Azmari Rush (2nd at SOCR 5)

CritHitd20 6529

I will preface that this is not what I played in Swiss at all; for Swiss I played a variant of Wishbone, which I was very familiar with and plays fairly well in this format. That went 4-1, and this went 4-1 in the cut. I swapped when I got sick of having to play against Magnum Opus decks in every round; Wishbone relies on a mix of rush and SEA Exchange to beat a fully set-up Magnum Opus deck, and there was no suitable replacement play in Cache Refresh. I tried assembling turns where you went SEA Self-Growth Closed Accounts and it was fine but too much work to justify continuing, so I moved into a variant on TBB's rush list. Read his description on how to play it and you'll have a good idea of how this works.

Azmari is in my opinion the best corp ID for Cache Refresh; you have incredible economy, amazing ICE, and a phenomenal agenda suite that doesn't fold to the expose/Mad Dash plan. In particular Project Beale is such a powerful card that I would consider NBN just for the ability to rush an overadvanced one against the durdly Magnum Opus decks that plague the format. A lot of what you have to forfeit from the normal list aren't a huge deal here; Jua is actually great as an ICE to protect Amani Senai, and runners are slow enough that you don't get totally screwed by losing the Jeeves/CST interactions. It's not as good, but this is the strongest Azmari strategy that I can think of when compared to 6 agenda + Echo Chamber or Wishbone.

The only bad card in this list is Paper Trail, which is still fine as there are some powerful connections, especially Professional Contacts. There is no upcoming agenda strong enough to replace it, and I wouldn't swap to Quantum + Ravens. No suggestion on what to use with your last influence either, I was happy with this list as is and didn't feel the need for any tech cards.

If you've never played Azmari, for Cache Refresh name event every turn unless you are trying to score/bluff with NGO and your opponent doesn't have a full rig, which is when you name program. This plan will work against any deck that you don't understand the workings of just fine, and will potentially open scoring windows for you during the early game.

3 comments
3 May 2018 osclate

I was impressed with how strong this deck was in the CR format. Definitely going to try out TBB's list after facing this in our match last night. Thank you again for some great games!

3 May 2018 BlackCherries

"There is no upcoming agenda strong enough to replace it"

eyes Better Citizen Program

3 May 2018 CritHitd20

I personally would not swap Paper Trail with Better Citizen Program. You have no tag punishment and runners on Magnum Opus don't care about the tags particularly much. Having said that I've been wrong about plenty of stuff in the past so if BCP works let me know.