girls wins [best Runner at Bristol, top cut x4 @Nottingham]

hi so um a deck I made because of finding “Pretty” Mary da Silva really pretty turns out to be quite good, here are some accolades for the deck:

(* please note that people bought slightly different versions of the deck)

• Highest Runner win rate at Bristol Regionals (86% according to The Surveyor) with a slightly earlier version of the deck (6-1 between AceEmpress and I)
• 1st (our EMEA champion), 2nd (AceEmpress), 7th (Hello), 8th (Ams) place at Nottingham Regionals (13-4 between those players)
• After coming dead last at Nottingham Regionals, l0velace then came 3rd in the August EMEA AMT by smurfing as balatro, which none of QEH were aware of (I also played in AMT and did less well but that's okay)
• Actively pushed my transition forward by making me comfortable calling myself a woman one day after its first tournament outing (yes this deck can make you more trans)
• Made Akiko with glasses become an emoji on the Scottish Discord server. I'm not actually convinced that any girls players are in the Scottish Discord server (EDIT: I've been informed there was already an Akiko player in the Scottish Discord server, hell yeah!)

I am as bewildered as you are.

okay let's have a meme before I tear up

Thank you for tuning into the meme.

What's the short summary of this deck?

We put lots of girls in a deck and they work well together. More seriously, this deck offers an ultimatum: if you give us access to R&D then we get a lot of accesses through Akiko Nisei: Head Case, “Pretty” Mary da Silva, Trick Shot and so on. If you overcommit to R&D, we can get our accesses elsewhere through Cupellation, Burner, Eru Ayase-Pessoa and a solid breaker suite for remotes supported by Pinhole Threading. Finally, Physarum Entangler and the significant amount of recursion for it allows you to commit to a server pretty easily, and then sell it when you need to change server.

We also run a transient rig, supported by Aesop’s Pawnshop, meaning that we can always sell components that don't work out. This leads to a fairly common Shaper toolbox alongside the pressure package above: Muse is a lovely tutor, particularly when we run trojans, Coalescence is a trivial include in an Aesop's deck, and Environmental Testing means we can get a big payout for doing what we want to anyway.

What's the long summary of this deck?

I wrote a long strategy guide for QEH internally which has a bunch of play advice, which is now available publicly. It was for a slightly older version of the deck (to be precise, the version run at Bristol Regionals) but that's okay. I hope you enjoy it!

What's the medium length summary Why is there so much variety in girls?

Because gender is complicated, and girls come in all different shapes and sizes. Feminism says something about this, I think. (Editor's Note: Phoebe does not study feminist theory.)

More seriously, here are some common points of discussion regarding card choices that different players have provided different answers to.

• Nyashia is a card that girls players have been back and forth on: it's a cheap program so suits the deck's engine, and it gives us more R&D accesses. But slots are challenging (we're already at 47). Some players opted to do -1 Pretty +1 Nyashia - I didn't as I was a little too worried about early MU for it and the extra credit cost, but it needs more testing.
• The console slot has changed a lot, and MU generally discussed. 2x LilyPAD as the only MU is great for minimal slots, but can leave you stuck with bad draws. Some players considered 1x LilyPAD and 2x DZMZ Optimizer, and earlier versions of the deck tried other consoles like Aniccam.
• The breaker suite is a nice Shaper default, but could see some changes. The issue is that the deck wants to be aggressive at times through e.g. early Trick Shot and Pretty, but also wants an efficient enough breaker suite for later remotes. We also tend to not assemble a full breaker suite early. You could in theory run two breaker suites - one for early game and one for late - but as an EMEA champion once said, "you need cards for other card types, not just ice".
  • Euler has been considered, particularly with fewer code gates being run in general - the winner of Nottingham Regionals did this, and after some of the painful breaks I've had to do with Unity with an incomplete rig I will be trying it too.
  • Part of the reason I did badly at AMT is because I faced a lot of sentries which really taxed Ika out. 1x Ika might not cut it in a world like that. Echelon likely suffers the same issues as Unity. 2x Ika could be a genuine option - especially as it can be sold to Aesop's without a moment's thought, and combos so well with Muse.
  • The fracter suite is delightful. We got that one right!
• The Fermenter slot here has been considered and reconsidered, and nobody can agree on it. I'm not even that satisfied with it. Other uses of that 2inf include Clot, Bahia Bands (smoothes out the draw nicely), DJ Fenris (Steve lets you recur Trick Shots and Simulchips, Quetzal helps against Sandstone and other awkward early barriers, and Loup is werewolf), No Free Lunch.
• Sure Gamble vs Creative Commission has been hotly debated. This list is on 0x Gamble 3x Commission as I found myself frequently on low credits, but the balance can and will vary. The 1x Rigging Up is also debatable: I love it for getting 6c off a Coalescence, but it could easily be a more traditional economy card. 3x Environmental Testing may also be too much - it's hard to get the money off an early one - so 1x could also become more traditional economy.

Some bewildered thanks

It takes a lot of people to build a girls. Plato said this, I think. (Editor's Note: We asked Plato, our Blahaj. He said yes.)

More seriously, it has been absolutely wild seeing people take my deck and refine it with me to create what feels like a genuine contender. The last few months have been incredibly special for me despite the stresses of work (thanks, PhD thesis...) - becoming visible in the community through high-level judging and some actual good deckbuilding has boosted my confidence no end. To list people in particular:

• QEH, the place that this deck came from and was tweaked in. Thank you for being a space where I'm comfortable sharing Netrunner thoughts and comfortable being me.
• Everyone who played girls and talked to me about it, regardless of what version: AceEmpress, Hello, our EMEA champion, l0velace, krysdreavus, evie, MattOhNo, and Ams. You are all wonderful people and I'm delighted you had enough fun with the deck to play it at tournaments.
• EA Sports: they say that they're in the game, which I assume is the game of being super lovely and fun (as well as being good at Netrunner, or so I've heard). Your excitement about QEH stopped me feeling like it was just QtM-lite. Particular thanks goes to not_yeti: after seeing the deck's performance at Bristol Regionals, he reached out to help with focused practice to improve the deck, and motivated me to write the strategy guide linked earlier.
• I want to shout out those involved in the deck's tweaking from its inception. AceEmpress picked it up shortly after its first outing because faer toolbox Lat wasn't working, and brought a lot of insights to the deck. Hello was similar, and tested a lot of cards that we were unsure of, which was immensely valuable. You are both wonderful friends to have, and not half bad at deck tweaks. (Even if, Hello, I still don't agree with running only 1x Coalescence ;p )
• And a second particularly special shoutout to those involved directly in my transition, and the confidence from that: AceEmpress (yes again, look, she's my partner she was obviously going to be involved), krysdreavus (ti amo tanto!) and l0velace. I've been trans for 4.5 years, but a lot has changed for the better in the last few months in big part due to you three. Love you all <3

girls wins
- Phoebe