24th at Worlds - Loss Adjusted Response Activation Malia

This is a deck I have been playing a version of for a long time now. My very first version was back in April 2018 and since then I’ve had the privilege of placing what I considered highly (top 60) at Euros, dropped a rock on someone at Nationals, won the Readox bell on multiple occasions and sacked a Government Takeover.

I never dreamed however that this deck would reward my attention and service with a Worlds playmat. Thank you deck, and the runner deck that went with it (81 card Maxx)

It’s hard to talk about this deck because I never know where to start. When one publishes a typically known archetype with some spice/entirely correct alternate card then you can explain those choices and then go from there. That can lead me to want to explain everything at length but on the other hand I don’t want to come across as someone who thinks he is the only person to have discovered Mushin, Jemison, City Works, Junebugs etc.

I will err on the side of the overexplain so please feel free to tut and say “Ugh… obviously” where appropriate. The basic premise of the deck is to put the runner in a fork as soon as possible, ideally before they realise the exact nature of the fork.

On the one hand if they run a trap the trap might become more advanced after they commit to access using a surprise upgrade or asset to add advancement counters with Jemison’s ability.

On the other hand if they leave you alone (and go down to less than 5 in hand) you can score an Armed Intimidation and follow up with a Boom!

In and around that you can as the corp be doing things to improve your odds; getting the runner to lose cards to a trap can increase the chances of the runner going lower in hand size, scoring agendas can make them feel they need to challenge advanced remotes, and scoring bigger agendas allow for bigger sacrifices to make bigger plays on the above. Sometimes as well you can just score out.

The Agenda suite in these decks has tended to wobble around depending on my willingness to play City Works project. If, because of Film Critic largely, I do not want to play City works project you tend to end up with an odder suite and slightly more traps. As it was I realised a little while before worlds that with the threat I was leaning into of the unadvanced remote being “not worth a random check” it meant that I could put Malia on the table as my “out” for scoring a City Works vs Film Critic. Of course I would have to practice my acting that I forgot about Film Critic, or did not expect it, but it felt like a worthy play to aim for. As it was I never used it, but the freedom to play City Works was huge for me. Aki Mitchell has long been an advocate of City Works in this kind of list and while I think there are times I will go elsewhere I do think it makes a very potent threat. Her insight into Jemison and the way in which I could compare notes with another player has been valuable to me.

The rest of the agenda suite is fairly obvious; 3 Armed Intimidations mean your “score Armed Intimidation into Boom!” threat is likely to be accessible whilst 3 Standoffs and 3 Hostiles allow for considerable sacking potential, as well as reasonable econ. Atlas never feels bad and if you aren’t on City works then you tend to squeeze far more Atlas in. Junebugs win a lot of games on their own and you absolutely, in my belief, need at least 3 advanceable traps even with the City Works. The 3 Psychic Fields are also very necessary to make checking random face downs really unappealing, and to deal with 419 and other expose effects.

Quarantine System and Oberth Protocol are the pieces of the puzzle that help Jemison sack out agenda points after access in order to increase the damage of traps or City Works. They can, alternatively, help to very rapidly score out an Armed Intimidation. Quarantine System in particular is notable for allowing you to sack multiple agendas in the same window. Thanks to Simon Castle for first putting me on to this.

Reconstruction Contract actually works far better with Atlas and I feel less keen on them in this deck than in others. They are a great Mushin target however as if they are left on the table they allow considerable shenanigans. 3 Boom! is obvious and definitely stronger in this list than HPT even with its inherent weakness to being trashed. The 3 Dedication Ceremony are largely there for City Works now but have done some duty with the Reconstruction Contract in extremis.

The 3 Mushin no Shin are of course great, but the best plays are often with City Works because the interplay is utterly wild.

The ice suite has to be tight and each ice has to work on its own because of that. It also has to work with whatever the runner is valuing; that means a lot of ETR is necessary with only Maouslus being allowed to skip that because runners taking a tag and a net damage is nearly always fine for me. Due to the need to keep some agendas in the score area ready to be trashed it does limit the usage of Archer and Tithonium but they feel like they are at the right numbers here.

On the day it beat 1 Freedom, 2 Val, one 419, one Apoc Omar, 1 Smoke (before I could use the Malia), 1 Apoc Alice (though this matchup rightly terrified me)

Lost to 1 Apoc Val, 1 Reg Val (though I was thiiiiis close to a successful ruse, my opponent sighed with relief after having exactly the right amount of cards by happenstance and whispered quitely "Why did I run that..."),

Weirdly I don’t think I’m done with this ID. I still find it surprising that it hasn’t taken off more. I might try a more conventional deck though with less Mushin and thus more ice to see where that takes me.