I think there are a few decent options:
(1) Torch/Femme/Ret Run. You can potentially swing this by cutting Zu and Lucky Find. You could also think about Morning Star at that point. Trouble is, with Torch at 4 influence, youāre going to have to cut a Clone Chip or Legwork if you want both Torch and Femme. I think there is maybe a meta where this makes sense, but itās hard to make room without cutting key cards. Perhaps in a meta without NEH, cutting legwork, zu, and lucky, (and maybe some breakers) for 1 Femme 1 Torch 1 Morning Star and maybe a Shard is a good deal.
(2) Spooned x1. As a same old target, this isnāt an awful option, and cutting a Knife for it is pretty easy. Anywhere but R&D Lotus isnāt a big issue, so just killing one when it shows up isnāt bad.
(3) Knight. I like this option least because it will fail miserably against Blue Sun, forcing you to play Zu or something anyway most likely. It is, however, a pretty flexible card that helps a lot against people who might try to rush against you. Memory is probably the biggest issue with Knight, as installing an extra piece without Grimoire is often impossible.
(4) Atman. Great once itās in play but 3 influence is kind of miserable and the install cost makes it just as inefficient as Zu a lot of the time and you run into the same MU issues as Knight. I think this is kind of a shitty option unless people are playing lots of 4 str ICE in the same deck as Lotus, which really only comes up out of HB. Knifed does such a good job of killing Eli that itās impact is much lower than if you pulled the same stunt out of shaper.
(5) Net Ready Eyes, which is a decent card generally, can take the place of the Zu and the Lucky. Itās not out yet though. This has the big benefits of saving money regardless of the matchup, synergizing with IHW, and making code gates largely irrelevent because of Yog breaking for free. The big disadvantage is it canāt be tutored.
(6) Just keep things the way they are. You can break Lotus Field on R&D, and a taxing R&D in general, by just stockpiling tons of cash. The trick is to be able to get as many medium runs in as you can in as short a time period as possible. This stretches the corpās ability to clear viruses off medium before giving up lots of multi access and is a sound strategy in pretty much any case where youāre not at imminent risk of losing the game.
