Devochka - Russian Nationals Winner

igrekk 1007

Deck name

Means “girl” in Russian.

Gameplan

Run, Run, Run! Spend a couple of turns setting up your board and commit hard to pressuring on centrals while keeping eye on the scoring remote. By turn 5 you should be running and forcing ICE rez. By turn 10 assemble R&D/HQ lock. The majority of games end by turn 15. With this deck you’re advancing the game state with every run, even when not stealing agendas (by charging Turning Wheel and Net Mercur, and forcing discards with Maw). There is no recursion like Same Old Thing, Levy AR Lab Access or Test Run. Burn bright and win fast or fall to ashes.

Tournament record

3-2. Both losses are to flatline decks (Argus and IG). Had zero practice with this type of matchup, so I think the deck could perform better.

Notable card choices

  • Diesel gives you flames!

  • Sure Gamble / Dirty Laundry / Peace in Our Time standard burst econ suite. Sometimes it is difficult to find a window to play PiOT due to the opponent scoring rapidly, but that means you’re doing it wrong. You may swap it with 1-2 Day Job.

  • The Maker's Eye is the most reliable multiaccess choice. Good synergy with The Turning Wheel, Equivocation and Maw. Closest option here is Indexing (especially with Mad Dash) but everyone is aware of it and packing Excalibur / Miraju / EBC.

  • Maw does things and win games on its own. Jokes aside i think it's the best console right now. Almost like Utopia Shard, but works every turn (because you have tobe running a lot while playing Smoke).

  • Dagger good killer, a bit worse than Switchblade. This downside is compensated with Dai V.

  • Dai V your plan B in case of fuckup (like losing one of your breakers). Also your answer to Ashigaru, Tour Guide and "Kings Arthur Express" (Excalibur in Aginfusion).

  • Refractor ideal decoder, while Houdini is a trap costing you 1 more almost every run.

  • Paperclip. Well, Blackstone is also a trap. Saved influence for economy cards will be wasted on facing uncomfortable barriers. Also Paperclip is so damn efficient so it is a crime not to play it.

  • Cloak single copy is pretty much enough.

  • Tapwrm most debatable slot in the deck. Nearest choices are Day Jobs and Multithreaders. While it synergizes well with SacCon spam it needs to net you 10 to be better than 2x Day Job. In most games it will earn crazy amount of money as purging viruses is a HUGE tempo loss for corp.

Tech slots

Going into nationals with players building decks mostly on their own, it necessary to pack some silver bullets. Feedback Filter is for PU/PE matchups, you usually don’t have that much money to prevent damage constanly, but it might save your life in a pinch. Misdirection is for those cheeky “I install Atlas here and HHN you into oblivion”, so that you can get to the agenda while protecting your home from unexpected renovation. Film Critic is a restricted card of choice, to play around Obokata and Best Defence/Hunter Seeker combos, as you can’t afford to lose more than one breaker.

Credits

Big respect to Moscow community for intense testing and deck advices. Also to the guy ( sorry I forgot your nickname) grinding a similar style Smoke deck on jinteki.net. We had a brief talk about his Smoke list which inspired me to play this style.

20 comments
19 Oct 2017 ParasitePromo

Congrats! Your performance was really great!

19 Oct 2017 nopoison

does Dai V become actually fire some games?

21 Oct 2017 Aerosaucer

What's the rationale for going 41 cards? Did you find that was better than cutting, say, a dirty laundry?

Did you get Scarcity of Resources played against you? How did you handle it?

In a similar vein, what are your thoughts on adding 1x Freedom Through Equality? Similar effect to Mad Dash except better synergy with your other cards, plus can clear a current like Scarcity or Housekeeping in a pinch?

I'd be interested to hear if you think cutting 1 Maker's and 1 Dirty Laundry and adding Freedom would make the deck worse. Did you find the 3rd copies of either of those crucial?

21 Oct 2017 igrekk

@nopoison yes, installed it in 2 games during tournament. Once versus Loki + Ashigaru lock. Second one was in the game where I couldn't assemble full breaker suite to turn 7. Just dropped Dai V on the table and started running servers.

21 Oct 2017 ANRguybrush

41 cards..GNNN

21 Oct 2017 igrekk

@Aerosaucerno deep thoughts on 41. I tend to play all available econ cards. So 3 x Gamble, 3 x Laundry, 3 x Casts, 3 x PiOT. Also 3 x Diesel, 3 x SMC and 3 x Mercur are about speed of setup and I want any of them ASAP. Same for SacCon. Everyone can slot Hunter Seeker or Skorpios can win psi with Batty.

Summary: You can cut any of 3-ofs to go down to 40 cards. Depends on your sense of the game.

Scarcity is not a problem, due to absence of Liberated Accounts. Most of economy cards are events. All other resources are not mandatory for gameplan.

About multiaccess cards. Indexing + Mad Dash is good combo, but everyone aware about it. Moreover Mad Dash without Indexing is a dead draw. Makers eye + Freedom Through Equality is slightly worse combo - you can not be sure that score will happen after playing FTE.

