Peace Pipe

I'm an avid lurker of the Stimhack thread and slack deckbuilding, so I've seen a lot of smart discussion about how to build Smoke for the new meta. With those ideas as fuel, I've been testing and tweaking this deck for the past few weeks and I think it's really in the sweet spot. So, even if you don't like my exact decklist, I can at least share some insights I've gained into what works and doesn't work in Smoke against the corps in C2RB.

The core idea of the deck is to have a strong non-Mopus economy so we can use Film Critic as our restricted card. I tried versions with Mopus, Levy, and Clone Chip (and changes to adapt to those) but in my experience FC is by far the strongest restricted card for Smoke. With a lower decksize and not enough infinite economy to fuel Feedback Filter, I think FC and Ankusa are critical for the Jinteki matchup, and it also helps against Hunter Seeker and Punitive Counterstrike, etc.

Once Critic was locked in, I searched for an economy engine to replace Temujin. With recursion much more limited, Batty, Skorpios, Hunter Seeker, etc. are scarier, so including SacCon seemed good, and that enables the single Tapwrm. That along with Beth soften the downside to Peace in Our Time (because you benefit from the corp being rich), and Peace also synergizes very well with Smoke because she breaks ICE so cheaply that you don't really care as much as other decks if they can afford to rez more/bigger ICE. For this deck, in the end what matters is whether you can afford to make the runs you need to make without opening yourself up to HHN/Stinson, etc. Keeping your money high enough is totally worth giving the corp a little boost.

Some people don't like Peace, but in this deck I think it's critical. 9 credits from one card and click is just too good for your tempo, and is a great per-card return in a deck and meta where every card needs to count. IMO the deck is just too poor without it. It's true as Smoke you benefit from running every turn to use your recurring credits with Mercur, but there are certainly going to be 2-3 turns per game where you are OK with not running, so it's really not that big a cost. I'm running 2 copies but I think 3 is totally valid. Season to taste.

It's also good to keep in mind that part of the philosophy of the deck is to benefit from runs, but not lean too hard on run-based economy, because it's just too common lately for corps to try to lock you out with ICE at various parts of the game. That may change a bit if asset spam resurges, which very well may happen. As it stands, it's a big risk for corps to leave even one open server for Maw/Aeneas/Amakua/Bank Job/Mercur/Dirty Laundry, etc., so many decks just aren't doing it.

Without Levy or SOT, repeatable effects start to edge out operations, which is why Equivocation and the Gauntlet are in there instead of more Indexing and Legwork. This is also a major benefit of Tapwrm and Security Testing. I love the single copy of ST because I'm not relying on it, but in most situations it's a very nice bonus that synergizes with Mercur. In addition, people are teching HARD against multi-access operations with things like Crisium and Miraju (one on RD stuffs Indexing), so I found that leaning fully on them was just not as good. That said, the one Indexing is (unsurprisingly) amazing for closing out games and I'd recommend you keep it.

Note the deck also runs 2 copies of each type of breaker, both for consistency of draw and as Skorpios/Ark defense. If you want the card slots you could consider dropping some of each for a backup AI and some other cards, but I wouldn't recommend it.

After weeks or testing and experimenting, I think every card in here is at exactly the right number of copies except maybe Peace, which you can consider swapping in a 3rd for the 3rd Deuces. You can't risk a single Film Critic being at the bottom of the deck so you want 2, you want to draw SacCon in multiples and early to enable Tapwrm (either money all game or timewalking the corp repeatedly is SO GOOD). and Beth is nice to have but not mission-critical, so I'd rather avoid a 2nd one being a dead draw.

One other thing to note about this deck is that you need to resist the temptation to run early unless you are SURE it's safe. You have an incredibly strong late game, and most of my losses were due to running in the first few turns and either dying, getting tagged, or falling too far behind economically. I've always been of the school of thought that in Netrunner you always need to run MORE, but in this new meta I'm finding that, at least with Shaper, you need to focus on building your board state if at all possible and letting the corp just do its thing until you are economically secure. It feels wrong, especially when people tend to leave centrals unICEd the first few turns absent Siphon threat, but for this deck you just need to restrain yourself.

