I think imp is criminally underplayed for how good it is against most popular decks
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I love Imp, but I acutally think itās best in Gabe where youāre set up to get regular HQ accesses anyway. I got absolutely destroyed by a good Gabe Imp player at the Worlds Second Chance tourney last fall. He ended up in second of 50 or 60 players, IIRC.
So I ran a 3x Indexing, 1x Tinkering, 1x Escher, 2x SOT list at a small 6-player tournament tonight and went 3-0 in three rounds of Swiss. Escher was excellent the one time I played it ā swapped a Tollbooth on R&D for an Enigma with Cyber-Cypher in hand, then Indexed and scored. I didnāt play a Tinkering, but I had one in hand in one of my games and there was a window where it would have been effective ā I just wasnāt running for fear of SEA/Scorch.
I was actually 6-0 overall, since I also went 3-0 with my latest 44-card Blue Level Clearance TWIY* list, so I won the whole thing. It wasnāt an official 2014 season tournament, but I got a 2013 Vitruvius mat and an alt Datasucker for my win! Pretty nice to have two alt Datasuckers in the Kate deck that only runs two of them anyway. My alt Katis are in there as well. Alas, I donāt have an actual alt Kate.
So Iām not certain on the necessity of Tinkering. Iām keeping it in for now, but that slot could definitely be experimented with.
I did Siphon a GRNDL player who left his HQ open turn 1. 3 clicks for 6 credits was acceptable. But yeah, I generally donāt Siphon Weyland players.
So now Iām 9-2 in tournament play with various iterations of this Kate deck, and 11-3 with my TWIY* versions. Not bad.
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So where do you think our greatest weakness/opposition lies currently?
I personally feel as though we have enough answers to TWIY. Making News is a bit of a challenge, but thereās not really anything we can import to improve our deck against it. We have more than most decks against Jinteki flatline. Weyland with Oversight AI is a bit challenging if used on a barrier, so Iād like something to combat that (Emergency Shutdown is all that comes to mind). We have all we can ask for against HB rush, but glacier decks are a bit troublesome. Replicating Perfection is also a bit of a challenge, as constraining my clicks slows this deck to a crawl.
The overall theme I see here is that high strength barriers (and sentries to a lesser extent since we have Sharpshooter) are in a bit of a blind spot for us. Hence I want to know yāalls input on Morning Star. There are enough medium to high strength barriers in every faction except NBN that Morning Star pays for itself after running through any of the following twice: Eli, Bastion, Hive, Heimdall, Hadrianās Wall, and Wall of Thorns. The issue is that itās 4 influence, costs 8 to install, and takes up 2 MU. The lattermost is in my opinion the most damning, plus it needs the help of Datasucker to get through Heimdall and Hadrian. Finally, Atman is our in-faction alternative and while it does have to pay for each subroutine, it saves us valuable influence and MU, and can address other types of ice at the selected strength.
I foresee a new Anarch fracter being released soon (predicting 4 strength, pumpable, 2c to break 3 barrier subroutines) which we should consider, but until then, what alternatives do we have? Magnum Opus might be nice as a one-of. Honestly Iām not married to Account Siphon, as the meta I play most in (OCTGN) is so oversaturated with Siphon users for every faction that most players expect it by default, and I think the same can be said of serious tournament contenders.
So yeah, sorry for the rambling just to get nowhere. Iām just trying to get the creative juices flowing. I have found that one thing that has worked for me is to run aggressively against centrals against HB and Weyland early, but the moment defense is set up, install Cyber-Cypher over their scoring remote and just click Kati/Armitage until the opportunity to steal an agenda presents itself. Caprice Nisei kinda throws a wrench in that though.
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Iāve been thinking about how to play against Caprice with this deck, and I donāt have any great ideas at the moment. The fact that she breaks Dirty Laundry is just additional insult for our deck. Quest Completed is tough to accomplish for us, and the Corp can just Interns or Archived to get her back. Itās gotten me back to thinking about Imp for denial instead of Siphon, in the hopes of catching her before she gets installed, and being able to trash her after winning the psi game even if Iām poor.
