Career smoker

The Draft

I had first pick, which means that I got to make back-to-back selections whenever the snake came around. That's a good spot to be in!

Round 1: Temüjin Contract

I had first pick, so I went for the strongest econ in the game. At 2 influence, I was confident that I would be able to fit it into any faction.

Round 2: Self-modifying Code, Paperclip

Top-tier anarch cards were going fast and I was looking at Blue Sun for corp, so it seemed like going to shaper was a good call as was grabbing the best fracter in the game (thinking about running Hive, Curtain Wall, etc), whether I actually ended up using it or not. Still not committing to any particular rig.

Round 3: Professional Contacts, Net Mercur

No indications that other people were going for stealth, and I liked the idea of having a different econ package from most other people and limited competition for breakers. ProCon helps solve both draw and econ.

At this point, I was pretty well going for Smoke, though I was still keeping Kit open.

Other core selections

Career Fair for synergy with the 3 key resources (NM, ProCon, and Temu), The Gauntlet for extra MU and HQ multi access, and Indexing/Mad Dash for R&D pressure.

Tech

Clot, Political Operative, New Angeles City Hall and Paricia. PolOp felt OK since it helps deal with a lot of cards that I thought might be trouble (jhow for indexing, Caprice, SSCG, Sandburg), and Paricia was OK because SMC lets you fetch it and you don't feel that bad about overwriting it if you are tight on MU. Overall, though, fundamentals like draw, econ, and multi-access are probably more important when slots are limited. I should have omitted clot/NACH, and I never ended up using PolOp so maybe that as well.

Game Day

R1 Win over neh. Early temu and paricia kept the economy under control. Dai v kept him remote locked, picked a few from hq, closed with indexing.

R2 timed loss to ctm. MWL exists for a reason. Probably shouldn't have bothered contesting the remotes and just dug for indexing/mad dash.

R3 win over ETF. Corp was flooded, had econ and a full rig.

What was tough?

I really wanted Public Sympathy, it turned out. Being able to build up combo pieces and silver bullets in hand is very helpful when you don't have recursion, and when you want to conserve credits rather than pre-installing.

Overall, I would probably include fewer silver bullets in exchange for having more multiples of useful cards. I would, for instance, drop clot and polop for a 3rd net mercur, swap out blackstone for paperclip, and found space for a 3rd gauntlet. Paricia still felt handy, especially since SMC lets you tutor it for a wash.