Summary: I think this is bad idea to swap one of Makers (which is reliable multiacces) with unreliable card which may not fire at all. Maybe -1 Laundry +1 FTE is the right call for you.

Ps. Sorry, my english is very bad =\ Hope you understood my point

21 Oct 2017 igrekk

@Aerosaucer Also FTE anti-synergic with Film Critic

21 Oct 2017 apo

"Also to the guy ( sorry I forgot your nickname) grinding a similar style Smoke deck on jinteki.net." - @jamesgrey by any chance?

21 Oct 2017 igrekk

@apo That's him!

22 Oct 2017 Aerosaucer

@igrekk Understood, your english is good, thanks for the reply. Good points about FTE. I played it the deck at a GNK today and it did really well. I did drop the 3rd DL and ME for FTE. Both my wins were on the back of FTE when I stole the 3rd 2-pointer, but it's hard to say if I would have won at the same rate or faster if I just had another ME.

I ran into Scarcity early in 2 games and it did hurt. It wasn't unmanageable because a lot of your econ is events, but it was painful. If you draw a lot of resources they tend to clog in your hand in that situation, and I'm loathe to discard SacCons or Daily Casts. However, the deck was able to get a number of solid accesses during this time window, and I just unluckily didn't score for a while either time. If I'd gotten a bit luckier it wouldn't have been a problem. I did not actually draw FTE in either of those situations. I will try straight up using your version and see how it goes.

22 Oct 2017 Aerosaucer

@igrekk also, FTE stays in play so even if you whiff on the one maker's, there's a good chance you can get more accesses before it goes away, like running archives to see if you Maw'd an agenda. That said, the FC anti-synergy tips the scales towards dropping the FTE, but at the same time I usually use the FTE when scoring the final agenda, which most of the time you can steal since the game ends so they can't punish you for it (obviously not if you don't have 4 cards for an Obotaka, or it's a Future Perfect, but otherwise you can probably just steal the last agenda). I will test without FTE and see if I miss it.

22 Oct 2017 celebesario

I see how you beautifully construct the combo of Net Mercur with your ID Ele "Smoke" Scovak and Cloak in order to make adequate economy for a run with your icebreakers that mainly depend on the stealth . Just curious, have you ever had the experience in the tight spot because of this? Perhaps, for example, because you have to break so many ices in a server? If so, how did you manage it?

22 Oct 2017 Aerosaucer

@celebesarioI know you weren't asking me, but it helps if you anticipate the corp is trying to tax you out of stealth credits (did they just install a third ICE in front of 2 high-strength Code Gates?) and spend some clicks building Net Mercur credits. You can do this by running a naked server or one with an ETR ICE on the outside, boosting a breaker with a stealth cred, then jacking out/letting it end the run. As a bonus, if you do this on a central, you also get Turning Wheel tokens even if the run is unsuccessful. You might even be able to do this on a central with a taxing outer ICE if you can break it without spending real credits (for instance, spend your ID/Cloak cred to break the click subroutine on Enigma). As I got used to using this deck I looked for opportunities where I would have clicked for a credit, and instead I made an otherwise pointless run just to charge Mercur and Wheel.

22 Oct 2017 celebesario

@Aerosaucer ah I see. Good point. I can understand the logic step-by-step now. Thanks for the enlightenment. Really helpful! Only if I can like a comment I would really do it now.

22 Oct 2017 nungunz

Did you have any problems with card draw with only 3 diesel? Worth taking 1 or 2 Dueces Wild?

22 Oct 2017 nungunz

Sorry for the double post, but I am surprised by the lack of clot. Was this a huge issue for you?

23 Oct 2017 igrekk

@celebesario I agree with all points of @Aerosaucer. I'm using Mercur to take stealth credit 90% of time, just in case of stealth starvation. You can pump strength up to 3 times each turn. This is enough in general, but Faichild 4.0 in Stronger Together is real pain.

23 Oct 2017 igrekk

@nungunz all major cards have multiple copies, so draw isn't a problem most time. You even can use Net Mercur for draw. But main reason why I do not include more draw in the deck - there are no efficient and cheap choices. Missing Quality Time hard. Turns like Peace in Our Time + Quality Time were majestic.

Speaking of Clot, I can not find any simple way to play it and make viable. You should commit hard to be able to install it at instant speed:

  • Use Clone Chip over Film Critic.
  • Combo SMC + Blockade Runner to re-shuffle Clot back to the deck.
  • Play Kaplan.

I found all this choices bad for deck speed and overall performance.

21 Nov 2017 rex_monolith

What about -1 SMC +1 test run so you could lose the DAI V and then -1 Dirty Laundry and -1 Net Mercur for +2 Ghost Runner (you lose 3 on the Dirty but gain 4 on the Ghost and save 1 redundant slot). Also gets you back down to a more aesthetically pleasing 40 !!

2 Dec 2017 igrekk

@rex_monolith idea with Ghost Runner instead of Dirty Laundry is truly tempting if your meta is not overloaded with Scarcity of Resources.