Flight of the Musaazi v6.3

Introduction

Long have I been fascinated by Khumalo and his rig. They offer a tantalizing dream: Install a 2 credit breaker suite. Run. Accumulate viruses. Run. Accumulate viruses. Trash government subsidy to assert dominance. Can you claim to have lived a fulfilling life if you haven't Khumalo trashed Gov Sub? Turbine is a fool's dream, join me in the land of plentiful virus counters!

However.

In trying to live the dream, I must acknowledge a grim truth: Musaazi is not a good card. Some problems are obvious: a giant sentry might require 7 virus counters to deal with. Unless...

Another less obvious problem is code gates. Record scratch sound effect: Now that my MU is full, I have to install an expensive console before I have room for my entire rig! Would you play Black Orchestra if it cost 8 to install? Dare I install non-console MU? If the corp ices all of their servers and purges virus counters, do you have a solution? Do you think we can fit an economy into the last 10 cards of the deck? Your budget is 0 influence. Hey, did you remember to put a win condition in the last 2 cards? Sorry, MU is too full to play Stargate.

Important new cards since version 4.7

System Gateway brought three important cards to the 5.x versions of this deck. First, Botulus is a powerful tool that combines virus generation, anti-rush tech, and soft ice destruction in a single, flexible card! Don't think about MU costs, that way lies only sadness. Secondly, Wildcat Strike gives us 3 additional copies of sure gamble, which really helps with starting hand consistency. Finally, Fermenter gives us yet more virus generation to prevent lockout, which doubles as a long-term economy! I said stop thinking about the MU costs! Did it work? In short, no. The deck became even more thirsty for MU, when that was already a critical bottleneck that was preventing me from transitioning to the late game. Despite all the efforts to make the deck faster, consistency was still a problem, even while playing an alleged 2 card breaker suite.

Parhelion

At long last, we have a card that changes everything: Asmund Pudlat. This lets me copy the Khumalo decks that were using SMC to fetch Consume, while saving 2 influence. He even fetches 2 viruses! Gosh! Let's fetch Aumakua too. This influence windfall has allowed me to play... DZMZ Optimizer. It looks over-costed compared to solutions of the past, but these two cards really address the biggest obstacle this deck has faced in every iteration: consistency. If you remember one brief paragraph ago, I said that getting additional MU was the primary bottleneck in making this deck run. It turns out that you don't need the entire 7 MU to start operating, 5 is generally enough. Now I have 5 chances to draw "enough MU", and Asmund to make sure the last breaker isn't hiding on the bottom of the deck. To top it all off, now I can fit a win condition into the final 2 cards of the deck.

That brings us to where we are today. After many, many versions, I am proud to announce that this jank deck has been refined into the status of "playable". Most of the weird solutions may not have made it into this version (or they've rotated), but at long last, I'm getting 2 virus counters on every single run.

Ok, but how does it work? That was an excessive amount of reading, is there a recipe hiding under all of this?

Let's talk about the other card choices. This economy is heavily event-based, because I don't want to spend actions cranking Liberated Account, and I don't have time to wait for Daily Casts to pay out. The deck needs to draw through its many programs as fast as possible, and trading 3 cards to get deeper into your deck is worth it. The single copy of Zer0 should be thought of as a 4th copy of Moshing. It's worse, because keeping particular cards is actually important, but having some kind of card selection is important enough that you need 4 copies of it. The long-term economy will be handled by Consume. It makes viruses, if you need fuel for your breakers, but it also makes viruses, that can be turned into money! Words cannot describe the sheer amount of money that Consume can make for you.

Asmund: The first priority is fetching Consume, because that is your ongoing economy. The second priority is probably finding Aumakua, because that is what prevents you from paying too much money on certain code gates just because Blorchestra lines up poorly against it. Depending on board state, you might prioritize getting Yusuf or Musaazi before Aumakua.

Optimizer: It's a 4th and 5th copy of "enough MU to get going", but it's also a significant discount on the many programs I want to install. Did you know that this gives you a 100% discount on Yusuf?

Only 2 copies of Musaazi/Fermenter? Yes. Between Aumakua, Botulus, Musaazi, and Asmund, there are 8 cards I can draw that can break sentries, or draw a way to break sentries, and ultimately these each lost a copy to make room for Dreamnet so I can draw cards.

Are you really only playing a single pinhole threading as tech?

Sorry, influence budget got spent on gluing the deck together.

In all seriousness, Khumalo dunks on a vast swathe of corp strategies. Tag and Bag? Now that they have to use Gaslight instead of Consulting Visit, they reveal to you when there's good stuff in HQ to trash! Asset spam? Between your Identity and Consume, you can trash enough assets to make Miss Bones blush! Of all decks, I think this one has enough tech stapled to the identity to get away with a 1 card, 1 influence budget. You can switch it for No Free Lunch if your local meta is more taggy.

What if they ice and purge?

That's the problem that has taken me 5 years of deckbuilding to answer. The answer is to go fast, and make sure that at least one sever is vulnerable. Card releases have helped us go fast, and Hippo and Botulus will help you pry open servers when the corp tries to shut the door on you. You will have to make a lot of runs into certain danger after the corp purges. The likelihood that they can rez every ice and that every ice stops you is low. Managing the risk of losing programs or taking net damage is left as an exercise to the reader, as this is a danger that all decks face. At least you have redundant copies of your breakers! As long as you didn't get rid of them with Moshing.

Are we finally to the recipe part?

Sourdough Bread

First day, evening: If you don't already have sourdough starter, get some from somebody else that already has it. (Like a pyramid scheme!) To feed the sourdough starter, mix it with 80g of room temperature water, and 80g of flour in a mason jar. Mix thoroughly, and let rise overnight. In the morning, it should have doubled in volume.

Second day, morning: Save some sourdough starter for future loafs in the fridge. You don't need very much starter (maybe 10g). In a large mixing bowl, mix 150g of starter with 250g of room temperature water, 25g olive oil, 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, and some crushed rosemary. I don't know how much, just do what feels right (but a similar amount to the garlic powder). Optionally, you may chop garlic cloves instead of using garlic powder if you feel industrious. Mix thoroughly, then add 500g of bread flour. The consistency should be solid and pliable, but it probably won't form a single ball of dough yet. Cover the mixing bowl with a damp towel.

After 30-60 minutes, you can optionally add around 10g of salt. By this point, the dough should stick together in a single piece. Moosh the bread to expose more dough to air. If the dough is extremely sticky or hard to moosh, use a spray bottle to moisten it. Every 2 hours, moosh the bread, and water it if necessary. Eventually, the bread will have risen enough to look much bigger and fluffier than when you initially mixed it. For me, in the relatively cold Washington State, this takes most of the day (around 12 hours). In the evening, I put the dough in the fridge to rest overnight before baking it the following morning. I use a proofing basket, but you could also dust kitchen towel with flour and put it in a bowl.

Third day, morning: Preheat your oven to 450F. I bake my bread in a dutch oven lined with corn meal, you can use other containers, but I don't know how you'd modify the baking process. Put the bread in the dutch oven, and just before putting it in your oven, score it (cut slashes in the surface of the bread to let steam escape during baking). Specialized scoring knives exist, or you can use razor blades. Put the lid on the dutch oven, then bake in the oven at 450F for 20 minutes. Then, remove the lid of the dutch oven and reduce the baking temperature to 400F. Bake for 45 more minutes. Remove the bread from the oven, and let cool on cooling racks for 30-60 minutes. Now you have bread.