Banksy Smoke (Swansea SC Winner)

Mechanoise 1595

A small pet project of money and breaker efficiency which went undefeated at the Swansea store champs. We don't need another full description of why Temüjin Contract or Net Mercur is good, so let's just get to what this deck wants to capitolise on.

It's all about efficiency. NEXT Bronze and Hive are among the common pieces of tax ICE that tends to bleed away Smoke's credits, so in combination with Şifr I've been using Paintbrush to convert more sub-heavy, taxing ICE to Sentries, and then break all subs for "free" using Smoke's ID stealth credit with Switchblade. It also works the other way around, converting ICE from Sentries to Barriers if you simply cannot spare the stealth credits on a Sentry-heavy server, and your Net Mercur is just nowhere to be found.

Peace in Our Time worked out wonders for me throughout. Going from 1 to 10 credits in a single click is such a boost, it helped a lot against CtM match-ups and other tag-tastic corporations.

Multi-access comes in the form of Indexing. There's no tempo loss for playing it compared to installing R&DI, you get 5 cards worth of deck info to switch around, and it combines perfectly with "Freedom Through Equality". Getting these turn 1 when the corp can't ICE R&D effectively can be a game changer, and we all know Smoke has the potential to be super aggressive.

Final Thoughts - I'm going to experiment with Paintbrush further, though I have felt the pinch losing the additional cloak through memory issues. Switchblade has done so much more work over Dagger, and I do value Indexing over The Maker's Eye in this deck. Peace in Our Time has been a great asset and I want to keep playing it, especially when it helps trigger Beth, and Şifr is....Şifr...it's great in Stealth decks to save you spending those extra Stealth Credits.

If I was to cut cards for anything else it would probably be Salsette Slums, but thankfully Smoke's aggression with plenty of econ cards was able to keep on top of the HB nonsense.

So grab your paintbrush and become a Stealth Artist! Thanks for reading.

26 comments
1 Feb 2017 CodeMarvelous

This is brilliant. I love it, you have found a completely different way of dealing with NEXT Silver that I hadn't even considered.

1 Feb 2017 CodeMarvelous

The fact that you can break Curtain Wall for one stealth credit in this deck is also hilarious.

1 Feb 2017 InanimateLog

Paintbrush decks have now won the Swansea store champs for 2 years in a row.

1 Feb 2017 CodeMarvelous

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1 Feb 2017 Mechanoise

@CodeMarvelous Perfect Gif. The ludicrousness of breaking a Hive with a single Stealth Credit is worth the extra click. The Brush has served me very well, and I hope it does for you.

2 Feb 2017 Gorristorr

Love the deck - love the name

3 Feb 2017 Myriad

Did you miss Clot? Or is the indexing enough vs CI?

3 Feb 2017 Myriad

Also, is Houdini not slightly better if you can turn two prices of ice into code gates and break then both for one pump?

I guess it is not as necessary with Sifr... But it might help your stealth creds go a little further.

3 Feb 2017 Mechanoise

@Myriad Haven't encountered a lot of CI, but Indexing should fair fine getting what you need from R&D, but aggressively running their HQ to find the Jacksons is important; I'm finding CI7 still being a niche thing in the meatspace meta, so didn't want to compromise on the amount of NEH / EtF I was expecting.

I tried Houdini first but ended up switching back to Refractor simply because of the pump costs. Naturally when I had Paintbrush in mind I wanted to use Houdini to get maximum benefits, but the truth is you don't end up leaning on Paintbrush all that much; it's more about spending that click to paintbrush the pieces of ICE you simply CANNOT justify breaking on a constant basis. By all means Houdini is worth re-investing thought into, but you want to be careful you don't fall into the trap of spending precious clicks to constantly paintbrush - art is a delicate medium, and too many strokes spoil the canvas ;)

3 Feb 2017 Mechanoise

@Myriad And as for Clot - Went through the concept with other players and we agreed it doesn't have a great deal of strength in a deck with a single Clone Chip, especially with Marcus Batty making a return to trash your programs, as well as Potential Unleashed to snipe them from hand. I'd rather spend the influence on something more impactful since the sheer mention of Aaron Marron is turning off Breaking News EoI decks in our meta.

4 Feb 2017 fancywookiee

Love the deck, bud. Congrats on a well-deserved win. Cardiff steals the Swansea crown again ;)

4 Feb 2017 Threeloader

Nice. What would you change to get a second cloak back just as a spare?

4 Feb 2017 Mechanoise

@fancywookiee Cheers bud, hope to play you again sometime soon my friend.

@ThreeloaderId probably swap one Dirty Laundry for a another cloak. Although the rig cannot support two cloaks with a Paintbrush installed it's good to at least see them early. A third Net Mercur might be worth considering, but this is the deck that was balanced enough to do the job for me.

