Maw-Kiko

This is my first published decklist, but I'll do my best. This was the runner deck I played at the Circuit Opener at Midgard in Derry, NH.

In getting ready for this event, I wanted to actually try a bit because I really wanted a Cat's Cradle playmat. We meet up every other Wednesday at Midgard, so I had been trying to jam games to figure out what I wanted to play. Most Corp decks make me happy, but I'm always struggling to find a Runner that I jive with.

At the meetups I've been playing a Mirrormorph deck I've been working on, but a different runner every time. The Mirrormorph deck still has money problems, and I haven't quite solved that so I ended up playing Bird and Bully. I won a game with it, and I lost a game in which my starting hand (after Mulligan :( ) had 0 ICE and I got torn apart by Maw.

The Wednesday before the event I was still completely unconvinced by any Runner deck I had tried. I honestly don't like the "inevitable unstoppable engine/rig" playstyle, regardless if the cards are green or red for two reasons - I don't think they're actually unstoppable usually, and I find them to be really slow. I tried Mulch, Loup, a few versions of Sable, Tāo, Kit. I'm not saying I'm an expert on any of those decks (I am assuredly not), but none even felt sort of fun or for me. I thought Tāo or Kit would be what I was looking for, but not so much. I remembered playing Akiko after I saw Jeff (Ysengrin) playing it on Stream one time - I think I enjoyed that. I threw something together before the meetup using the cards I had with me, and while it didn't work at all, the Psi game still felt super fun.

I went home, and I messaged Ysengrin to ask for his help with a deck. He's a nice guy so he agreed. I sent him a decklist with Akiko, Maw, Cezve and these breakers (only one Propeller at that time though) plus the Nuka/Diesel/Creative usual suspects. Cezve during the meetup felt super good during the Psi Game, but otherwise underwhelming. He advised me to add SMC/Simulchip and another Propeller + "all the econ", so I did that. I decided as much as I love Cezve I needed something else. Aeneas Informants were on my mind from the Mawmakua deck I netdeck'ed for East Coast Nats. I wanted more Econ, so I cut my precious Cezve for a playset.

Ideas

The basic idea is that you don't need to look for your multiaccess because it's printed on your ID. So just slam Maw, pressure Centrals with Maw + ID, and even if you don't win off that, it's taxing enough on their ICE that it weakens the remote. It actually worked pretty well, and I lost like 2 Psi games all day. I'm pretty good at them.

Results

I went 2-1 with my runner deck.

Round 1: I get the bye.

Round 2: I play Corp and draw no ICE vs Maw (as above).

Round 3: I won a game where I just blitzed out Maw and Aumakua, and got some ID multi-access. The other player mentioned she expected a slower Shaper deck, and I'm just not here for that.

Round 4: I lost a game to PD where I lost an Aumakua to a Hagen, and while I had a Simulchip, losing the counters meant I was locked out for too long.

Round 5: I win as Outfit against Kit. I felt pretty in control the entire game, and use an Atlas counter to find the Regulatory Capture for the win.

Round 6: The last game I won vs PD was a bit weird - time was a big factor because it was 8 minutes left when I was on 4 points to 0 points. I knew his HQ was full of Agendas, but I couldn't get in because I couldn't find my non-Aumakua breakers, so I started trying to Maw them out. He gets to 5 points but then when he goes to install the last agenda he sees that his face down card that's been in the server isn't an upgrade, its actually another agenda. He gives himself a game loss. I'm not 100% clear on if I could have gotten in for the steal (we didn't count credits and it was a close thing) before time was called, so I'm not sure exactly what would have happened. Regardless, an agenda that shouldn't have been hiding in a server was, so that was that.

Honestly, this is the first runner deck that's clicked with me for a long time, and I love the Psi game. I didn't finish top 2, but NotAgain was a hero and gave me his playmat as he already had it. I will treasure it forever. Props again to Jeff for helping me work on the deck, and props to Kyuban which overperformed every game IMO.