Smoke and Mirrors -- A Scovak Thread

Decklists
364

I am by no means a good player, and this is probably a ridiculous idea for fighting asset spam, but lately I’ve been running Analog Dreamers and Find the Truth alongside Equivocation. If neither of the top two cards in R&D are agendas, then bounce an unrezzed card back to R&D and trigger a shuffle for some fresh accesses (and raise those bottomed agendas in NBN). If nothing else, it makes opponents stop to read card text, which is always fun.

3 Likes
365

I think Desperado + Aeneas Informant + Net Mercur is a combo worth exploring as a primary economic engine. Smoke does great with run-based economy. 2 Despy + 3 Aeneas would be a substitute for Temujin that would work great in either glacier or asset spam match-ups. Each run could net you up to 4 credits + 1 Net Mercur credit. That’s crazy.

366

I don’t see how this econ engine would work vs. glacier. It only works if you hit a trashable card and don’t trash it. But glacier doesn’t give you easy ways to access trashable cards/ Are you breaking a bunch of ice to access their adonis campaign or sundew to make money? Or are you running HQ or R&D and hoping to hit something with a trash cost? Neither sounds appealing.

367

I’ve found that Desperado + Mercur works just fine as an econ engine against glacier, as they have to put an actually taxing ICE on Archives (Vanillas do literally nothing) or you can farm stealth credits and real credits at the same time. If they put a sentry on Archives, I can still use Switchblade + two recurring stealth credits (Smoke and Cloak, for example) to click for a stealth credit and a real credit once a turn; the same is true of Magnet (with Refractor). Also, stealth credits are worth a lot more against glacier than against asset spam, so even if I only have four real credits, a pile of stealth credits will get me into a LOT of servers.

In my experience, the boost from Aeneas Informant (or Scrubber, which is what I’ve been using) isn’t needed. It’s asset spam where you really need that money, which makes Aeneas Informant fit in really well. That said, the problem with the Mercur + Desperado engine is that it’s expensive to set up, and you need to put a breaker on the table (or use Cold Read) to put the first stealth credit on Net Mercur to get it going. In matches where I get the engine down quickly, it’s very impressive, but you can’t keep up with the assets if you get a slow start. I’m not sure how much Aeneas Informant fixes that.

3 Likes
368

Mercur + Despe + 1x Aenas means you can trash a 5c asset for free in 2 clics. First one you don’t trash, farm 3c, then second, get 2c and trash.

It’s not bad, but not superb compared to the situation with Mercur + Despe (-1c but +1 card and +1 clic. If that card is Sure Gamble, it buys you the advantage for 4x2 clics, and cost no inf).

371

So long as asset spam is the archetype to beat… I think Aeneas will be worth slots.

But then again I cannot remember the last time I played against a deck that either wasn’t on asset spam or glacier with a ton of bullshit assets (Hi Marilyn Campaign!).

So I am fairly confident that you would get regular enough triggers to warrant deck slots. But maybe that is just me being hopeful about some way to combat the Moon madness.

372

Deck architecture should change to both interfaces before they rotate, then. Maybe even all 3 interfaces (I do not know yet if Salsette / Aenas is combo/nombo)

Also, access trap decks will be your predator (unless Vamp / DLR).

And Indexing spam + Interfaces could be super funny there : agenda = steal, else potentially clic for 13c, 3x.

=> assets have to be hided in archives.

373

It’s worded the same as Maw, so the same ruling should apply.

374

There are a few things that make it good:

  1. You don’t HAVE to trash an asset immediately. You can just farm more credits off of it. If you have two Cloaks out, then you can run the same asset three times to net six real credits and three stealth credits, then trash it while losing only a net of three real credits (because you get the stealth credit back), meaning you net three stealth credits and three real credits in a turn. That’s basically like using Super Magnum Opus three times and then trashing a five-cost asset for free.

  2. It stacks. If you have two Aeneas Informants out, you’re doing better than Sure Gamble (because one of the credits is stealth) most times you run an unprotected asset.

  3. The lower the trash cost of the asset, the more powerful it is. A trash cost of two doesn’t even dip into your credit pool when you trash it, and a cost of three is only one credit when you actually trash it. Of course, this is true of Desperado + Mercur as well, but Aeneas lets you farm more credits before you do so. And when I play Desperado Smoke, I’m running to farm credits a LOT, because that’s kind of the reason you play Desperado.

1 Like
375

If you have 2 Aenas, you have to compare with 2 (say) Sure Gamble (or whatever money you cut to put Aenas).

If you compare to SG, you want to compare a situation with +8c playing SG with a situation having +0c after installing both Aenas.

You’ll still end having those +8c by clicking run four time (excluding Mercur / Despe because they are common cards there).

