Moshing Matilda (1st Australian Nationals East 2023)

Once a jolly runner camped by a billabong

Under the shade of a coolabah tree,

And she sang as she watched and waited 'til her

Fermenter boiled,

"You'll come a-moshing Matilda, with me."

This is the list I took to Australian Nationals in Sydney, going 3-1 in Swiss and undefeated in the cut, making me the proud owner of a new sheep station. You can find my corp list here.

This runner has a lot of handy tools in her swag. You'll need to judiciously choose which are relevant on any given board state, and be happy to mosh them away or use the to pay the price if they're not. For example: I think I installed Takobi once all weekend despite being fairly impressed with it during testing. With DreamNet gone, staying on the digital side with Hoshiko isn't 99% free anymore, so consider flipping back for a little extra money if needed. You should ideally still be getting value from your ID every turn.

Thoughts on certain cards:

Boomerang is good for contesting early, and for dealing with pesky big ice including Pharos or Valentão as long as you plan around the extra subs firing, can form an engine late-game with Paladin and Twinning. It can even serve as a breaker of last resort if your rig gets shot, or simply predict every Stavka and throw that shit before you walk in the room.

Earthrise is a great hit off The Price, and fuels Bankhar well, but sometimes when combined with Hoshiko's draw can lead to some awkward hands if your economy is not quite in a position to comfortably play enough cards out.

Trickster Taka could potentially be Mystic Maemi in this list, it's right on the borderline for number of discountable events with DJ Steve.

Bravado my beloved <3

Games:

Round 2 win vs Hugh's 6Mari: Kept the econ down by trashing the econ assets with Pinhole and forcing big rezzes on the remote followed by Boomerang + Hippo to make scoring unsafe before clearing out HQ with The Twinning.

Round 3 loss vs Leon's asset R+: Managed to make an early steal or two, but Hugh managed to score an ARES off a SanSan that I couldn't afford to trash. After that I couldn't deal with the tempo loss of trashing Federal Fundraisings and clearing the tags before he found enough extra agendas to FA out.

Round 6 win vs Zacharie's FA Outfit: The combined HQ pressure of Maw + Twinning, enabled by Boomerang and Hippo for the bigger ice, bled the corp quickly after what seemed like a fairly flooded draw.

Round 7 win vs Chris W's Stegodon Thule: Bankhar and Boomerang are both excellent answers to the Stegodon gameplan, and while Echo can eventually become a bit scary for Bankhar, Cleaver doesn't actually care about the strength debuff from Stegodon against it. Careful control of which ice the corp was allowed to derez when was important and remember: if Stegodon sucks, hit da bricks. It only lasts for the run so you can always just run back.

Cut Round 1 win vs Blake's Asa Group: Quick setup with the help of The Price got a couple of early agendas, but the midgame looked a little rocky, relying on the credits from Hoshiko flipping to get back in the game and stabilise. Once I did, Stargate found the winning agenda to end with 3 Ikawahs in my score area.

Grand Final vs @Bluestar's shell game PE: Unfortunately an archetype that really suffers in a cut environment. Open decklists meant I knew every potential threat in the list, and untimed finals meant I could keep my cool and check the board fairly safely. DJ Steve, Wheels, and Stargate let me effectively stay on top of the number of threats that the corp put on the board while safely digging through R&D.

I wasn't sure if I would make it to nationals this year and I'm absolutely glad that I did. It was a blast meeting everyone and having the event basically be a big pubrunner was a great vibe. Big thanks to Luke for putting on a great event, to the Microbrewers for the testing help and camaraderie, and to everyone who turned out to make for a great weekend.