5 Feb 2017 Pilgrim

Great deck. Have you encountered issues with grail ice? I have been considering adding one Atman for this. I have also enjoyed using Equivocation in place of Paintbrush.

5 Feb 2017 hlemmur

Love the deck; I had been experimenting with smoke/paintbrush to use switchblade to deal with hives and the like but hadn't considered either sifr or peace in our time.

Did you consider mirror and using the influence for career fair? I have found that being able to install net mercur for free or temujin for one early doors makes a huge amount of difference to my tempo.

Also how did you cope with tag punishment?

5 Feb 2017 Mechanoise

@hlemmur Thanks for the look-in. Sifr is just too powerful to not spend influence on, Mirror's ability is good, but I don't think it can compare, especially in dropping strength for Corroder. Career fair is great but influence is the issue, not sure what I'd cut as I'd value including Salsette Slums instead. Tag Punishment is fine, Film Critic is there for Midseasons, very few corps are confident with Sea Source due to Aaron Marron, and HHN tags are relatively easy to clear, so long as you're sensible with money.

@Pilgrim Thanks for the comment. Grail is normally fine, you don't normally run without SMC so once you know Grail is about you just have to be more cautious. Grail is expensive, and the likes of Switchblade still does so much work because it breaks multiple subs. Batty and a Caprice are a problem. If I was expecting them in a bigger meta I'd probably switch Corroder for Inti and add Rumour Mill.

6 Feb 2017 CodeMarvelous

@Mechanoiseare you interested in coming on the channel?

6 Feb 2017 Mechanoise

@CodeMarvelous I'm up for it! Sounds like fun! I'll hit you up via Facebook if that's ok, I've not joined Stimhack Slack yet, I go by the FB name Johnny Bea.

7 Feb 2017 tzeentchling

Did you consider GS Sherman M3 in place of Corroder? With Şifr support her breakers become extremely efficient, and combined with Paintbrush that gives you a stealth and a non-stealth way of breaking multi-sub ice.

8 Feb 2017 Mechanoise

@tzeentchling No I had not considered it, but I like it. I'm um'ing and ah'ing over replacing Corroder with Inti to give me back 2 influence to adjust to the current meta. While Inti pairs nicely with Sifr I wasn't sure how it would be if I couldn't find the console, especially with more Weyland about, but if I was going to change anything it would be the corroder.

8 Feb 2017 TheFutureIsWeyland

As a disclaimer, I am rather bad at deck building. That being said, I've been playing this deck a bit this week and a couple questions have popped into mind.

1) Why Clone Chip? I can't help but think perhaps +Levy AR Lab Access -Clone Chip -Corroder +Paperclip feels about the same.

2) Why the single plascrete? It will prevent you dying from a singular boom. And because of this, it might be worth keeping the clone chip, ditching the Corroder for a Snowball or Inti and putting in Aaron Marrón

3) What's the plan against net damage?

9 Feb 2017 Mechanoise

@TheFutureIsWeyland Hey, hope you've been enjoying it. To answer your questions:

1) Clone Chip is useful for a number of reasons: Brings back SMC after using it to use it again, brings back a program from destruction, brings back a program sniped from hand due to net damage. Levy for a program retrieval doesn't feel right, especially at 5 credits and the tempo loss. Normally I want to close the game out before I'd need to Levy. At the Bristol Store Champs I was facing a remote with 5 pieces of ICE, the front and back ICE were ETR Code Gates and the rest between were program trashers - I dropped the Clone Chip, broke the first ICE, let my entire rig get destroyed during the run and then Clone Chipped the Refractor back to break the last piece of ICE and steal for the win.

2) A Single Plascrete forces a Double-Boom or Triple-Scorch to kill, it's a deterrent or at least a slow-down for the flatline. This deck was before the time of Railgun's rise, and instead of Aaron I'm considering changing Corroder for Inti and adding a Salsette Slums. If I can Salsette a Boom away that's effectively removing the teeth from the gun. Aaron is good, but if I was going to include him in a deck I'd feel better having 2, or a means to tutor him.

3) Plan against Net Damage - Don't die ;) - Jinteki decks can be a problem, Feedback Filter would be way too costly for this deck. Jinteki's 1000 cuts decks don't tend to be ICE heavy, so I'd probably try and Install my breakers when they show up before I lose them, find the Film Critic, and Index like crazy.

10 Feb 2017 buzard

List is wrong, something broke.

10 Feb 2017 buzard

Quorum bug, quorum cards are being deleted from card lists.

10 Feb 2017 Mechanoise

@buzardEverything looks ok from my side :S

10 Feb 2017 SourSweet

I Would say this deck produces almost unlimited runs... strong early pressure. Weak against net dmg... but I solved that with 1 Levi 1 Same Old Thing 1 Ghost Runner -3 Dirty Laundry

It has enough money from Temujin cause you will almost get trough the servers relatively cheep