Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

New pack, new hotness and all the fun that comes with it. I haven't nearly played enough games with this deck to say it can't be improved. Especially since the meta is probably going to change a bit now that worlds is over (many players are now more willing to experiment more for next season), but this is the best I can come up with combined with my experience with stealth shaper. TBH I might as well call it: 'Good Stuff Stealth'. Since I like writing long theory crafting articles, I thought I would write the thoughts behind this deck.

I'm going to split this text up into 3 pieces:

1) The Econ (lock)

2) The Support (stock)

3) The Stealth Suite (two smoking barrels)

The Econ

For me there are two types of econ to support decks. The first is hoarding money and make one or two big runs every few turns and the second is making money during runs (of course there is more nuances, but these are the broad strokes). With the game tempo going up thanks to FA among others, making money during runs has become more preferable in order to keep tempo with the corp. In essence it's the way crims make money, but thanks to stealth, shapers can do it to.

To make run econ work, it's all about net gain. Criminals do it wel because many in faction cards bring up loads of money. To bring down the costs of running (and increase net gain) they use tricks and/or import more efficient breakers.

For shapers it was the other way around. Over time stealth has become increasingly more efficient, but importing the true money power houses from Crim has always cost a lot of influence. This all changed thanks to Temüjin Contract. The mere fact it doesn't have a replacement effect and not an event is the cherry on top and brings a lot of click compression. Combine this with Stealth and you are able to keep the pressure way higher than more traditional decks. Just look at Git Gud Kit if you want proof.

The Support

One of the hardest part to tweak with Stealth is how many stealth cards you need. I think this is still the thing that can be tweaked the most. My Stealth Kit packed 3x Cloak, 3x Ghost Runner and 2x Lockpick and that was plenty. I believe Net Mercur is better than Ghost Runner and deck slots are tight, so I can't run both ATM. Mirror is important for Stealth because it often gives you the chance to run twice per turn. Often when you approach mid-late game servers become so taxing you often can't squeeze in more than one run.

Rumor Mill for obvious Jackson/Caprice hate, although I might switch one out for a Clot.

Film Critic and New Angeles City Hall is there to counter all the CtM/Boom decks floating around. At least this way you don't have to spend a click and as an added bonus, you can steal TFP and Fetal AI without issues.

The Stealth Suite

In shaper I prefer Corroder over Paperclip and the reason is simple. I really don't like paying 6 credits to tutor Paperclip. With that 2 credit difference I could break an early game barrier that was used as a gear check in a scoring window. Its built in recursion is great for anarchs, but shapers don't constantly ditch cards into their heap and we have Clone Chip. Sure, you can draw it and ditch it, but with only a one-of in the deck I always expect I have to SMC it. I also prefer Refractor over Houdini for Smoke. Houdini is more suited for Stealth Kit, but I could be wrong. Blackstone might be really good, but ATM I'm going for the safe bet that is Corroder.

That is all I have to say at the moment. Any comments, question and/or critique is welcome.

Cheers! DrunkAlex