Dedicated Tools

Thesis: Ayla is currently the best overall Shaper-side runner.

While Smoke's straightforward stealth-based strategy is nothing to sneer at, and Prepaid Kate's econ and efficiency's hard to beat, the current state of the game necessitates that you grab the right answers as soon as possible, or risk the Corporation running rampant or comboing off you.

As such, NVRAM pushes her over the top.

Due to the ubiquity of asset-spam style Corporation decks right now, having answers to ICE is less important than having answers to asset-based effects. Theoretically, piecing together Dedicated Processor-enabled breakers like Yog.0 and Inti can be done at your leisure -- more urgent is being able to counter the unprotected boardstate.

The combination of Archives Interface and Doppelgänger enables just that, giving you an extra run per turn to both remove an asset and pre-empt FiHP/Jackson recursion. Tyson Observatory helps make sure you get your hands on both, along with Dedicated Processors once you start needing them.

A turn-one Magnum Opus, guaranteed thanks to the combo of NVRAM and Test Run, is potentially more powerful than Whizzard: Master Gamer's triple trash credits too. If nothing else, it's inherently more flexible to have a giant stack of "real" money.

The same deal with Film Critic, Aaron Marrón, Sacrificial Construct, and Employee Strike. Using NVRAM's cheat on your opening hand's quality gives you a level of silver-bullet consistency not found in other decks -- not even with Andromeda: Dispossessed Ristie, whose nine-card opening doesn't quite compare with Ayla's 11-total accessed plus the advantage of selective storage.