Temüjin Smoke - Meta Call - MWL 3

Ark1t3kt 306

Intro:

I have had great success with a similar Smoke deck before the recent MWL, but I believe that that was mostly due to being used to piloting the deck. Now, however, I would argue that Smoke (and this deck in particular) is one of the most well-positioned runners to combat the new meta after the third MWL.

Predictions:

With huge hits to Anarch and NBN once again, and especially the effective ban on Rumor Mill, I would predict that the meta will become very glacier dominated once again. The primary IDs that I can envision enjoying some significant play would be ETF and Palana. I therefore believe that stealth shaper is the best way to go. Notably, prepaid Kate is back from the dead, and it probably has a better glacier matchup then Smoke. However, I believe that Smoke's Temüjin and Indexing engine makes it much faster than prepaid Kate, and thus I think it is far more well-rounded. In other words, Smoke is to prepaid Kate what Palana is to RP.

How I Modified This List For The MWL:

Effectively, I had to cut three influence because I honestly don't believe two Temüjin is even an option. I did this by converting Switchblade to Dagger and Scrubber to Paricia. Dagger is plainly worse than Switchblade in this new meta, and therefore you may prefer to cut the Career Fairs. Personally, I love Career Fair's ability to bring you out of poverty by installing a Temüjin on the cheap, or some such. The fact that Paricia takes up an MU honestly isn't that bad since in asset-spam matchups you probably won't be needing the second Cloak anyway.

How I Teched For The New Meta:

I expect to be seeing plenty of defensive upgrades, and therefore I've included the next best way to deal with them: Pol Op. This guy works great in tandem with Interdiction since that way you can nail both Caprice and Batty at the same time. You might also catch someone playing liberally with Jackson cause they know Rumor Mill's gone. Finally, playing Interdiction before Indexing is optimal to secure the threat of a face-down Jackson.

Final Thoughts:

All in all, I believe that this deck is probably pretty close to as good as this archetype gets, and has a solid game against the corps I expect to see out in the wild in the near future. I would encourage you to give this deck a try, and any comments/questions/criticism are welcome.

2 comments
15 Apr 2017 Cyberzack

I like what you've got here. Seems like a decent middle ground that can still tread water against asset spam. I'm playing something similar which is performing alright so far. Whats your thoughts about -1 Corroder -1 Daily Casts -1 Earthrise Hotel ...... +1 blackstone +1 Net-Ready Eyes +1 Clot ? My smoke can still get run down by f.a. without clot

16 Apr 2017 Ark1t3kt

@Cyberzack Thanks for your interest, I'm honestly not too keen on clot. I feel like with indexing you can get a hard lock on R&D after a certain point, and FA doesn't really become an issue. However, if you're meta is heavy FA, then it's probably a good idea.

Note - I have since traded Dagger back for Switchblade again, dropped the two Career Fairs, and added a Same Old Thing and second Mad Dash.