Pre-Parhelion StealthPunk (1st @ TriCity Store Championship)

Smoke has recently enjoyed quite a decent performance in a number of competitive events. The 42-card “Freelance” list initially introduced by mao has become something of a default version for those who decided to bring some stealth to their tables.

And while that deck is really solid, I still prefer to stick to an orthodox 40-card list. It does not run any Daily Casts or Telework Contracts, as I find both of them too slow against purple and green, and too vulnerable against yellow – especially that we need quite a few resources on our board anyway. Hence, as has always been the case for the StealthPunk archetype, our economy is purely event-based. A new addition here is Rigging Up, that speeds up our setup process, has a beautiful synergy with Aniccam, and also helps us get our programs back if for some reason they return to our grip.

The popularity of PE keeps assuring me that increasing the quality of our accesses with Find the Truth is a correct choice, even if it means losing their quantity that The Twinning might have ensured. Buffer Drive is another tool that helps in jinteki matchups, even if we draw into it late into the game.

The inclusion of this card also has an interesting side effect – we can run just single copies of each of Deep Dive, Pinhole Threading and Mad Dash, with the assumption that Buffer Drive can act as a pseudo-Same Old Thing to help us recur any of these events if we ever need another copy. Stoneship Chart Room and No Free Lunch are just a soft tech against Drago/Boom! respectively, but we are relying on the core efficiency of the deck more than silver bullets this time. The same philosophy stands behind the lack of Clot.

The list went undefeated in the TriCity Store Championship this weekend and I consider it the pinnacle of my Smoke deckbuilding in the current cardpool.

Come Parhelion, we might expect many changes, but rest assured that you are going to see a Parhelion StealthPunk list once we have the entire pool available. Now that Smoke’s days in Standard are numbered, let’s just make sure that we enjoy each of them to the fullest.