StegoCan – Top cut 5th @ Can Nat 2023 (East coast)

I've had a lot of fun with the Stego don't deck, especially the Stegodon + Manegarm + Formicary combo. For the blissful people who don't know it : Manegarm and Formicary both trigger on server approach, which allows the corp to make the runner go through Manegarm once + the number of Formicary it is willing to rez. Because Formicary's ability is on rez, Stegodon MK IV allows with certain conditions to derez Formicaries and reuse the combo, as well as reducing icebreaker strength, which make runs pretty costly.

I've made a couple of changes for better or for worse.

I've reduced the agenda suit to 10 cards, increasing the number of Ikawah and reducing the number of 2 pointers. I've found that playing with Stegodon usually make for longer games, therefore I'd rather have defensive agendas and also get the time to set up enough before scoring. I've removed the Biotic Labors for a single Audacity. I've found that I don't really need to score from hand once I have a Manegarm server setup with some Formicaries and one or more Stegodons, so Wage Workers usually do the trick to score an unadvanced agenda. Audacity is usually there to score that final agenda or Ikawah without costing too much, so having a single copy isn't so bad (it can wait).

I've added 2 Maviruses and 1 Magnet to take care of those annoying Aumakua, or just prevent runners with Fermenter from abusing Archives which I rarely ice (I'd rather keep the ice for remotes and make Fully Op even better).

I've removed the Tatu Bola which can be decent econ or early cheap barriers (and also can trigger ID ability) for Ablative Barriers that benefit from being unrezzed by Stegodon and rezzed again. It was a way for me to get some influence back and I feel Ablative is pretty good to threaten in late game whatever might have been trashed (Manegarm, a Formicary that got hippoed, Rashida etc...).

Overall this corp performed pretty well. Got 4 wins (2xLat, Sable, Hoshiko) and 1 loss (Loup) in swiss and a single win in the top cut against Arissana from The King (I'm probably too proud of that). The most intense moment playing that deck was against Lat on the last but one round of swiss which I needed to win to have a chance making it to the top cut. We were both on 6 points and Lat managed to do a deep dive. I'm not sure how big R&D was at that point, but the only agendas it contained were 2x Ikawah and 1x Offworld. Lat was unlucky and only revealed 2x Ikawah which he could not steal without a click left, allowing me to win the game by scoring an installed agenda.

Stegodonk forever <3