[SOCR5] alternative minimum tax (3-2)

groenkaaf 1147

My corp deck for Stimhack Online Cache Refresh 5. Went 3-2 in the Swiss; lost in the semifinals.

This deck went through a lot more changes than my runner over the course of the tournament. I wish I were confident that I had improved it, but I'm fairly certain I didn't.

Originally, I was using Keegan Lane in the remote behind a Data Raven and a gross ETR like Tollbooth or Data Loop. With no bin breakers in CR (and very few runners on bypass effects), this was surprisingly effective. There are only two Ravens in the revised core, though (and few other ways to land tags mid-run), so the plan was pretty inconsistent. I added Authenticators to try to encourage taking tags on runs, but this kind of cheese only works once. If it doesn't win you the game, with only 6 agendas it can be a struggle to find the last points before the runner has set up again and Authenticator leaves your centrals very porous in the meantime.

The older list also ran Wake Up Call to deal with Nexus and Monolith (which I only ran into in the semis, after I had cut Wake Up Call in favor of Threat Assessment to free up space for Bio Vault). Unfortunately, with very little tag punishment in the format, most runners can safely take the tags. I did land a Threat Assessment against Monolith, but, since it puts it back on the stack, my opponent was able to Emergent Creativity another one out within a few turns. Not much of a tempo hit.

Project Junebug got me a flatline in the swiss and another in the quarterfinals, and is without a doubt the MVP. In the quarterfinals game, the runner had a Kongamato on the board and ran on the double-advanced Junebug remote with 5 cards in hand. The ICE was a Tollbooth into a Data Loop and, because I was so focused on the flatline, I mistakenly rezzed the Data Loop. Of course, Kongamato only breaks the first sub, so I had locked them out and felt very dumb. I topdecked a Bio Vault, IAA'd it (bluffing the Junebug as the Vault, I supppose) and flatlined them on the next turn. It was the highlight of the tournament for me.

The deck is very weak to Mad Dash, which I think accounted for 100% of my losses.

If you're a newer player looking at past decklists while you consider joining the current SOCR tournament (like I was a few months ago), I can't recommend it highly enough.

3 comments
26 Apr 2018 BlackCherries

"with very little tag punishment in the format, most runners can safely take the tags."

Which is why my Azmari CR ran x3 Self-Growth Program for those foolish enough to take 2 tags from Threat Assessment :)

26 Apr 2018 groenkaaf

Ah, that would have been great, @BlackCherries. Where were you when I was tinkering before the semis?

26 Apr 2018 dbAdmin

Bio Vault breathes new life into the Junebug bluff! Yes!