Not writing it off! I like Kate Nexus, but that deck is SLOW, even with the credit discounts. I suppose Kit speeds things up right? She only needs one breaker early on to be threatening.
A deck like this is really proficient at what it does, win late game.
It looks good vs RP, BS, and Foodcoats (which I think is going away)
it looks unwinnable vs FA
I’m not familiar with the sync match up, but I assume they can just rush and then later biotic.
I don’t think kit being able to run changes how much this deck needs to setup. Between not being able to stop biotic and astro chains, and lack of clot, you really gotta get moving and sometimes even astrolabe draws aren’t enough to keep tempo.
Am I totally off here?
Great observation, and your intuition is pointing you in the right direction. I’ll quote from the (very long) writeup:
“”"
The worst match-ups, given the setup speed of the entire rig, are against rush decks. It is not uncommon to use a Self-modifying Code for a Cerberus “Lady” H1, and draw for one of the decoders. Together, these provide most of the necessary access and disruption to slow down the rush. Against astrobiotics, we have the money to trash the sansans, and we need to. If they score the early astro, winning will be hard, but is possible. R&D Interface and The Maker’s Eye win it for us. We don’t focus on getting Security Nexus out against these decks. The rig is often just conventional breakers.
Similarly, rush is tough. You have to be OK losing the first 3 points and focusing a little more on rig. The up-side is that while constantly forcing rezzes, these decks often don’t have enough money. Just make sure that you can switch to remote sniping on a dime if they drop an Oaktown.
SYNC and Spark aren’t that bad to play against due to Magnum Opus and high link.
Haarp is often a loss. 24/7 is annoying. I don’t like Plascrete Carapaces. If you don’t want to lose against these decks, then include 2.
“”"
First, you never really get Nexus out against FA, so the setup is really just basic Kit. Lady is often tutored for first. Significant R&D pressure usually finishes. The inclusion of 3 cheap decoders makes the matchup possible to win. Inti might be a good inclusion if push comes to shove, but I’ve found lady to do well (mainly to deactivate the wraparounds).
I hate how often I’ve paid through 7 strength wraparounds with cybercyphers. It does often yield a beale or breaking news, though.
Popups suck early, but open up sustained R&D lock late game after escher.
So I would contend that it is absolutely not unwinnable. It is tough, though. The key observation is that you’re likely not getting your Nexus out. Honestly, I’ve had much more trouble against Wayland rush with mass barriers. If you don’t get steal the first Oaktown, it gets real hard, real quick.
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It doesn’t feel slow aside from the Opus tempo hit. You’re applying a lot of pressure when your decoder drops. So yes, Kit does speed things up.
Do you think it’s worth keeping a hand with Test-run and Scavenge but no Mopus in order to get the Torch and apply early pressure with it?
Or do you test run scavenge to get Mopus out?
Surfer Kit seems tier 2 after playing against it a few times.
I Want To Believe
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Yeah but basically everything save the most unreasonable lists are tier 2.
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Without Opus you’re toast. You can hardly break much ice. You can’t trash assets to slow the corp down. And you have to click for credits to get up to Opus when you draw it.
Long story short, Opus is priority one. The torch can wait since you have the 3x cheap decoders to tide you over.
If you TR+Scavenge for Opus, it is going to be difficult to get that combo again later, so you’ll likely have to pay full for the torch. But you got the econ going fast with Opus. Sucks, but not the worst.
Have you thought of including Same Old Thing? It can really help if you have one of the two in hand and want to cheat something out. You could swap some RDIs for Maker’s to maximize the utility.
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- -1 Maker’s Eye
- +1 SOT
is a great idea. I usually only insert SOTs in my deck after I figure out what main events are, and their proportions. The SOT would be good as another Maker’s, a Stimhack, or an Escher, in addition to the TR/Scavenge targets.
The only reason to not play a SOT is if it significantly decreases your ability to get the Maker’s off early game to get your first set of R&D points.
Edit:
We’re already at 3x Makers. I’d be hesitate to cut an R&D interface as this is the type of deck that can get into R&D repetitively (every other turn), and I think of the SOT as another Maker’s anyway.
How does that blitzy kit look like? Sounds like an interesting deck.
I placed 4/78 in a SC with my Kit deck yesterday:
It’s not doing anything hugely innovative, but I do think it’s reasonably competitive.
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What would you cut for an Atman?
I look at that and think SMC.
Well done! That’s a big turnout, would be interested to hear your Kit based impressions.
If you’re asking about my deck, I’d cut the 1x Symmetric Visage, which really is not consistent enough as a 1x to do anything. I’d be very wary of going to 1x SMC, it’s important to be able to threaten server accesses throughout the midgame, and that means being able to find your breakers (and imp) when you need them.
Actually I think cutting a Lady for an Atman wouldn’t be crazy right now either. There are so few barriers floating around that really the only thing taxing Lady counters is Spiderweb, and putting an Atman on 2 in those games seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do, Spiderweb can otherwise become an issue.
I’m also now that I think about it tempted to swap the Levy for an Escher, which I think might let you a chance at attacking foodcoats’ scoring remote late game. Levy did nothing all day.
I’ll try to write up some general impressions this evening if I have time.
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I’m really surprised Escher isn’t in this deck as you lack hq pressure. The single legwork is your only reason to run other than single accesses. Since it’s the most accessible server, the best ways to deal with foodcoats are Vamp and Escher I think. Levy should probably be removed here as I see no reason to recur your deck. Were you anticipating IG or PE?
Drive by seems odd to me, but I’ve considered it myself a few times as killing caprice can win you the game if timed well. Congrats on your placing!
Levy has been in there a while, and mostly I just hadn’t thought very hard about it before this tournament because it’s been there so long I’ve started considering it a necessary component of the deck, and it’s really not. When Jinteki was more prevalent I think it was valuable (because this deck draws so much and is otherwise frequently in danger of running out of cards), but right now it’s not.
I do think you’re right the Escher would have been helpful here, and also that a weakness of this deck is the lack of HQ pressure. (I want to try out an HQ Interface in place of Legwork.) I had tried Escher a very long time ago and found it unhelpful, but the deck/meta has changed so much since then it seems clearly worth another try.
Drive By is a card I don’t particularly like having to use influence on (it used to be another Legwork), but it can help a lot against Caprice, and Caprice is one of this deck’s biggest problems, so I plan on keeping it around for now.
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Escher has double the bonus as kit than it does any other runner. Even if you don’t move ice from server to server, you can move ice in a server to make an economic advantage. Switching a turing from the outside of a 3 ice server to the inside and putting an Ichi out front means you can cycy two targets now. It’s inherently strong with Kit and can save you money in the long run on 2 or more runs.
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