Introduction and Thanks

Before I get into my deck description I just want to say thank you to everyone involved in the Stimhack Online Cache Refresh (SOCR) community. Particularly to FightingWalloon for running this fantastic event & Sanjay for taking over the next round. I highly recommend this event for everyone as it is a fantastic format for both newer people to learn in and for experienced players to show their skills. There will be a new league starting up soon and while the information is not up yet I'll leave a link to the previous league announcement which has lots of information about the format and tournament. If you want to keep up to date just keep an eye out for announcements or consider hanging out on slack with us all. I have encountered only friends and had only excellent and fun games throughout this entire experience. Don't be intimidated by slack or the tournament - just reach out, engage, and you'll have a blast.

SOCR7 Planning

Coming into SOCR7 I knew 3 things:

1. Surveyor was busted & Mti makes it super-busted

2. Nisei MK II is a really good card

3. Punitive makes stealing big agendas really tough against a deck that can tax Econ

Mti is obviously a very strong and established ID at this point and as a result this deck was easier to build since it was quite close to existing lists. While you aren't able to play the ideal ice or agenda suite, your cards all still work fantastically towards the same goal. Perhaps it was this strength that caused me to be lazier with this deck and not put as much effort into customizing it for each runner. (Although earlier versions found room for a Tollbooth)

Playing the Deck

The main thing you want to do is protect yourself. Get some defenses and a remote setup and then score your Nisei First. In an Ideal world you can force your opponent to keep running the remote and build most of it for you, every Mti trigger you get there is a huge amount of econ from your ID ability.

Surveyor is one of your most taxing ice against most decks, In general it should be saved for the remote but it can be put on an important central if you are planning on committing 3 ice to that server over the course of the game

Rototurret is a nasty surprise, when you can catch someone with it it can game ending.

Bio Vault is fantastic and it's only limitation is that it requires a slightly taxing remote to be setup before you can start using it.

Neurostasis and Project Junebug are both very nasty suprises. These cards are both flexible and may be better as Fast Track or extra defensive upgrades. However with biovault and 5/3s you have a pretty strong IAA game already and this gives you one more surprise.

Notes and Lessons

As I mentioned in my runner list I had initially underestimated the power of Wall of Static. By the time I had realized how strong it was I had assumed my opponents had found good answers as well though. I think I still may have benefited from it over Guard though. I feel like I still had a lot to learn from this deck and I think the lack of engagement with it really made it less fun for me to corp this league. In the future I think I need to continue to improve the deck even when it feels "strong enough".

Punitive Counterstrike is a very frustrating win condition with only 2. It very rarely came up when it mattered and when it did it often just meant that I was 100% safe to score in a remote that was already ready to score. I'd probably take it out from the beginning if I could start over

Braintrust is much better than I expected. It is tricky to build a great agenda suite with the restrictions but having a second 3/2 for NA plays is huge and I wish I realized it sooner.

Anansi is a really good card but you need to be really careful when using it. The hit to your econ can often be devastating particularly if your opponent can either trash it or de-rez it later.

Other Cards Of Note

Melange Mining Corp. is fantastic and more or less forces the runner to run your remote. With your ID ability able to continue playing ice during the runners turn the loss of clicks hurts a lot less than in other IDs as well

Bacterial Programming featured heavily in my early builds of this deck but I removed it after I was finding that it didn't help enough with the punitive defense to really be worth it. I still want to play more with the idea of Bacterial and Punitive though to see what the strength really is.

Final Thoughts

Overall this was a strong deck that I wish I had done more with. While there was a lot of raw power it never really felt fun except when I was trying something wild with a trap. Perhaps it was due to the easy power on the corp side but I never felt motivated to tune this list as much as I should have.

By now I expect most people know their opinion of Mti and I don't think this deck will be of too much interest other than to show off what a reasonably strong corp looked like this league.

...

However, The story doesn't end here. While I played this list more or less through the whole tournament I knew it wouldn't stand a chance in the finals. I needed to dig deep and find a way to deal with ReproRogue's fantastic Apoc Steve list. To Be Continued ...