Quelch - the deck I almost played at ACC

Mulch is dead. Long live Mulch!

This is the decklist I almost played at ACC. I was panicking about runner just an hour before the deadline, made swift changes to this decks' previous iteration to what you see now, submitted and proceeded to join tuno and krys for lunch. Mid-way through lunch, 20 minutes before the deadline, I went "fuck it, Zer0 Steve is what I have to play, even if it ends up sucking" and changed the deck right then and there from my phone. This deck is still cool and I had fun jamming some on jnet, so here's the pitch to you all.

Knobkierie is gone and the OG shell doesn't really work anymore unless you firmly believe Friday Chip does well enough as a substitute (tbf I've seen it work better than I thought). I approached the issue from a different perspective: I saw Bridgeman test a ton with a Hoshiko build that ended up giving QtM the necessary spark to develop Mulch, with inspiration from Hivemind Maxx. Knob's existance made that development process work, but it doesn't mean it's the only version of the list you can cook.
Reg Hosh is still decent. Maw is a strong card. QtM's push for Simulchip in a The Price + Lago Paranoá Shelter shell makes tons of sense and is actually pretty good. Also, Physarum Entangler is pretty cracked (I've seen people experiment with it in Mulch decks before) and it's a 1 card solution for anything non-barrier. What if I shore up that weakness by playing Quetzal: Free Spirit? That way, as soon as I find the slime I can easily get through anything. On top of that, I can play Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga over Audrey v2 and make ice positioning a nightmare, easily getting through most stuff. Bonus points: Quetzal makes me wanna play Poison Vial, meaning I incidentally end up slotting great tech for Brân (a bit of a meta defining card if you ask me) and get additional value out of Botulus counters and Num.

Clearly, the absence of Physarum from the list above looks weird now, but that's simply due to me remembering Aumakua is pretty cracked and we like having an AI, plus Laamb with Quetzal is simply pretty cool if you need an emergency solution to whatever you find in front of you. Those 2 slots, in combination with Boomerang, also bring the total number of reliable solutions to Magnet to 4.

Ultimately, I'm glad I didn't bring this as it still looks very unrefined and could even use some more structural work. Having a clearer picture of the meta would also help the deckbuilding process quite a bit. Like most tricky Shaper decks, many choices come from clearly understanding the threats you're about to face and finding the most appropriate answers. With ACC being the first Continental of the season, going into it armed with a grugger deck just made a lot more sense.

As always, if you find this interesting and wanna chat to cook it a little more, hmu!