boreira

The second Azmari of the tournament... I got them all. Assumed he would play either kill or Exchange. So when I had the chance to Rebirth I was going for Edward Kim: Humanity's Hammer to kill his pieces as often I can't stay untagged. That was a good decision, killed 2 Boom and other stuff and was able to find 3 Agendas. Breaking News Hound for 1 credit felt amazing! 2 - 1 - 1

Game 5: Ratkin

Asa, hopefully no assett spam. I got bold, running R&D he rezzed Ichi while I had 0 programs and a trace while I'm on 15 creds seems unwise. I saw an Icewall and went hm.... what is this? Having played kill out of HB and seeing the strange deck, I got an idea and rebirthed again into Kim, to kill primarily his Load Testings and Hard Hitting News. And it was correct, I was playing against "my Murder Mirror" deck, just out of Asa and some changes.
He was able to Hard Hitting me, but paying 8 was totally ok. I was playing careful, Stimhacked his MCA Authority. To stay high enough and hippod his HQ to load Aumakua and kill his combo pieces. It would have taken some time, but to land the kill was kind of impossible for him and his weak ICE. 3 - 1 -1

I was very satisfied, not having played Val for ages like many others. I was kind of lucky sometimes, for sure!

Would have loved to have Stargate, but with only 1 Turntable it was to risky for me in terms of having the MU. So a 2nd one would be nice! Also I would have loved to include a 3rd Mining Accident but was not able to find the slots.

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