MAGICAL GIRLS NEVER DIE (1st, 3rd) @ Whimsy GNK 2025-01-25

Tired of losing to Reeducation Neurospike?

Losing with Freedom Khumalo: Crypto-Anarchist/Mulch/Arruaceiras Crew due to skill issues?

Want to have lots of money?

Enter: Undying Weapon, deck name coined by my testing partner, CyberspacePanda. Personally, I just called the deck Lat Hosh on Jnet -- but MAGICAL GIRLS NEVER DIE might just be catchy (or cute) enough.

Surprisingly, there are no decks on Netrunnerdb with both Stoneship Chart Room and Aniccam on Hoshiko so far.

HOW TO BECOME IMMORTAL

Versus kill decks, it's hard to kill us through Aniccam and three Steelskin Scarring. However, Reeducation Neurospike is one of the kill lines that can completely skirt around Steelskins. This led to the idea: why not just slot in Stoneship Chart Room?

In Path of Exile, we become nearly immortal by maximizing a concept called "layers of defense". In the game, this comes in the form of armor, block, max resistance, energy shield, leech, and more, all layered together, requiring mobs and bosses to pierce through several layers before damaging or killing our characters. For this deck, it comes in three forms:

Defensive Layer #1: Economic Advantage

While Freedom/Mulch/Crew rely on trashing kill pieces/Agendas from hand through Freedom's ability, Imp, or Eye for an Eye, we can steal agendas straight up as long as we have an economic advantage, since this makes us (nearly) immune to Punitive Counterstrike. We focus on playing a Reg gameplan with an inevitable endgame through the Reg breaker suite of Cleaver, Buzzsaw, and Echelon, along with Leech and Takobi. If the meta plays little ice, even Leeches are enough to get us into servers. And as more decks start teching hard against Audrey v2 rigs, reg rigs might shoot up in value again. Having Sure Gamble and Dirty Laundry is also great for our econ, which Mulch/Freedom decks don't have the slots to run.

Defensive Layer #2: Steelskin + Aniccam

Having Steelskin Scarring in hand and Aniccam on board makes us extremely bold with certain plays we wouldn't otherwise attempt. Even if we accidentally touch a three-pointer at the wrong time (though we still should only run with 4-5 cards in hand), Steelskin Scarring + Aniccam should protect us through double Punitive Counterstrike. End of the Line decks have become a little less popular, but it also protects from these lines, as well as Jinteki Neurospike decks.

Defensive Layer #3: Stoneship

The MVP of the deck, imo. Stoneship Chart Room acts like a more flexible Plascrete Carapace in this deck, giving us near immunity and acts as our last line of defense versus Reeducation lines. Once they score the Reeducation, we can pop our Stoneship Chart Room to draw up until we're out of single Neurospike range. If we accidentally steal six points in a turn, we can pop Stoneship Chart Room at the beginning of the Corp turn to tank one Punitive Counterstrike, and beat the trace of the second (Layer of Defense #1) (and for sure they can't afford a third, right?????)

Or you know, the first Punitive Counterstrike hits a Steelskin Scarring and draws us three more cards (5 cards end of turn, pop Stoneship Chart Room #1 to 7 hand, take 6 meat damage = 1 card in hand. Draw 3 from Aniccam Steelskin Scarring, bringing us up to 4 cards, then pop Stoneship Chart Room #2, letting us tank two Punitive Counterstrikes and beat trace of the third.

When the Corp sets up a double Neurospike line, that's fine -- you want to delay the Corp as much as possible -- kill Spin Doctors on sight (so they cant start the turn with 8 cards in hand), buying us one to two more turns to prepare to steal the agenda. Double Neurospike lines are also more telegraphed, letting us plan out if we can get into the server and nab it while still being safe from Punitive Counterstrike the following turn (refer to Layers of Defense #1 and #2).

For non-kill matchups, this just lets us dig through our deck faster or could charge The Twinning ;-)

With that said, this deck can win versus Reeducation Azmari EdTech: Shaping the Future, but it's still not completely fool proof. But I have more confidence in this deck as I'm not skilled enough to pilot Freedom/Mulch/Crew against the Azmari deck. And that's fine -- I'll play what I'm more comfortable with and have a blast!

Why Not Just Maw?

Maw is an amazing card, it really is. But six credits is horrible to pay against decks that want to Punitive Counterstrike you, and installing Maw means there's a gremlin inside my brain that tells me I need to run every turn to get Maw value. I'm not skilled enough to flip back and forth while still keeping that in mind, so we just cut it and went for a full-on tank approach.

The Rig

The deck initially started just as a K2CP Turbine Deck with Miss Bones to handle asset kill matchups, nothing fancy. However, as we kept on adding more and more tech choices to combat kill lines, we ran out of influence to afford K2CP Turbine. And so, we looked to Delicate Weapon and adopted the rig, as the Takobi pretty much is the perfect fit for the deck's remaining influence.

Other Choices

We added Fencer Fueno as a mini Miss Bones of sorts, which can still prove handy to nab Ikawah Project and trash cards from HQ/R&D when needed.

Pinhole Threading and Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga are still great versus rush decks, as the lack of Boomerang made the deck a lot more vulnerable to rush scoring gameplans. profwacko actually asked me earlier during our monthly XT play sessions "What beats this deck?" My answer was "Just play PD lol"

My version also ran a copy of Hannah "Wheels" Pilintra, as I expected lots of Ob and other asset spam decks. It didn't really matter for me, though I do keep on forgetting I can just use her to get an extra click (which may have cost me a tie instead of a win! -- but thats a brain fart on my end!)

Deck Changes

Going forward, we draw through the whole deck really quick, often not providing any The Twinning counters eventually from Paladin Poemu, specially if our own gameplan is to just deny the Corp from killing us. So we're thinking of adding one Trickster Taka, as in the endgame you're definitely just running and is the only reliable way to charge up The Twinning once the other companions blow up.

CyberspacePanda went 2-1 with the deck, losing to a triple Anemone remote on a five-advanced City Works Project (so I guess we're not Immortal after all...) I went 0-1-1 with the deck, losing to FreeRice's PE deck that had to score out with a topdecked double Seamless Launch for the win -- I should just have ran the remote and won, so it was definitely winnable. My tie was versus Dante on GameNET: Where Dreams are Real, as he had to AFK for around 15-20 minutes during the round to take care of some shop duties and we didn't ask for a time extension out of consideration for the others in the tournament. Once again, the win was in Archives or a remote, I just failed to run it.

But I definitely think in the hands of better players (like you! 🫵🫵🫵), this deck has legs to compete against the huge number of Hoshiko variations out there. I just came back to Netrunner two months ago after a seven-year hiatus! So it's up to you now to carry on the legacy of the Undying Magical Girl!

Corp Deck: Singleton Azmari

My Corp deck was CyberspacePanda's Singleton Azmari, except I cut the second Attitude Adjustment for a second Wraparound just as an early gearcheck. So I guess it's not a singleton deck anymore, but the spirit is there. Gatekeeper is nasty to facecheck and can be gamewinning on its own when rezed at the right time.

Beat two Mulch René “Loup” Arcemont: Party Animals during the day, and a Mercury: Chrome Libertador in the final round.

As a side note, I am currently working on a Hoshiko alt art for Run Together 2025 -- I'm excited to reveal it to everyone!

Here's a preview of the art:

The Philippine Meta is also hosting the Metro Manila District Champs on March 8th, so if you folks want to take the flight and visit Manila, please do let us know!