In those 4 clics with SG, you can click credit 4 times that could compensate by click run 2x times more.

During those 2 clics, you could again clic credit, compensated by another 1 clic run Aenas.

Last clicking credit and Aenas would be better there, in that 7th clic.

This if you removed SG to put Aenas, but there could be a better clic/c ratio card there (like Daily Cast).
I’m not saying it is bad, but you need Interfaces there to trigger it on other places than remotes.
Because else you’d be playing Aenas only against horizontal ?

Then Vamp ?

376

So you don’t play against upgrades on centrals?

I don’t think you need interfaces at all. They are nice, but not required.

Heck, I would probably rather run Medium and Mirror than go ham on interfaces, if you insist on that route.

377

Medium in Shaper is quite rare, but in influence this may cost 3-6 +3 from Aenas + some for HQ multiaccess + 3-6 from desperado = not much for your breaker solution = not much for other ace cards.

I like the idea though :slight_smile:

378

Take out the HQ multiaccess and you have a deck. You don’t need the extra support.

Edit Or run Gauntlet if you absolutely need that hand multiaccess. There are a ton of options.

1 Like
379

You need HQ mutliaccess though, or else the deck is a 1-trick poney ?
Also, you don’t want the corp to store assets in hand, eventually discarding them or waiting to get ice to install in remotes : you may have a glacier problem if you just attack R&D.

380

I feel like we are having two different conversations.

Many Shaper decks have no HQ multiaccess.

If your opponent is storing assets in hand great! That means they aren’t in play and increase agenda density in R&D.

I guess it is just difficult to imagine a world where Aeneas is not useful. Against NEH and HB asset spam it’s a game changer.

1 Like
381

If you store assets in hand, that doesn’t change agenda density in R&D.

The thing is with no HQ threat a glacier can ice 4 or 5 times R&D and 4 or 5 times a scoring remote also protecting an asset with an ice. Glacier depends less of assets / upgrade, leaving your deck with a second class of natural enemies (first would be access trap).

This is not really a big news : Legwork is MVP in many glacier games ?

382

Is glacier the archetype to beat right now?

383

In R1, you have lots of odds to fight glacier, it is not that dead ?

Marylin is a card, Sandburg too.

384

So this is a deck that I built to toy around with Aeneas Informant. I have only been able to play a handful of games because Earth’s Scion isn’t fully loaded yet on Jinteki.net and I haven’t picked up the actual cards yet from the store. Wanted to ask the hivemind here for some feedback on how to improve the deck.

Smoke Stealth

Ele “Smoke” Scovak: Cynosure of the Net (Intervention)

Event (16)

Hardware (4)

Resource (10)

Icebreaker (4)

Program (6)

15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)
40 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Earth’s Scion

Thoughts:
My friend was on Palana Grail glacier when I tested this, so it was interesting to see how it fared against that matchup. The idea is to score out using Indexing + Mad Dash for a chunk of your points, going for the blitz win with ~3 steals rather than true R&D multi-access. Smoke gives a smaller deck to find the pieces for the engine more consistently, the stealth rig lends itself some strength to the glacier matchup, and Net Mercur + Desperado + Aeneas Informant x3 nets you a whopping 4 credits + 1 credit/draw per click if they have even a single asset outside of a scoring remote. The original draft had +1 Sacrificial Construct, -1 Kati Jones.

My problem was that my friend helped review the deck before we played, so he definitely did not run any assets outside of his remote server. I was able to run on limited credits for a long time, due to the power of Desperado + Net Mercur and recurring stealth credits, but 2 of my Informants were in my last 5 cards so that really hurt.

Not sure how I feel about Patron in this deck. I rarely draw more than 2 cards per turn under normal circumstances, so having Patron to condense those clicks always feels powerful to me, and it stacks with Dirty Laundry and Desperado – but not with Aeneas.

Kati Jones seems like the ideal economy support card for glacier matchups, but I haven’t been able to test yet if 1 is enough to reliably serve this purpose. Sacrificial Construct felt great against his rigshooter Batty defense tactics, and is mostly there to help against Skorpios.

Inti + Dedicated Processor didn’t feel as cheap as I would like because both DPs were deep in the deck, and breaking any barrier higher than strength 2-3 without the Dedicated Processor feels really bad. I might switch back to Blackstone with NRE or The Personal Touch (not sure about which I like more).

Not sure how I feel about Dai V. I obviously need to just test the deck more to see how it fares. Mostly here so I don’t have to concede if someone trashes a program.

Any ideas or recommendations on how to tweak this deck to make the economy engine work well, especially against glacier?

385

Dai V is also needed for CI matchup where otherwise they can try to lock you out using Mother Goddess + Excalibur.