Guess what I'll draw... (15th at Belgian Nats)

Cpt_nice 1909

Like everyone and their mother, I saw the Smoke list which topped German Nationals recently and I thought to myself: "yeah, that looks like fun". After having played Sunny for a while now, I have been feeling the need for speed recently and going from 50 cards back to 40 feels great. I made a few changes to the deck and took it to Belgian Nats. I clearly wasn't the only one. Smoke outnumbered Valencia as the most popular runner, although my version was probably the most esoteric.

Oracle May was suggested to me by a player who saw my Bye-Beater list and in testing I found it to be incredibly powerful. Combined with Paragon, you can afford to draw useless cards as it turns your clicks into a Magnum Opus. Wih two Oracles,I found I drew into her very fast, as opposed to waiting for Security Testing to roll around. Also, dropping the latter gave me influence for a second Stimhack, which was clutch against my CTM match up. No One Home was great as I was practically immune to Sea Source Shenanigans and it let me run a bit more confidently early against MTI.

Unfortunately, two changes I definitely regret and ultimately cost me games. I added Switchblade cause getting locked out of R&D by Tour Guide haunts my nightmares, and it also deals nicely with Komainu, Anansi and Surveyor. Stacked sentries were a huge problem though, and Dagger would have served me much better as I was usually filthy rich in real credits.

To run Switchblade, I opted to not slot the clot, which gave me a loss vs The Outfit and nearly cost me another match vs Titan. I won't make that mistake again. Clot will go back in, Dagger replaces Switchblade. No idea which card to drop though. Maybe the FTE or the third Daily Casts.

2 comments
23 Sep 2018 xWZRDx

@Cpt_nice I really like this change, Oracle May over Security testing is interesting. You don't get the quite the same synergy as running for 2 creds plus activating Paragon, but I guess you're making at least one run every turn anyway. But I've also found, with the original list, that my opponent trying to keep me out of archives usually leads to thinner ice on other centrals. Did you find that to not be a problem?

Also, I'm curious if you found only 1 Turning wheel to be consistent enough of multi access to pressure HQ. Thanks!

24 Sep 2018 Cpt_nice

@xWZRDx As soon as people see Paragon they will usually ice archives anyway, so that never was an issue.

There were times were I wished I had a second Wheel. But I was mostly perfectly fine threatening R&D and locking down the remote until I drew into my one of, which was usually quite often. You could drop 1 May or Stimhack depending on your personal taste and add the second TTW, but I rather have consistency and money over early multi access.