3 Maws and 43 good cards (1st Place at SC Bielefeld)

This is the deck I won the Store Championship Bielefeld with. It went 3-2. I further modified the deck I used in Hamburg (Nemamiah's Opus Maxx +1 Bhagat), removing an Ice Carver and adding a Citadel Sanctuary. The change was fine on the day, I didn't miss the Ice Carver, while the Sanctuary was useful in one game (removing Tags from News Teams and serving as an added layer of protection against Punitive Counterstrike).

Game 1 against Nelson on Murder Palana: At the start of the game, we had some back and forth where I managed to score an Obokata. But then he made a really good move, scoring a Chronos Project and thereby removing 20 to 25 cards from my Heap, including Aumakua, Femme and both Black Orchestras. But I managed to pressure HQ and R&D with Bhagat and Maw. The turning point of the game was me running Archives with 3 Breached Domes, winning a Future Perfect Psigame. From that point on, he tried to find an Agenda to put into the Remote, while I was Mawing and Bhagating him relentlessly. When he started to advance his winning Agenda, I ran Archives and won the game.

Game 2 against Volker (Understate_) on Government Takeover Jemison: Going up against Jemison, I didn't really know what was coming at me. He advanced an Agenda behind Ice, which I facechecked. It was a Tithonium, which was hardrezzed and trashed my Opus. I immediately used Frantic Coding (which I intended to use to find the correct breaker for the Ice), got lucky and found the next Opus with it - along with Clippy to break the Ice. My confusion was complete when I stole the Firmware Updates from the Remote. After that, I turned my attention to Volker's centrals, pressuring him with Maw. The big moment of this game was the point, where he used an Oberth to advance a card in his Remote six times in one turn. First I thought it could be Vanity Project, but when he passed the turn it was the obvious Catch-22 of Junebug or Takeover (especially after having seen two Punitives in Archives). But since I was quite low on money and figured I wasn't able to get into the Remote (with a facedown Ice with four advancements, most likely Colossus, another facedown Ice and the Tithonium), I decided to go for it on centrals and either win that turn (I was on four points) or pray that it was a Junebug. I only got one Atlas, but fortunately, it turned out to be a Junebug in the Remote (I guess Volker speculated on either me being more aggressive in Hail Marying it on low money or a Stimhack in my hand). The next turn, I ran R&D again, found the next Atlas and won.

Game 3 against Falk (HorstGrobian) on Asset Spam NEH: I kept a hand, which, in hindsight, was lackluster. It had Frantic Coding (which even found the Opus), but not much else. Crucially, I couldn't find my Hacktivist Meetings for most of the game, so I was very far behind him, while he spammed out Turtlebacks, Daily Business Shows, Advanced Assembly Lines and Jeeves, tried a half-hearted attempt to get his board under control, drew some cards to find the Meetings, got a couple of accesses and very deservedly lost. I definitely should have mulligend for the Meeting (Opus by itself can't hope to keep up with NEHs spamming) and during the game stay focused on one objective - in this case creating as many accesses as possible, to somehow get lucky and steal enough Agendas after seeing the board was lost.

Game 4 against Sven (D4ken) on Grail Palana: Svens first turn was to create two Remotes and play a Hedge Fund. Since I played him before and he was mostly on murder versions of Palana, I spent my first turn setting up. He then rezzed Jeeves and scored the Nisei, which was definitely my favourite play of the day. A bold move, but it payed off big time. Afterwards, he built a Remote and scored an Obokata, but that took him a couple of turns. While he did that, I blew up his HQ Ice and used the Maw and Bhagat on his open HQ and R&D to get lots of accesses and trash lots of cards (Bhagat with HQ and R&D open is brilliant multi-access and disruption). At a later point I checked his Archives, going to 6 points. When he finally slammed down and advanced the winning agenda (protected by Helheim Servers (the spice!) and Batty), I figured I couldn't get into the Remote, so I took my chances, rebirthed into Omar and ran his HQ. With four cards in hand, I accessed and stole an Obokata for the win.

Game 5 against Pascal on NEXT Design Rush: After taking a Mulligan, Pascal iced a Remote and R&D, making some money in the first turn. On his second turn, he put an Agenda and an Ash into the Remote, scoring the Sales Team on his third turn. On his fifth turn, he installed and advanced the next Sales Team, which he also managed to score, while I was still struggling to set up with enough money and Breakers. When he installed the Food for the win I tried to get into his server, lost a Batty Psigame and consequently the game (he still had Ash and another unrezzed card in the Remote, so the chances of getting in were approaching zero). Maybe I should have contested the Sales Teams harder, but his rush was well executed and extremely quick, so I don't think that would have made much of a difference.

The deck is still good. As I said above, I think changing one Ice Carver to a Citadel Sanctuary is fine, providing some kill protection and making tags less punishing, but the decision is very close. You can play either one - or just cut both to go down to 45 cards. But I wouldn't cut the Bhagat, it is really strong and I like the card very much.