Smoky Lives 1.3

Efficiency is key... "Smoke" wants to dazzle the audience and make the corp pay for everyone's admission.

Hardware

• Console: Mirror is a must for this deck. Recurring credits are the primary economy and Mirror only makes them that much better.

• R&D Interface - Since the Mirror is all about running R&D you can't go wrong by making those runs multi-access.

• Clone Chip - One word... Insurance. You need to have a means of getting back your ice breakers should the corp force one of them into the heap.

Ice Breakers

• Blackstone - Solid stealth barrier icebreaker

• Refractor - Refractor vs Houdini... Not sure yet. I think this is going to vary based on the current trends in Corp ICE.

• Switchblade - solid stealth sentry ice breaker

Resources

• Beth Kilrain-Chang - A little unpredictable; 5-9 credits, single drip credit is always welcome; 10-14 credits, a card draw is just going to help you get to the next card you need; 15+... an additional click is never bad. Rarely is the corp below 5 credits if they have a choice, so the 2 credit investment will pay for itself rather quickly.

• Net Mercur - By and far the most important economy card. Unlike most stealth credits there are no limitations on where the credit can be used and the fact that you are pretty much always going to be spending a stealth credit on every run you're going to be able to back a lot of credits and/or draw a card that might help you make a successful run.

• Sacrificial Construct - Another Insurance card. Once again this rig is not easily reconstructed of the corp forces you to trash crucial cards such as Mirror, Clot or one of your breakers.

• Salsette Slums - Combined with credits from Paricia Shutting down all the corp assets, upgrades and occasional trash-able ICE such as Chrysalis with no salvation from recursion cards.

• Same Old Thing - Primarily here to bring back Rumor Mill, but depending on what is going on, it could be good to recover Notoriety or even get some econ (Sure Gamble or Dirty Laundry) or card draw (Diesel).

• Temüjin Contract - Solid card rewarding runs anywhere. It does not prevent R&D Interface or Dirty Laundry from triggering their effects. Well worth 6 of the 14 influence to include.

Programs

• Cloak - Triggers Net Mercur and can be reloaded by Mirror. All in all a must have for a stealth runner.

• Clot - Once your rig is setup it's going to very difficult for the corp to keep you out of a server. Other than killing you, fast advance agendas is going to be their best chance to win. It's susceptibility to virus purge is a huge problem, and if a corp is backed into a corner with no way to score an agenda due to your rig's effectiveness it's in their best interest to purge. Use your Clone Chip to bring it back from the heap or your Sacrificial Construct to prevent it's destruction outright and watch the corp's heart break.

• Paricia - Can't complain with being able to efficiently trash an asset. Combined with Salsette Slums and Rumor Mill you're going to have a sad corporation.

• Self-modifying Code - Setting up your rig quickly is crucial and since their are a bunch of ways for the corp to cause net, meat and brain damage

Events

• Diesel - The density of cards is so low a single Diesel should give you at least 1 card you need to start running or setup your rig.

• Dirty Laundry - Econ. successful runs shouldn't be a problem early and once the stealth rig is set up it shouldn't be a problem getting into any server.

• Notoriety - Here for theme, but also a great way to end a match when you need just 1 more agenda point

• Rumor Mill - Everyone loves "Princess Space Kitten"... Blanking assets such as Jackson Howard is going to make running archives far more effective a strategy. So much so it might be better to hold onto the rumor mill until the Corp has committed a bunch of cards to the archive before playing the rumor mill.

• Sure Gamble - Quick econ... never a bad thing.

Changes since v1.2

Got some good recommendations from the community. In particular, @dawspawn and @Myriad. I combined their feedback and this is what I came up with.

• -1 x Rumor Mill.
• -3 x Ghost Runner - removed entirely
• +1 x Salsette Slums, was a 1:1 influence swap with the Rumor Mill.
• +1 x Net Mercur, increase density and since not unique the economy lost by Ghost Runner should be offset entirely.
• +2 x Same Old Thing Makes having that second Rumor Mill largely unnecessary and provides a better buffer if you're forced to discard a crucial event card.