Cards to consider:

• Clot: I haven't missed it, but maybe I just haven't seen enough good fast advance yet. Often the corp thinking it's a threat is enough to slow their play, and though it synergizes with SacCon, it anti-synergizes with losing Clone Chip and having Tapwrm. Tapwrm is amazing economy, so the opportunity cost to forgoing it is very high, and I'd hate to give the corp an efficient purge that clears 2 programs at once. It also strains the deck's memory, since you're going to want to have Cloak, Equivocation, and Tapwrm pretty much every game. YMMV, but I found that 9 times out of 10 you can use the extra money to beat the fast advance deck on central runs rather than relying on Clot, and I'd rather not weaken all my other matchups so much just to increase my chances in the rare game where its relevant. I admit this may be a blind spot on my part, so I'm constantly looking for reasons why I might be wrong on this one.

• Dirty Laundry: These are cards 42-44. I didn't want to lean too hard on run econ, and I wanted each econ card to be as impactful as possible, and while they CAN be better than SG with Mercur, they were just too situational for my taste compared to other, more consistent options. YMMV.

• Switchblade: unless Gagarin gets really popular, Dagger is fine - and often either equal or only one credit worse. Not only does skipping it save you influence, but in months of playing Smoke I've found that you don't want to rely on SB unless you've got 2 Cloaks or at least some Ghost Runners to cover you against getting stealth credit taxed. Usually Mercur will cover you, but honestly it's not optimal. If the meta changes or you just love SB, go for it.

• Paricia: a tutorable Scrubber-ish, but without Friends I'm just not as afraid of asset spam anymore. You can't control their entire board without Whizz anyway, so just carefully trash key cards without making yourself too poor.

• Mirror: not at all bad. Synergizes better with Indexing, and cheaper than Guantlet. However, I found that I was often not using the refunded credit, and having constant HQ multiaccess/pressure has been worth the extra cost and influence, especially since corps do tend to have agendas piling up in hand in this post-Jackson world.

• Atman/DaiV/Amakua, etc.: I chose lack of AI breaker as my weakness because I thought it had the best opportunity cost ratio. While it may be important in some games, I rarely need it and would rather draw something more important or more universally useful. I have not yet hit a Mother Goddess or Excalibur, but I'd rather play around them then have a dead draw 9 times out of 10. Again, YMMV.

• Symmetrical Visage: if you cut the third Deuces, replace it with this. This would be card 41. It hurt to cut it because it just smooths out your econ so nicely, but in the end the deck already takes enough tempo hits, so a card that doesn't pay off for 3 turns of drawing at least once didn't quite make the cut over other options.

• Ghost Runner: I played this for a while instead of a 3rd Mercur to enable Switchblade and reduce dead draws. I found it's just too important to not only draw Mercur early, but have spares in hand in case they get destroyed. They will usually be the first thing the corp targets.

• Career Fair: deck slots are too tight, but man I would love it if Mercur and DC weren't such big tempo hits.

• Caldera/Feedback Filter: I would love to be immune to net damage, but you just don't have the money for these. Lean on careful play, Film Critic, and Ankusa instead.

• Liberated Accounts: a solid economy card for 2 inf, and synergizes well with Peace. I like what I used my inf on better, but this is a very nice option.

Cards I would NOT cut:

• Freedom Through Equality: a Mad Dash that doubles as an emergency corp current clearer. You don't want to sit on a Scarcity of Resources if you can help it. Since we're not leaning too hard on indexing, Mad Dash loses a lot of its comparative value, as well. I really wish I could justify running a 2nd current.

• Ankusa: critical for the Jinteki matchup to get rid of Kakugo. With 40 cards, no Levy, and no Feedback Filter you just can't afford to make infinite runs through them. Similarly, throwing back advanced ICE is great, especially to undermine the meat damage plan of Builder of Nations. It may be expensive, but it's also great in other situations and saves us influence as a backup fracter. In my experience, through careful play you can handle the other net damage that Jinteki throws at you, but Kakugo and Obotaka are the cards that will hurt the most, and we've got Film Critic and Ankusa for them.

• Misdirection: this is straight up just a (tutorable) Hard-Hitting News counter. You don't have infinite money, and since you break ICE so cheap it's actually not bad to run money-light. That will cripple you against HHN unless you've got Misdirection in your back pocket. It's also helpful against tagging ICE and those decks that like to stack Prisec and similar things into one scoring server. You WILL struggle against HHN without this card.

Cards to not bother considering:

• Blackstone is a trap. Do not fall into it.