Sol Man - 1st/3rd Store Champs

spags 7948

img keegan

I have been playing some form of Sol Glacier for the past six months or so. I became intrigued with the ID after seeing @asher dominate Store Champs with a Sol kill deck. It was fast, made me really change up my Whizz deck for the Regionals to possibly deal with it. I went another route, trying out glacier. I took it to my ANRPC GLC finals, and it was OK, but needed help. I was trying to shoe horn in EOI and BN trix, but, felt that they rarely fired. It needed a change.

For SCs this season, I decided to go back to core glacier tenets, but more as Damon intended: punishing ICE that eats up credits. I used the deck the past two weeks, finishing 1st and 3rd with it (paired with Hate Val and Siege Geist), going 6-2 with the build. Its wins included victories over Hate Val, 2 Andy resource decks, ValApoc, Smoke, and TemuWhizz. The losses were a DLR Leela, where 3 of the 4 first mills were agendas, and she was on 2 agenda snipes already, and a Nexus Andy, horrid matchup that set up way too fast.

The deck has undergone a myriad of moves in the past six month. Prior to MWL2, I was setting it up with Navi Mumbad City Grid, to smash D4s and Suckers on the way in. After MWL2, and the lack of consistency with Navi, I decided to base the deck more around using Data Raven and Keegan Lane as the glacial defense. Recursion seemed to be slipping out of dex, and even in ones with some recursion, sometimes the tempo hit created a huge window to score through.

The current build is straight forward: build creds, double (or more) ICE everything, use TM to build tempo or creds, and find your windows. Patience can be key. The never advance (NA) game is really strong in this deck, and the recursion allows you to get those pieces back. Biotic is a nice surprise tool, allowing a push out of Astro early, or helping to end the game (I have won a game with a hot SanSan, an Astro token, and Biotic'ing out a GFI).

I am not going to break down every card in the deck. It's basically money, ICE, FA tools, and recursion. The alternate deck name is Raven Ward Lane, where Keegan lives. That server, for 10 creds, is pretty devastating to run through. I always loved Raven and Keegan, and the Ward fits right into that. The 'on encounter' ability is legit for a 6 rez cost, and must be faced. If you are facing a tagme deck, Ward becomes a monster, and Keegan fires on will.

The first SC I had 3 Restructure, but I decided to drop one for a Preemptive. I liked it, and would like more. I would also like more than 1 CVS, as I wiped viruses v. the TemuWhizz 8 times manually. The deck does need tons of creds, as the ICE is pricey. However, some dex will give you the TarMar money, as they NEED to play certain pieces. TarMar is the reason to play the deck. It is a fantastic skill card that will either slow the Runner until they find their Currents, or score, or they will give you 10 creds, which you need. A beautifully designed card that is just fun to run.

Problems can be Link and New Angeles City Hall. The 2 Andy decks I beat had the latter. The goal v. NACH is to move fast, or to make them eat an Agenda, getting rid of it. 15 Min. is obv. of great use in that situation. Shapers with NACH, Film Critic, Clot, Clone Chips, and SacCons are going to be rough. Just move fast.

Feel free to make any changes you see fit. This is just a fully distilled version, but you could change it up, and put in any types of ICE or trix as you see fit. Cheers!

14 comments
5 Dec 2016 Manadog

Thanks for posting. I've been playing a similar deck but still trying to shoehorn in the eoi, etc.

5 Dec 2016 PureFlight

Did you run into enough NACH to make it worth slotting an Enforcing Loyalty? I've liked it in my SYNC deck.

5 Dec 2016 spags

@PureFlightI haven't. Not a bad idea, but, somewhat corner case. Base it on what you've seen! Still need to win that trace.

Another answer would be Sub-Boost.

5 Dec 2016 dawspawn

Nice deck and comprehensive writeup. It's nice to see a Sol deck I finally have most of the cards to play!

5 Dec 2016 LazerDoofus

@spagswhat do you do in the aggro Val matchup? Its the only archetype I haven't stomped all over playing this list today for 10 games. Also I doubted the ice initially, but after 10 games and 9 wins (6 shut outs) I'm a believer

5 Dec 2016 spags

@dawspawnThanx!

@LazerDoofusYeah, that can be tough. Hold some ICE back if need be. Multi ICE centrals is key. Draw them through a remote by NA'ing. Use TM on Blackmail or Siphon, whatever you fear at the time. I find that Siphon is usually the bigger issue. Use AM and PreEmp on ICE. FA.

6 Dec 2016 shanodin

I love Sol so hearing of a Sol list doing well warms my heart. Well done on the performance :) looking forward trying it out!

7 Dec 2016 Brendan

Nice to see the Sol/Geist combo back in play.

Hunting Grounds is the other terrible counter to this deck, but it's not seeing as much play as it used to.

7 Dec 2016 dawspawn

Hunting Grounds and Jesminder, for sure. Luckily there's a lot of flex slots in this build so you can slot a Foxfire or something similar if it's a big problem.

9 Dec 2016 spags

Yeah, Hunting Grounds is annoying. Usually, you only see 1, though, when you see it at all, and there are a lot of ICE in here that have 'on encounter' on them.

9 Dec 2016 stoppableforce

I almost think the card I'd like to find room for in this deck after a couple plays is Friends in High Places. Recur Keegans, recur ice (I keep running into that Blackmail/En Passant bull#$@#), bring back SanSan. The downside is the slot for it seems to be Archived Memories, and I have not really kept track of how often I've been recurring an operation.

Sub Boost would also be nice, as you mentioned in an earlier comment. Sub Boost on Data Ward is gross.

9 Dec 2016 dawspawn

In messing around with some different builds, Sunset has actually been a fun include for one influence. I also like that it's semi-thematic with Sol.

13 Dec 2016 koniu

What do you think of Thoth in this list? It seems like a good fit for one of the Tollbooths. Also, AI breakers & parasites seem to be in decline now, so maybe Vanillas would make sense instead of Wraparounds?

One more thing - Preemptive Action does not look like a game changer, does the deck really need so much recursion? If yes, perhaps just 1x Friends in High Places would be better than 1x Archived Memories.

23 Jan 2017 AkAnderson

Yo! With the momentary rise of Sifr and Parasite, I feel like Sol (TM specifically) could be pretty decent right now. Using friends to keep bringing back News Hounds and SanSan sounds good. Do you think there is an ice suite in glacier NBN that can still challenge heavy Sifr decks? A lot of the on encounter stuff will probably never fire.