Nice going!
Speaking of Inti, last night I was on jnet and payed 17 credits to break Bulwark with Inti. Twice. It’s pretty bananas that this is possible (Temujin buxx, Net Mercur… and the 4 bad pub helped), but MAN I wish Kit had 12 influence so I could put in a real fracter.
Also I’ve been running 2x Paricia recently and it’s been great-- Paricia + Net Mercur + Temujin gives you a really strong anti-spam match up, and Kit’s ability is very relevant in ICE-light decks.
I hate you and this deck. IT JUST SHOULDN’T WORK!
This. So much this. This has been my experience ever since Temujin came out and gave Kit a fighting chance against asset spam. This is also why Smoke isn’t simply better.
I’ve been using The Big Boy Kit list some because I’m told it helps a player develop fundamentals in this game.
Here are a couple of questions that I am aware are really newbie:
In the list above, he talks about establishing remote lock with Stimhack. How much brain damage is too much to take early to mid-game? I’m very wary about brain damage and so rarely ever play more than one Stimhack. With three in the deck, though, I wonder if I’m supposed to do more.
What is remote lock? Does that just mean getting breakers and money set up to the point that you can always get into a never advanced remote?
What do you do vs. the dominant yellow decks right now?
I’m really looking forward to the future of Kit in competitive play. The new Inversificator spoiled in Earth’s Scion will allow her to surf into a 4 ice deep server when she has 3 installed. The breaker itself is expensive, but shaper of all people have plenty of ways to reduce it to more manageable levels.
Remote Lock means you get to a point where you can always access anything they put into the remote. This is why Never Advance is so common as a secondary strategy. If the Runner knows you only have access to 4/2 or 5/3, they can wait until you advance something. (This is part of the reason RP is having a hard time recently, as they can’t reliably Never Advance.)
This is paralleled in the term R&D Lock, which is where you can always access the top card of R&D.
Good questions with long answers, but I will try to be brief and let you figure most things out yourself, since that is the best way to learn.
If they are on net damage, even 1 stimhack is bad, if they are not then feel free to play all 3 if you have good use for the money.
This deck doesn’t truly remote lock (like a stealth deck would). What it does is force a lot of ice on the remote because you have a setup that can guarantee to break any 3 facedown ice (gordo + femme + tinkering). If they over-commit to the remote, then you have a window to go dig R&D.
These match-ups take a TON of practice, but the heuristic is the same. If you feel lost, DON’T PANIC RUN. Just take 8. Legwork is your best card and timing a legwork is nearly always the difference between winning and losing.
Is R&D lock that you can always access the top of R&D? I’ve always understood it to mean that the Corp is never seeing a card from R&D that you haven’t already seen.
You’re right. “Lock” in this sense means making that server useless to the corp.
Remote lock means they can’t score in a remote.
R&D lock means they can’t draw agendas.
HQ lock means they can’t safely draw cards (you usually need remote pressure to make this matter).
I’ve been using BigBoy’s Kit above for learning and practice. It is a fun deck. In the two metas near enough for me to get in face-to-face games, though, net and meat damage are in nearly every deck. As such, I find Stimhack to be a card that just does not make sense to use most of the time.
That is three cards and three influence that are dead in nearly every game.
I’ve been trying to think what would be better to put in those slots. I’ve thought about Levy as one option to help survive longer vs. Jinteki and other discard decks. I already have swapped in Indexing for the Maker’s Eye because multi-access is dangerous in a world full of shocks and snares.
What do you think might make sense as possible other cards?
For reference, here is the list:
Rielle “Kit” Peddler: Transhuman (Creation and Control)
9 influence spent (max 10, available 1)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Blood Money
For meat damage, 1-2 plascrete is usually enough. In shaper, Net Shield or Feedback Filter can help a lot with net damage.
At 24 events, I see where Levy looks pretty tempting, but I’m not sure how often you are using Test Run or Stimhack on a 2nd run through the deck. With no Same Old Thing, how do you recover Levy if it gets hit by damage?
I had thought that if you slot in a Levy you need the SOT. I’m mostly feeling like Stimhack is just a dead slot in my deck all the time in my local metas and I wonder what might fit in there better.
I know Stimhack is useful in the deck in other match ups and key to the whole “Stim-shop” interaction. I just find I’m always discarding it because I don’t want to take the brain in a world full of snares, etc.
Honestly that’s more a symptom of playing against Thousand Cut style decks, and isn’t something most decks bother with trying to fix with card choice, because you can fix it with playstyle.
Against a net/meat Drip Damage meta, it’s better to just pretend your cards are HP and don’t do whatever is printed on them. In this case, Stimhack ends up being functionally similar to lots of other cards that similarly don’t matter except that they keep you from dying.
Basically what I’m getting at is that because the Stimhack is very good in most other matchups, it isn’t worth changing it to try and eke out advantage against this particular style.
If you were to replace Stimhack with something, I’d recommend Clone Chip. It gets you an extra use out of Lady/SMC, and also allows you to recover if the random damage hit a breaker you end up needing.
These are good points. Given that I don’t have good ideas for changes, I will keep it the same. One change I do think is solid from the original Big Boy deck is using Indexing instead of Maker’s Eye. In a Snare-heavy meta that seems safer.
If you are really worried about digging into multiple snares, just quality time up before you makers.
That was my plan but you can’t always arrange to have both cards in hand at the same time, which means I ended up not making runs because I was waiting for cards.
It’s much easier to land a TME than an Indexing while playing Kit.
I assume this is because you have to run ice twice for the indexing to be useful. This is a good point. Perhaps my thinking is too defensive and cautious overall.
I’m trying to learn using the Kit list too, but I’m having a hard time against asset spam. It seems to be all I ever see on jnet. Even with Opus, I just never seem to have enough money to keep up, with Friends in High Places being particularly annoying. Any tips? I was looking at Paricia, but then I guess I’d need more memory somehow.
I try to decide which assets to ignore and which to trash I also try to pressure centrals, which are usually vulnerable to Kit in heavy spam decks.
Asset spam is tough. If you get R&D lock, though, they can’t score.
I hope some other players chime in because it is a hard match up.