I’m on 2x Paricia, 2x Beth, 3x temujin, 2x net mercur, 2x astrolabe in my stealth kit build. It works pretty well, and paricia is the only dead card in vertical matches.
Kit is an excellent runner for learning Netrunner, but admittedly the current meta makes her job very difficult. I’d caution against doing two things at once (learning the game and learning asset spam) which could be frustrating so perhaps when you create your game on Jnet, indicate you’re a new player and looking for fundamentals. When you’re feeling good, pick up a runner deck from the current meta and learn how to fight asset spam. You will see how and why the currently popular runner IDs and their deck choices are specifically tooled to hate tags and assets, and how hard that is to do for Kit (specifically with an ice-dependent ability and low influence).
I played Kit almost exclusively from the release of 23 Seconds until the release of Escalation. I was able to build a modest winrate against CtM but probably only around 55% (significantly lower against competitive players). Ultimately as the Flashpoint cycle has gone on and more effort has gone into perfecting CtM deck choices and playstyle, this has gotten even tougher and I moved on to work on another less powerful but also interesting runner, Edward Kim.
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Fair points, though I think that kit is quite good against low ice builds. A lot of the fight against spam with kit is leveraging her ability to force rezzes that keep the corp low while you get econ online, which is definitely a “fundamental.”
Kit isn’t threatening in the early game, so she can’t really force the corp to rez ice.
The only truly threatening Shaper pressure card is Indexing, but it’s difficult to play against asset-spam decks because you have to investigate and eliminate possible Jacksons.
Uh… Cyber Cypher? Kit is very threatening in the early game.
Lamprey is a threatening card in the early game. Datasucker, Desperado, Keyhole, Siphon, … you get the idea. CyCy not so much.
Against Kit, 3 of the first 4 ice I draw will go on a remote server, because her central pressure is so anemic.
Central pressure is more about the cards in your deck, not Kit’s id ability. Her id ability forces the corp to double ICE servers it cares about, and be able to rez that ICE. That’s extremely powerful early game.
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Riiiight. But if you only care about one server … who cares? Just put all the ice on the remote except one on R&D so she can’t hit Indexing.
That’s more of an edge case though. Most corp decks are going to care about more than one server. Maybe only one remote in hardcore glacier, but you still need to double ice your centrals if the Kit player is packing any kind of central pressure. Against shaper a lot of corps want to be able to throw a Vanilla or an Enigma on HQ turn 1 and forget about it until a ways down the road. Kit’s ability makes that very hard.
I don’t see how that’s not threatening, and most of my experience with Kit agrees. Built well she’s an explosive opener and has an extremely solid late game, but can get rushed out midgame and typically doesn’t have the econ to handle asset spam (which is really a shaper problem, not a Kit problem).
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Any corp that is trying to score 7 points should be doing basically what I describe, though.
Any Corp that wants to win should put one ice on R&D and ignore HQ and Archives?
Against Kit, specifically, yes.
Ice centrals as little as possible and score out of a remote. If they stockpile money, you have to play around Vamp (which can be hard), and if they install Temujin or RDI you should respond by icing the relevant server. But the strongest general corp plan against Kit is aggressive remote play and skimping on central defense.
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I kinda agree with higgs_bozo: Kit decks usually don’t present that much of an early threat to your centrals. Sure, they probably will get into single ICE systems - but only for single accesses. Which as the Corp I would absolutely allow them, they won’t net much agendas with that and lose a lot of tempo and creds. Remember, Kit makes the first ICE a code gate, but you still need to find + install an decoder and pay for breaking the ICE. Usually that’s not worth it for just a bunch of single accesses.
You want additional or guaranteed value out of those early runs to make it worth, and little of those options are in Shaper. Crim can to get additional money (Desperado, Temüjin) or take your money, Anarch have Datasuckers, Keyhole, Imps and being Kim … you get the idea. And given the poor 10 influence, Kit can’t important much of that.
That being said, there are options even for Kit. Dirty Laundry is okay, Masanori is okay. R&D Interface is expensive, but if you have the money to install it without losing too much tempo it is a threat. And even Kit can import three Temüjins, because someone decided that two influence is enough for that card …
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You’re never going to trash everything. Focus on just trashing sensies and timing a good legwork.
