Cards that should be in every Smoke deck:
Ghost Runner
Cloak
Self-Modifying Code
Diesel
Sure Gamble
Dagger/Refractor/Blackstone (maybe drop blackstone for a non-stealth corroder)
Other than that, I think there’s very few slots pinned down. I really don’t like Mirror, it’s a bad desperado that only gives you a credit some if the time when you run on R&D. Run Maya if you want the memory or run astrolabe and only install 2 cloaks in your final rig. I have a simular negitive opinion about profession contacts, in order for it to give you enough money, you need to devote enough slots to money cards and slots are at a premium in a 40 card stealth deck.
I’d run PPVP stealth since we don’t have to import any influence for breakers now. That lets us run the full 3 lucky find/Deuces Wild which should be insane in a 40 card deck.
Program (5)
2x Cloak(Creation and Control)
3x Self-modifying Code(Creation and Control)
12 influence spent (max 15-3☆=12, available 0)
40 cards (min 40)
Cards up to 23 Seconds
I tried the PPVP Stealth deck out of Kate and I didn’t have enough inf for all that good money when I also needed Clot and Clone Chips to not insta-lose to Sync or HB Fast Advance. Data Raven also gave me fits.
I think going with a more traditional econ package is advisable. Probably Kati Jones, maybe even Temujin Contract (cheap stealth runs mean profit even on iced servers!).
I’d also like to see Net-Ready Eyes in there to make Blackstone a beast vs. Eli and shore up Refractor against Magnet and Archangel as well as Dagger against Gutenburg and Archer (and Komainu).
That inf could also maybe be spent on a Parasite to target otherwise annoying ICE to the stealth suite (like Tour Guide and Komainu).
I am 100% on board with using Astrolabe. Maybe 1-2x Astrolabe 1x Akamatsu if you need room for other programs.
I also agree with dropping Dai V. I think that’s a trap and a terrible breaker.
This deck feels…old school, for lack of a better term. I think it uses too many card slots on beating ice, and not enough on beating fast advance and horizontal spam decks.
While Dai V might still be a trap, but I really want an out to tourguide, also might not be bad in forcing them to double ice centrals earlier than they really want to. With all of the major power being in programs and hardware running tagme might be a very good option against decks that are not packing real punishment.
Blackstone seems bad to me. Why pay 4c for a fracter that isn’t Lady? She is worth the influence. Save your stealth credits for Switchblade and don’t play Blackstone. That’s my two cents
I think you can probably get away without clot for FA now. I’ve not been impressed by the strength of HBFA and importing clot means giving up 4 influence for the clot and at least 2 clone chips. The clone chips are dead cards too against everyone else with the exception of batty.
If you were planning on not going PPVP, I’d probably try something like Kati/Baby/Temujin Contracts/Daily Casts for econ. Temujin Contracts is better than you think in stealth as it’s hard to efficiently tax out the runner and it’s probably your best use of influence if you’re needing economy. Dropping PPVP would free up influnce for Paperclip as well which is a better breaker than Blackstone.
Believe me, I tried , it just did not work out that way. EoI Sync with Quantum Predictive Model was painful, in particular. Lots of setup required to get around things like Data Raven out of that. Data Raven is another reason why I think trying to slot a Parasite into the deck is a solid choice since it can also slow those decks down if they have to purge to keep their ice.
On Paperclip: I think Paperclip is quite good, but if you’re playing Smoke then I feel like Blackstone is really close to that cost-efficiency on stacked barriers (especially if you have a NRE going) and is well worth saving the 3inf even for those few cases where it’s somewhat more expensive. If you consider the credit built into Smoke as a dedicated credit toward Blackstone, then it is only 1 real credit more than Paperclip on a single Eli, and breaks even on two Eli! NRE makes it stupid-efficient on both, hence why I keep pushing it like a used car salesman
Because it’s no influence and can’t be taxed out by multiple barriers or barriers with more than 2 subroutines? If you are relying on Lady then you also have to have a way to refresh the tokens, which requires even more deckslots dedicated to cards that you might not otherwise want.
