Hey Stimhack community,

I’ve spoken to a lot of beginners who have played the Core Experience format but are then intimidated by the jump in complexity and necessary knowledge of the card pool of Standard. The solution often presented to them is to try alternative formats like SOCR (Cache Refresh with 1 Big Box and the most recent cycle) or Modded (Core + most recent cycle). And while these can be a great step to expanding your card knowledge, it always seems to fall short in the intention of showing new players the excitement of a Standard match.

That’s why I have created a mini-campaign aimed at beginners who are familiar with the System Core 19 card pool. It starts off with a match of Reina Roja vs. NBN: Making News and progresses in 4 steps to the classic Valencia Estevez vs. NBN: Controlling the Message matchup and introduces and discusses the use of new cards step by step.

The final decks are the winning Corporation of Worlds 2018 and an adjusted version of the winning Runner deck of the Taunton Regional 2019.

You can find the decklists below. I’d kindly ask you to give feedback on how the matches felt and if there is anything that can be improved. My plan is to make more of these mini-campaigns once I’ve a good idea for the next pair of decks.

Decklists

Corp 1: Hard-Hitting times

Runner 1: Getting to know the basics

Corp 2: Recursion is everything

Runner 2: I can make news as well

Corp 3: Enter the Bankers!

Runner 3: There has been a t e r r i b l e accident

Corp 4: Final stop: AMERICA CtM

Runner 4: Final stop: FREDPI-ish Val

Overview lists by @presheaf

These great lists show you what cards to put in and out for every game transition:

Corp overview, Runner overview