I have seen quite a few lists that run Deuces and Desperado. Aumakua gets a benefit from both a run based economy and Deuces Wild/Datasucker. Either support is awesome.
It probably doesn’t slot terribly well into Dagger/Corroder/Refractor builds as usually those are 1 stealth and 1 to break stuff. Although, Aumakua does help corroder/dagger out against barriers once it gets going.
It might be a bit better in a Houdini/Blackstone/Dagger builds as those are efficient against higher strength stuff, stacked stuff and pretty good against lower strength stuff, but they can struggle with the in between numbers, which DaiV isn’t as good at doing repeatedly.
Aumakua is great against strength 0-1. If your foe is on asset spam, it also charges itself while you are farming temu/desperado credits on open servers.
You mean specifically how will she beat 24/7 boom?
Shapers really only card to help them fight 24/7 boom without buying Aaron, they can slot the hop. Hopper gets you link and lets you eat a single boom without dying so long as you end on four cards. Daredevil kind of lets you do that easier, as does Astrolabe.
Misdirection might also be a good call.
But if asset spam is the deck to beat (which I think it will be), it is probably the case that Smoke is just going to be a poor meta call.
I think shapers are going to be in a rough spot to fight both asset spam and yellow in general post rotation. Smoke’s biggest strengths are her ability to reduce the tax to break ice, she can reliably run net mercur, can clot lock and she has a smaller deck size. But for all of her strengths, she is a poor ID against asset spam in most of the builds I have seen thus far.
Here is hoping we get an MWL that is kind and spoilers for cycle 8 soonish and it has some juicy shaper cards.
If you have the influence for clot lock and Aumakua with no spare for Aaron then you’re probably not running Desperado, and I think that’s one of the main reasons why you might not find her adequate vs. asset spam. That said, Desperado makes her just adequate vs. Asset Spam and I think that plainly reveals her ID’s position at tier 1.5-2.0. That said, many other shaper derkcs are screwed vs. 24/7 boom so I’m hoping the Core 2.0 = Some Core 1.0 + Replacements by What Lies Ahead & Future Proof Cycle cards rumor is true, and NACH makes the cut.
Yes, I see that Smoke has real challenges vs. asset spam. Her rig requires credits and clicks to get set up and she has no good way to fight assets. These are bad news vs. Moon spam. I have found that the new breed of really taxing multi-sub code gates also cause her lots of problems even vs. more traditional glacier-style builds.
I fully admit I’m experimenting right now because Whizzard and Andy are going away, and I am trying to figure out something else that feels strong. Shaper probably is the wrong way to go, but I’m here kicking the tires a bit anyway.
Smoke is the anti-Whizzard. Just like the Whizz was terrible in a meta with few assets, Smoke is terrible in a meta with minimal ice. Post-rotation, when we’re in asset hell, I don’t expect to see her played very often.
Temujin helps a ton, same with Desperado. In order to start really making money, though, Smoke requires a relatively large setup cost. Once she’s rolling you can get a decent run on the board, but you’re looking at having to install Mercur (3), Desperado (3), Temujin (4), and at least one single-cred-pump breaker (1-6 depending on what’s in your deck and how you get it out). Even then she’s generally only clicking for two credits per click times the number of stealth credits you have, which is kinda just an off-brand and more clunky Magnum Opus (though you do get to run during those times and half of those are stealth credits). It’s theoretically infinite money but you need a good chunk of time just to break even. That ramp-up time can give the Corp the opportunity to set up their board state before you can adequately respond to it and give them enough of a head start, even with the R&D pressure she can put down, and was one of the reasons I was previously experimenting with Peace In Our Time.
She can still do it, if your draws aren’t terrible and you’re a reasonably skillful pilot, but there are other builds in other IDs/factions that can probably do it a touch better.
Smoke is pretty good against Moon right now, in my experience, and it comes down to a few key points:
She’s pretty good at breaking FC3 and Architect.
She can Clot a couple times.
She has Indexing / Dash
That means she can usually punish aggressive corp openings (first ice on remote) with Indexing / Dash or Temujin HQ (both of which are really good against Moon) and passive ones (first ice on centrals) by just sitting back and setting up Clot Lock / Remote Lock.
I don’t see rotation changing this state of affairs a whole ton, except that she’ll have to play Maker’s instead of Indexing (booooo) and Temujin HQ will become generally a lot stronger after Jackson rotates. In general, I think against asset spam Smoke will fight the board as best she can and put Temujin on HQ, and the corp will be hard-pressed to set up any kind of asset-based win condition before just bleeding out to HQ singles.
I just wanted to pop in here and sing the praises of Misdirection. This card is worth its weight in gold in the NBN matchup. Wouldn’t want to leave home without it!
Just like you can make a Whizz deck work in a non-asset matchup, you can make a Smoke deck work in a non-ice heavy matchup, it just means your ID is pretty much blank. There’s busted cards in every faction.
If all you’re doing is breaking vanillas, you’d be better off with almost any other ID (sorry Exile). The cards in your deck are still pretty good though.
i’m not sure I agree: the stealth recurring credit paired with refractor or dagger means that you can efficiently break light-to-medium ICE which Corp can play in the early game, fairchild 3.0 and architect in Moon’s case. This I think is also what @higgs_bozo explained in his post much better than I originally did.
I like Misdirection, but it primarily serves to support Shaper against tag-storm decks and HHN. It doesn’t protect you against Boom or Closed Accounts when they use 24/7 + Breaking News.
I am very much keeping my fingers crossed for a new Shaper program in the next cycle that mimics the NACH ability (i.e., paid ability that prevents tags). Even if it was something like “2c: Once per turn, prevent a tag” and/or “Trash: Remove 2 tags.”
smoke should be good. Most people I know had been on temu but not despy, and the deck was solid. Indexing being back is huge for the deck imo. If clone chip comes off mwl (I know not everyone played those) then that’s a little more inf
Temu smoke with inti and Lady will be really good I think. And indexing + mad dash will be almost too easy to land now that jackson is gone and Mooninite as an archetype does not exist anymore