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Cyber Cypher (and other Icebreakers) are answers to the Corporation’s defenses of ICE.
It’s not a threat in and of itself, like, say, Datasucker or R&D Interface.
That is to say, nothing about CyCy accelerates your win condition. Potentially, it enables your win condition. So, ideally, for Kit, you need to find a card that forces the Corp to defend their servers or lose. There aren’t many of those in Shaper, the best ones being Account Siphon, Bhagat, Keyhole, Vamp, Medium, and Temujin Contract. R&D Interface is the easiest/best option available to Shapers without paying influence, off the top of my head. I feel like there’s one that I’m missing, though…
(I do know that Escher represents a very good threat… for the lategame, after the Corp has installed ICE just so, allowing you to wreck the careful structure.)
Indexing. It’s the best one in-faction.
If you include Indexing you have to include The Maker’s Eye.
I don’t include either for the same reason I don’t include Legwork: They aren’t a win condition by themselves.
But wait, you say, didn’t I include Account Siphon and Vamp? Yes I did, and I feel they’re the weakest of the threats I listed as they’re answered with more than just ICE. Similarly, Indexing, Legwork, and TME are answered with more than just ICE. Bhagat, Keyhole, Temujin Contract, and Medium have a couple of answers besides ICE, but by far the best answer to them is icing up the threatened server.
This isn’t to say that Indexing is a bad card, far from it. Just that I don’t feel it’s a legitimate threat that the Corp must answer and deal with, or lose. It strikes me as a Legwork-like card, or Notoriety. A card that enables you to have a Power Turn and do something Cool on that one turn.
Boils down to threat and answer are subjective, and in my opinion, Indexing doesn’t rank as a high threat the way that the other listed cards do. Partially because if you play an Indexing, the Corp’s first reaction isn’t “Guess I should defend that server” but instead “Well, that just happened, let’s hope it isn’t too bad, as I continue going about my game plan.”
They’re actually very different. Indexing is strongest against an un- or weakly-defended, agenda-sparse R&D, and Maker’s is strongest against a heavily-defended, dense R&D.
Turn 1 Indexing is very punishing - it fucks with the corp’s draw, it scouts their deck, it’s very likely to hit points even in a sparse (i.e turn 1) R&D, it costs zero, and it stacks nicely with aggro cards like Temujin and Dirty Laundry if you happen to have them. Turn 1 Maker’s, by contrast, is a misplay (it’s better to hold it for high-value late-game accesses, or, better yet, mulligan the hand).
That’s what I mean by threat - if you have Indexing in your opener, and the corp doesn’t ice R&D (or play a Jackson), you are, in my opinion, ahead. It’s the only green card that really punishes the corp for just ignoring centrals, double-icing a remote and jamming (occasionally pausing to install a Political Asset they really can’t deal with).
lol I got 2 more we can do this all day. 
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Indexing is worse late game in Kit through. You spend 2 runs to get an agenda in the top 5 instead of 1 run to get one in the top 3. You need more stealth to get in twice if they defend R&D and (most importantly) every corp runs 3 Jacksons so your indexing has a chance of failing if they have any unrezzed assets. It’s great against Jinteki but I’d run Maker’s + RDI against everyone else with the exception of CtM maybe.
This discussion is why I insist on having 3 RDI instead of 2. You want one early for exactly the reasons stated here. In my experience server pressure with (stealth) Kit works roughly like this:
Early game you pressure HQ with Temujin (or if the corp doesn’t want you to get rich, you can even do this on archives). If the corp double ices HQ, fine, you’re already ahead. If they instead do the other smart thing - build a remote rapidly as suggested - you now basically need to be able to lock R&D (unless you can crack the remote ofc) and the only way to do that is RDI. After all, you should have the money to play your RDI if the corp chose to not react to your Temujin.
Also, having Escher or Notoriety to punish late game weak centrals helps close games.
Should Temujin go to MWL, I think Kit is garbage tier again because you can’t take any real advantage of single iced centrals.