Regarding big barriers, Iāve beaten Oversight AI players and Weylandās Wall Emporium players; between Tinkering/Cyber-Cypher and Escher, I havenāt had issues. Sometimes I just suck it up and pay to break the Oversighted barrier with Corroder. Apart from Wotan, HBās big nasty ice is AP, so recurring Deus X works fine.
The nice thing about this deck is that the breakers are cheap to install and donāt eat MU. I think including Morning Star would strain the MU too much, forcing us to use CyberSolutions Mem Chip and slowing the deck down. 7c to install is also painful. IMO, Morning Star essentially leads us down a path to a different deck. I do think a lot of Shapers will be running Opus and Morning Star in the near future.
Opus might be okay as a singleton for when we really need it, but it carries similar risks. Iām not crazy about it.
People are still letting me into HQ, so for the time being Iām probably going to keep Siphoning them, but once they wise up Iām quite willing to cut it. I still think Imp is at the top of my short list to include in its place, for the Caprice reasons I mentioned above. But we might consider a second Escher for ice realignment and/or Scavenges for extra recursion/Cypher resets. Especially if Imp comes in, which would stretch the Clone Chips a little bit more.
Edit: That said, we already have Indexing, which can slow Caprice down simply by burying her in R&D and/or running to trash her at the right time.
Iāve also been separately thinking about Demolition Run, which could be interesting in this deck if we go back to multiaccess rather than Indexing. Could cut Siphon and one Datasucker for Nerve Agent, Medium, and two Demo Run.
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Holy crap why havenāt I thought of Scavenge/Imp before?! I was going so far as to consider Scrubber, but Imp fulfills its role so much better. Plus Scavenging a Cyber-Cypher as you said is a great strategy as well. Only problem now is MU and deckspace. I tested Cybersolutions when it came out, and it sucks a ton of momentum out of you as opposed to Akamatsu. Perhaps Iāll swap the 2 Siphons with 2 Imp and a Grimore. Ultimately if I drop Siphon I definitely want at least one Legwork.
You were the one who originally suggested Imp in the Desperado slot! 
I just kept it in mind since I love Imp anyway.
Itās Scavenge (which Iāve never used) that puts Imp over the top for me. Itās essentially a Deja Vu that only recurs one virus, but saves me 2 influence, 1 click, and 4 credits. I love me some two-for-one Imp action. Plus synergy with Cyber Cypher easily warrants inclusion.
The only thing in my way now is deckspace and MU. I guess Iāll give Cybersolutions another go around since Grimore is a nice placeholder but I ultimately want to use that influence on something more useful. I went ahead and cut the one Infiltration and now have but one Tinkering and one Escher. I may want to drop the Tinkering and go with two Escher since now itās my only incentive aside from access to ice HQ. I might even be able to go down to one Plascrete since I love Imping Scorches and Sea Sources. Otherwise I can go down to one Sharpshooter or cut my only Same Old Thing.
You could always drop in a Lucky Find over Grimoire. Or Inside Job.
Why not add djinn instead? Itās less influence and you can use SMC/TR to find it. Then host the imps/datasuckers etcā¦ on it.
Other nice things to host on Djinn is Opus, Keyhole, and Sneakdoor. Not that you are mentioning those, but are nice 1 splashes of
Grimoire is two influence, so Iād need to drop one more influence for Inside Job. Djinn is a solid choice too (it costs the same influence). My concern is that Iām not sure how I feel about burning an SMC on it, and if I have no MU I canāt use it to get more. Still, it definitely competes with Grimoire until Legwork comes out.
Djinn is slow and reveals what youāre tutoring for before you use it, which is why Iāve never been crazy about it unless Iām running multiple situational viruses like Nerve Agent, Medium, and Hemorrhage.
With 2 influence, we could also put the second Parasite back in, although I havenāt found I use Parasite all that often.
Also, I think part of my love for Imp is because the ONR version (which was more like a mini-Djinn) was so damn cute.
I wouldnāt really use Djinn to tutor, although that is an option, but more for the memory issues. That being said, Djinn doesnāt really telegraph much. There are 3 major Kate decks, big rig, siphon (Or a mix between the two) and parasite. Good opponents will rarely be surprised with a parasite in Kate. In fact, itās almost better to add Djinn because the opponent, goes yupā¦ datasucker/parasite maybe atman deck, and then BAMā¦ Imp recursion!
