Fine we can cut some cards

End of turn 3

Turn 5

Following Mawrie Kondo and Memento Mawrie, we continued tweaking the deck. Turns out we can just cut Zer0 and at 55 cards, the rest of the engine is just consistent enough. We're constantly setting up the full breaker suite by turn 5, and having our econ flow be much smoother in more games.

The faster economic start and recoveries are very significant for games against KANEHL+ variants, where liquidity is essential to challenge key assets and to tank a few hits from cards like Self-Growth Program and Amani Senai. The faster setup also gives you much more game against Rush Ob variants, where before you were often left in the dust just as you got your full rig set up.

-1 Num -1 Pinhole Threading +1 Echelon because Num is really ass. You really want to install Echelon as soon as possible in many matchups. Pinholes are really nice though so this is a change I'll continue to think about.

-1 Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga because they're a dead draw in some matchups, and you would much rather have your breakers out instead. Bankhar-ing a Border Control only for the Rush Ob to swap it out for another ice that you still cannot break is a terrible feeling.

-1 Pinhole Threading -1 Takobi +1 K2CP Turbine because I haven't been installing Takobi as much recently - most corps have moved away from ice suites that Takobi is good against, and you often want to find an early Turbine to invalidate most ice, especially against faster matchups with big ice like Punitive RH.

Cutting the Takobi did come back to bite me in the ass against a Glacier Azmari however, as it was still horrifyingly expensive to break Rimed Hydras with a single Turbine. Cutting pinholes also lost me my first game against a PD in a while, where the SkunkVoid scoring remote with Border Controls came up too fast, and having no way to trash the defensive upgrades was a death sentence regardless of the death rig I had up.

All three players who brought Less is Mawrie (myself, chordgang, and Jai who was on 56 cards with 1 Takobi 1 Turbine 1 Pinhole) ended up in the top cut of this 30 person SG Nationals. I'm very proud of how the deck did, and the constant improvements QtM, Jai, and I have made to it over the course of this competitive season. (For the other players of this deck, please feel free to share your replays in the comments of this writeup!)

I was worried about the lack of time I had to practice going into this tournament, and am incredibly proud to have still finished 3rd. Please read my corp writeup for more personal thoughts.

Replays

R1 Win vs PD

R2 Loss vs Glacier Neurospike Azmari

R3 Loss vs PD

Cut R2 Win vs Tempo Assets R+

Cut R3 Win vs PD

Cut R5 Loss vs Rush Ob

Special: Cut R1 Loss with Rush Ob vs Less is Mawrie