No DD Matryoshka Musliha (1-2, 12th at SF Elevation CTK)

Matryoshka MuslihaT is an idea a lot of people came up with - Matryoshkas aren't dead cards if you draw more of them, and they allow you to run a high density of icebreakers with good redundancy at the cost of being slow and draw-dependent and fragile to program trashing.

There's nothing particularly innovative here - I was heavily inspired by Cobalt's Win the Race in Ken, but sadly MuslihaT doesn't print money at quite the same rate or consistency. The main change is no Deep Dive - see the Exclusions section for my reasoning there.

Play as aggressively as you can without taking unnecessary risks. Don't get attached to any of your cards. The weaknesses of this deck are program trashing and glacier, since our ability to break many ice is relatively weak, and once it costs more to run servers than Clean Getaway / Bravado pays us, our economy dries up quite a bit.

Card notes

We can consider a second The Twinning instead of a second Mystic Maemi + Bahia Bands - I feel like our win condition cards in this deck are a little sparse, and if you get one sniped out of your hand early by some random net damage, winning the game becomes pretty hard. We install these ASAP against Au Co.

2x Azimat for the annoying Au Co assets matchup. Possibly you can even install both of them and no Matryoshka and just use boomerang / S-Dobrado to get central accesses. I think Azimat looks bad on paper but feels quite good in practice.

Maintenance Access for Nebula. I didn't face a single Nebula on the day, so I'm not sure how good this card is in that situation.

I think more ice cheating effects like S-Dobrado are generally good includes. It increases our run event density and are mostly useful. I can see these being substituted for Concertos, though.

Overclock is also critical for contesting the remote. The corp can deny you some of its value by not rezzing ice, but then you're already winning by accessing in the remote.

Bahia Bands - this card is good, but feels awkward to play. Drawing 2 often lets you draw something good to then install with the discount, and it's good for playing into asset spam. It also removes the Transfer of Wealth tag.

On consoles, I think that Swift is about the same as Aniccam for our run/event-based economy, and it lets us save influence. Swift is not as critical since we're not running Deep Dive, but we still might want 3x since the extra MU does make a difference. Hermes might be better, especially against the asset spam AU Co, because that deck has tons of little agendas and there's no better way to disarm a double-advanced facedown trap than bouncing it.

Don't use Clean Getaway or Bahia Bands to run naked facedowns, because those might be Spin Doctors and the corp can make the run neither successful nor unsuccessful.

Enemies

Semak-samun is public enemy #1. It seems like Every AU Co is running 2-3 of those, and we don't have the card draw to run through it more than once or twice, especially since those decks tend to be traps / grinder decks as well. It's very nice that The Twinning lets us hit both HQ and R&D in these situations, and we can always run a Semak-Semun central, spend Cezve credits to pump our breakers, then bounce off. Note that it's not a bad facecheck, because you can always choose to end the run.

SDS Drone Deployment is public enemy #2. I don't have a good solution besides the fact that people aren't playing glacier Weyland very much. Don't let them score it. Also, be ready for things like Stavka and Hammer and Bumi 1.0. I've tried running 1x of each breaker and no Mutual Favors in addition to 6x Matroyshkas, but we don't have the tempo to take time off installing breakers.

Exclusions

No Deep Dive - I think without support like Katorga Breakout, and even with it, the win condition is too fragile. The economy is not quite good enough without Mystic Maemi, Azimat, and not having Dr. Nuka Vrolyck is really noticable. I tested both versions, but the one without DD just felt so much smoother. It's so easy to lose DD to some random Bladderwort, and Matryoshka doesn't give us enough interaction to get through all of Nebula's centrals.

It's no secret that Overclock is better than Concerto. It spends Maemi credits, where Concerto doesn't, and is much more reliable. Concerto is a good include though, since it's a run event, costs nothing, gives you a card even if they deny it with a facedown Spin Doctor or by not rezzing on centrals.

Sorry Reprise! It feels awesome to play but is pretty situational. In this deck, we want the most general cards that give us gas in most situations. It is a run event, though.

Pinhole Threading - I don't like this card. I always seem to draw it when I don't need it, and never draw it when I need it. It's too often a dead card. It is a run event, though.

I don't like Open Market if you're not running a critical mass of jobs or connections. I think Smartware Distributor is better in nearly every case, because you're not going down 2 credits the turn you play it. Sure, it buys The Class Act, but we need run events in this deck.

Side Hustle is so slow and also not a run event, and you can get locked out sometimes. Don't even talk to me about Debbie "Downtown" Moreira.

I wish we had the influence for Joy Ride. It's a great card that refills us, though you don't really want to play it against Jinteki if you're low on cards for fear of Byte!.

No Ashen Epilogue - we don't have stuff like Buffer Drive to protect it, and usually games don't go long enough where it's relevant.

Jailbreak is a great all-rounder and half a win condition. I wish I had the slotes here. Maybe it's a bit better than S-Dobrado. It replaces itself, is great for early aggression, and it's a run event. What more can you ask for?

Sang Kancil - from a LobiOrca player, the 1c : 2 str was very enticing to me, especially in a run event deck. But it doesn't seem like Sang Kancil lines up well against any code gate, and the rate is not much better than just using a Matroyshka.

Finality - it's a run event, and it's great for closing out the game. Costs a lot of influence though.

Katorga Breakout also costs a lot of influence, and the critical cards to rescue are just The Twinning and maybe WAKE Implant v2A-JRJ. Not worth it.

Shred - tech card for cracking SkunkVoid.

Ghosttongue - I don't think the core damage is worth the discount, especially since AU Co is so prevalent in the meta.

Direct Access in case there's a lot of id nonsense like LEO or BANGUN. I did die to a BANGUN + installed Angelique + Angelique from hand, though.

Laser Pointer - Great idea from VirtualBread but it only gets us past Semak-Semun once. It's nice in the grinder matchups, but reducing our run density for 2x is not very pleasant.

Tournament

Loss vs Emily on AU Co: I think I kept up well with draw and economy and not letting the board get out of hand. I didn't find Twinning in the first 2/3 of my deck, which was bad, and I lost the WAKE implant to net damage, so I sadly couldn't do much central aggression. I lost this game when I ran a double-advanced Cerebral Overwriter with 7 cards in hand, thinking it was Urtica Cipher, and the corp cracking a Moon Pool to add 2 advancements to it and do 4 core damage. I'm still feeling the aftershocks from that play.

Loss vs Rob on BANGUN: I ran a naked, face up Send a Message with one facedown upgrade with 4 cards in hand on turn 2 or 3, betting on an Angelique / Tucana + Anemone trap and the BANGUN id trigger, and hoping that the corp didn't have an End of the Line. But the corp had an Angelique in hand, and I only realized after I stole Send a Message that Angelique from hand activates on Threat 3. I took a risk, and it broke bad. Welp.

Win vs Morgan on LEO: I was able to economically pressure the corp enough here that they couldn't rez their big ice, and I was able to win the game with remote + HQ accesses before they stabilized.

My corp was a reg tempo AU Co, not like other AU Cos. :^) Thanks millenomi for running!