Aka chips arenāt bad either. They are sometimes free and help cover power shutdowns, not that sucker and parasite doesnāt though.
Now that Iāve been thinking about imp, Imp recursion is fantastic in shaper. You can scavenge it back into play with a refresh of counters. You can also pawnshop and then clone chip it for a (Including kateās ability) net cost of 0 credits. Not to mention you can SMC one out pretty quickly. And with some sort of multi access, R&D Interface or Makers eye, R&D hits are almost a pseudo keyhole to trash a card.
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Plus it directly addresses NAPD Contract, which I donāt think anyone can emphasize enough.
Oh, Inside Job is 3 inf. Oops.
Imping an advanced NAPD in a remote would be hilarious.
You know, Grimoire isnāt half bad. 2 MU for 2c and one install is hard to beat.
But really, itās a 1c discount from Cybersolutions. I do like that it gives me an extra half Imp per Imp recursion. Mark my words, Legwork will be amazeballs.
Anyways, something we need to start thinking about: when I originally drafted this deck, I placed minimal importance on sentry breakers, as the worst thing that happens is you get your programs destroyed. Deus X and Sharpshooter took care of 95% of what I needed, and Femme/Mimic addressed anything else. Sharpshooter was primarily installed along with my Corroder so I could run from turn one, then mostly forgotten once I had a rig.
With H&P, I can no longer do that - previously the worst that can happen is Neural Katana (very rarely splashed) or brain damage (which is barely a thing). So my question:
Should we drop one or both Sharpshooters?
This could open up flex slots or we can look for a Sentry breaker more serious than Mimic. Itās WAY too common (for me at least) for the runner to do everything possible (purging Datasucker mostly) to force me into an Archer or Ichi 2.0 midgame when I have a Mimic on the table but no MU or SMCs left, and I lose a bit of momentum either attempting to avoid it, installing an Atman just in case, or hitting it and burning a CC to reinstall.
I like Sharpshooter against an Oversighted Archer, but Weyland players now know to use it on Curtain Wall or Hadrian. Itās nice early and kinda dead late due to MU Constraints. We canāt afford to burn a Deus X and SMC on a Komainu just to hit a Snare or something.
Thoughts? For one thing, youāre going to really like Parasite soon. Itāll save you a crapton against Komainu, Tsurugi, and Hive, to say the least.
Edit: For the record I donāt think thereās currently a viable alternative to Mimic aside from Ninja, which Iām not crazy about.
I know it isnāt very ideal, but if you are playing with parasites and/or datasuckers, pipeline isnāt too terrible. Itās only 3 to put out, but with datasuckers itās not too terrible of a breaker. It also frees up more influence for another imp/datasucker/site depending on your build. If you donāt run datasuckers, then it is a pretty awful breaker. Even dumping one on a dinosaurus gives you a pumpable mimic (Not that I advocate Dino aggressively)
Lysander ā Thatās very interesting; I think weāre playing the deck somewhat differently. I donāt reveal Sharpshooter until I absolutely need it, so that the Corp player wastes the maximum possible resources. In the early game, I facecheck with either nothing on the board or a lone SMC. Cutting a Sharpshooter would further tax the Clone Chips, but if weāre adding in 1-2 Scavenges, that could be okay. The catch is that if you draw it early, you basically have to install it, which for my playstyle would be giving the secret away. So far I havenāt played against anyone who expected to see Sharpshooter, so I like having the element of surprise with it.
My big concern for the next tournament (FFGās April monthly on Monday) is Caprice and NAPD Contract. I think Iām going to see a lot of both, and Iām torn between sticking with Siphon or preemptively going the Imp route.
I check everything naked first as well, but it allows me to facecheck further into the game when Corroder or Cyber Cypher is installed. Honestly when I have a Mimic and a Sharpshooter, Iāll just use Mimic and forget the Sharpshooter. So basically for my purposes, it fills in until I can get my only Sentry breaker on the board. Iād rather it be another Sentry breaker in a perfect world. With Inazuma and Komainu coming out, so many types of ice hurt that we may want to consider more than one of each icebreaker since SMC would be stretched too thin (Test Run could combo with Scavenge here I guess).
Iāll test with Imp tomorrow morning and tell you if itās as good in practice as it is on paper.
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