I hear you about EoI Sync, I don’t think that’s a good matchup for stealth or shaper in general. I’ve experimented with running NACH and film critic to try to improve that matchup but I think it’s not an easy deck to tech against. When I did run parasite in shaper, I found it was painful to use without datasucker and we don’t have the memory for both datasucker and cloak.
Swapping Kate for Smoke should be a pretty close in economic benefit, and one recurring stealth is good enough to power Dagger over any of the current killers. Maybe it might be worthwhile to run a couple of cloaks for deep servers in the lategame.
Then you get a solid killer for the earlygame that has very good cost ratio for ichi/assassin without having to worry about overtaxing your stealthcredits.
Something like this is what I’m thinking. Parasite is used for annoying low-strength ice, reducing strength on off-strength ice for the stealth breakers, and for delaying Corp play by forcing purges. It’s completely disposable and should function just fine without Datasucker.
Here’s my first attempt at a Smoke build. I think going all in on stealth is a deck building mistake. Cycy vs Refractor hasn’t really been discussed before, but I think it might be something worth looking into (I think cycy is better)
After thinking about it for a bit, I think the best use of Smoke’s recurring credit is to enable play of Dagger (as others have already stated in this thread) which is arguably shaper’s best in-faction Killer but the stealth support needed is generally a big downside in deckbuilding and rig setup speed. Smoke allows you to start the game with the stealth credit support needed to run Dagger and you can break almost all of the currently played Sentries in the meta.
I really like this approach and outside-the-box thinking. I think I’d throw in some more scavenge if you’re using both Lady and CyCy. I think one Chang is ok. I’d be worried about the long-term economy, too. Throwing in a Kati Jones that slot might not be the worst idea.
It seems like since you’re still running Ghost Runner then you’re really only saving 3 card slots on including Cloak. It may be worth seriously evaluating if you are actually getting the value out of those 3 card slots before completely dismissing the stealth breaker suite.
Yeah, I could see -1 Beth, +1 Kati in my list. Once you get set up with a few counters on Medium, spending extra clicks loading up a Kati seems good so you don’t burn out on econ too quickly. There is a Levy (mostly for not burning out to the net-ping matchup) which can give you a 2nd pass on the Temujin Contracts. That card is broken. I think it’s almost a 3x in all shaper and Criminal decks card right now.
Program (6)
3x Cloak(Creation and Control)
3x Self-modifying Code(Creation and Control)
12 influence spent (max 15-3☆=12, available 0)
40 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Blood Money
Kati and PolOp might be considerations that I’m missing here. But I think Smoke can force people to commit really hard to R&D, which makes for weak scoring servers that get shredded by stealth.
I don’t think that PPVP is the way to go, I agree that it’s better in Kate. Here’s something a little different, what about Career Fair with Daily Casts and Earthrise for Draw? Also, I’m just interested in Algo Trading but that can be a flex spot if you want Beth or something else. I like Medium because occasionally it’ll get the corp to purge.
I think if you’re going all-in with Career Fair, then Patron combos much better with Temujin Contract than Earthrise Hotel. May be questionable, considering the limited availability of stealth credits per-turn, but definitely worth trying out.
3 Prepaids and no Maker’s Eye? I don’t know if Prepaid is worth the influence spend, especially without a large enough number of high-impact events. Prepaid really shines in Kate because of the install discount where outside of Kate it can be good but it almost never seems great. You could for instance, drop the 3 Prepaids for a 3rd Deuces Wild and a Legwork or 3rd Temujin Contract giving you an extra card slot, probably a 3rd R&D Interface.
, it just did not work out that way. EoI Sync with Quantum Predictive Model was painful, in particular. Lots of setup required to get around things like Data Raven out of that. Data Raven is another reason why I think trying to slot a Parasite into the deck is a solid choice since it can also slow those decks down if they have to purge to keep their ice.
