SOCR 11: My First Combo Starter Pack

As a pretty new player to competitive NetRunner (less than six months of very infrequent play), this was the first Corp deck that really made me enjoy playing the side. Up until now I'd mostly been trying to play glacier corps, and either getting despondent when the ICE carvers took them apart, or panicking when I got a hand full of agenda and nowhere to put them. DanB suggested Sports as a fun ID to try and I gave it a spin here.

It's based on the 3rd place World's deck, but due to me being a newbie, and the restrictions of the SOCR format (Kitara, System Core, Ashes, and one big box only), I had to tone down the megacombo somewhat. Since Sports is in Reign & Reverie, that obviously had to be my choice of deluxe, which meant I still got Game Changer, Fast Break and Arella Salvatore, but no Team Sponsorship or Breaker Bay Grid.

As such, when I did manage a combo, it had to be done through brute clicks rather than Calibration Testing/Team Spo shenanigans, but the essential play of the deck isn't too dissimilar to the "real" version - if the runner is aggressive, I let them take as many 1 point agendas as I could risk (trying save those other two Megaprix if I could), then using Game Changer/Fast Break to set myself up with enough cards and clicks to score big. If they sat back, I'd try to score some of those 1 pointers myself, out of hand, which would usually induce them to start pushing.

Overall I went 2-3 with the deck, so not astoundingly good, but it was immensely enjoyable to play a Corp where losing agendas was not particularly a detriment, but something that could be actively sought after. It helped relax me when playing, which is something I still struggle with, even online.

Thanks to Sanjay for organising the tournament, and looking forward to the next one!