Smoke on Strike - (4th Reading SC)

Quarg 273

This deck brought me to 4th place at the Reading store championship, with a total of 5 wins and 2 losses, alongside my Blue Sun deck.

Though a decent list, I expect if you know how to play a good whizzard list properly, you are better off with that.

Build Notes

Not much in here should be a surprise for a Temujin Smoke deck, but there are a few points to make here:

  • Corroder - Though Paperclip would definitely be better, I didn't really want to pay the influence for it, and though Blackstone is passable, it really wants datasucker support to deal with Eli 1.0, which starts eating deck slots.

  • Dagger - Sure, Switchblade is great and all, but breaking sentries super efficiently was not a priority worth spending influence on. That and Fawkes both isn't out yet, and is completely garbage in comparison to Dagger.

  • Refractor - I don't know why so many people seem to think that Houdini is that much better, as it only really against DNA Tracker, Archangel, and stacked Fairchild 3.0, and even then, the difference between 1 stealth credit, and 1 real credit is pretty small anyway.

  • Cloak - Some players were surprised when I explained that I only ran one cloak, but with Net Mercur, you rarely run out of stealth credits anyway, and I had plenty of economy cards I'd rather have first. Having at least one cloak is still very much useful against things like ETF though.

  • Net Mercur - This is such a good card that I run 3 of them, and Career Fair to get it on the table faster.

  • Indexing - Originally in testing I was running R&D Interface, but their install costs always put me off. Changing to Indexing was definitely the right call, as it provides a way to get a safe win, even through a taxing R&D.

  • Levy AR Lab Access - Basically only in here as tech against potato cannons, but I didn't need to use my potato masher all day.

  • Same Old Thing - I originally put this in here to go with the Levy, but it turns out that recurring an Indexing or an Employee Strike can win you the game.

  • Employee Strike - It turns out a lot of people are playing extremely strong corp identities, such as CTM, IG, ETF, and Palana, and if you turn them off, they start to have a few problems.

  • Astrolabe - Honestly, this deck really doesn't need a console, but does want draw, this really should have been something else, perhaps Quality Time, or Patron.

  • No Plascrete Carapace - A lot of people called me "brave" for not running some kind of meat damage protection... and I probably should have had something, but so long as you keep pace with their economy, you shouldn't have too much to worry about.

Swiss

  • Argus - Win - I ended up letting them get an Atlas and a Cleaners because of the kill threat, but careful play, Employee Strike and Indexing got me a fairly easy win.

  • Argus - Win - Similar story to the previous game, though I did have 1 turn in which I did end with a tag and only 1 card in hand (can't remember why) but luckily they didn't draw a scorch, so I only lost a Net Mercur, which was an easy recovery into another Indexing win.

  • CTM - Loss - Though there were a few shaky moments, I had the game largely under control thanks to Temujin and Net Mercur, though they did manage to pull off an exchange using an Astro Counter, putting them at 6 and me at 5, I then pulled off an Indexing, and forgot I now needed more than a Breaking News for the win, letting a Gutenburg fire, giving them an exchange for the win.

  • Palana - Win - They had money issues the whole game, having not drawn into many of their economy operations, and with Employee Strike stopping the flow of Palana credits and keeping Scarcity off the table, a successful Psi game due to the corp being poor, and a good Indexing got me the win.

  • CI-7 - Win - Employee Strike was the only thing that won me this game, as they fairly quickly got Mother Goddess on R&D, and Excalibur on HQ, leaving me checking Archives, running HQ, and drawing to find the next Strike each turn, which made them play blind Accelerated Diagnostics twice to try to find a current, but the strike refused to end, stopping them from getting what they needed to combo out. I don't know whether the non-existent clot threat helped me, but I would not be surprised if it did.

The Cut

  • CTM - Win - I managed to keep Sensies under control, and steal a couple agendas off the table and from HQ, but a San-San let them get to 6 points with an Astro Counter, at which point I Indexing'd to get 2 agendas for the win, as it turned out R&D was only protected by 2 Archangels, which I could happily let fire on the winning run.

  • CTM - Loss - Fairly early I made a mistake, forgetting that they could decline to pay the trace, stopping me from dodging having to trash a Virtual Tour, which though I recovered from, I later fell for the bait, and run a 2 ice server hoping to stop a Breaking News play, only to be rewarded with another Virtual Tour, at which point everything spiraled out of control, putting me into the losers bracket.

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