Flashpoint Cycle!

Oh wow, I wasn’t paying attention. I figured this powerful ability and a slim deck warranted 12 influence.

This ID is pretty bonkers for RealNetrunnerTM. I’m gonna be incensed if Khan receives weak support, given her niche ability and 12 influence. Golden is not a reason to play Khan; the card shouldn’t even be considered support for Khan, as far as I’m concerned.

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Smoke has plenty of influence for rumor mill too. I can’t see how that won’t be at least one of the best decks in the near future. Escher, rumors, and stealth is just going to be obscenely hard to defend against. If anything, she may suffer for deck space to defend against FA.

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Yep, I just threw together a list and was like, hey, I can fit a Rumor Mill in here. Seems strong :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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No, Brahman goes to the top of the Stack. I have a deck that uses him and Oracle May.

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I meant stack. Bit of a brainfart there

At first I thought “Wow Smoke is cool, not too bonkers a power, not gimmicky, doesn’t railroad you into certain card-combo selection or require heavy support and actually encourages Real Netrunner - awesome!”

Then people started talking about all the stealth auto-includes and stuff and I realise I’d missed something, so I went back to check she had the ‘stealth’ sub-type, which of course I’d just missed at first. After finding that out I know feels that she’s…powerful, yeah (even more so), but she’s just another ID that you go for specific builds for with. Sure you can create relatively varied stealth decks (until we optimize…), but basically if you’re not going stealth with her then what are you doing?

i feel like quite a lot of IDs fall into this style and it’s something that’s kinda got me disappointed at the moment. Of course it’s all about leveraging the ID’s ability to the max, but it seems to me like certain ID’s paint themselves into a corner where as others are really open.

Anyone else getting that vibe? Or is everyone just jazzed at how cool she is? (and she is cool, for sure)

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I think a good balance of utility IDs (Kate, Gabe, MaxX) and niche IDs (Smoke, Ken, Noise) are good for the game. This cycle so far seems to largely favor the latter. Damon as a designer may very well strongly favor the latter, in fact. Only time will tell.

I’m not sure Smoke is that painted into a corner anyway. One recurring cred for icebreakers is a decent ability, stealth or no.

I wonder if she might actually turn out to be best with just one stealth breaker in an otherwise fairly normal shaper rig. Being able to get the stealth efficiency without all those deckslots spent on support seems good.

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Rumor Mill is very likely the most MWL-worthy card we’ve seen so far, but Damon did specifically state that the card was designed to work with Null

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Yeah, you’ve probably got a point there - Refractor will be a decent shout regardless of what else you put in there. Dunno, she’ll still be cool, it’s just something I thought I’d bring up.

I wonder how rough it’ll be given that there’s an AI stealth breaker now? It could be really brutal given that one of the 2 required to break is kinda covered by default. Also, will/do we ever see any non-Shaper stealth decks? Stealth has been a bit weird from the beginning really.

Did he actually specifically say that Rumor Mill was the super powerful card to go with Null? I recall him just mentioning a card but nothing by name. I’m also not sure that Rumor Mill is THAT much better in Null than in any other deck.

that’s my point. Rumor Mill is likely not the card he was talking about

Why is Smoke tagged Stealth? Isn’t she the most notorious runner and largest celebrity runner? So how is she stealthy? :slight_smile:

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When you’re that famous you have to be careful when you run…

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I think in the lore she is “untouchable” as a runner due to her stealth rig. People know she is a runner because of her daily casts, but she leaves behind no trace of her presence on networks.

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Think of her as a famous magician. She excels at slight of hand and subterfuge, stealth, while still being exceedingly famous

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You can still play her any way you thought of before you discovered the Stealth thing. You can play any CT deck with her that does not rely on the +1 MU, or put in something to get that MU (Mirror seems the obvious choice, as it also improves her ability). People played CT for just being a 40/15 ID, and Smoke is that plus an ability that’s probably useful every single match you play, stealth or not.

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I like the idea of playing her as reg ass shaper with Dagger (and maybe a single cloak), as talked about in the smoke thread.

But why pay for all those subroutines when you can play Switchblade ? :slight_smile:

There’s also like zero opportunity cost for playing Refractor. It installs for cheap to cover aggro code gates and breaks the big ones with hyper efficiency

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Switchblade is hardly a no brainer. Twice the number of stealth credits and an influence cost. You can install and use Dagger naked with Smoke, not so for Switchblade.

You could go refractor (or the new fracter) over Dagger, but Smoke alone can barely support one stealth breaker. Shaper has good access to fracters and decoders, but not killers.

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