[Kate] Redefining Shaper Control Decks

Deck Archetypes
2487

There has been far too long since anyone said something about the best ID in the game. I am mostly a reader, both on the forums and on slack (except for asking @anon50033301 for his lates version of his decks I can bring to a tounrament) but I can’t stand this thread being quiet for over a month now so I’ll post what I am currently messing around with:

Kate “Mac” McCaffrey: Digital Tinker (Core Set)

Event (10)

Hardware (7)

Resource (11)

Icebreaker (7)

Program (10)

11 influence spent (max 15-4☆=11)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Democracy and Dogma

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

I generally prefer Parasite over D4v1d and I really miss not having legwork so might go down that route again, but I don’t really want to cut the Political Operative and don’t want to go down in number of caches either so I think that will have to be without cache+aesops at all then.

2488

I really like your list on paper, but I feel dumb when I try to play decks using this economy package right now. It’s probably just because I’ve been so busy and have barely played any games lately, but I don’t know how to pilot decks like yours in the current meta.

Can you (or others) give me more pointers for how to pilot this kind of deck? I’m leaning towards Kate for an upcoming regionals and I want to give her a try, but I’ve been struggling to feel prepared with my runner decks. What do you mulligan for? What are the key cards you try to get on the table early on? What is your general game plan for the popular match ups out there? And any thoughts on whether or not to slot tech cards like Paricia, Employee Strike, or Net Shield?

2489

The most important thing to get on the table early and what I mulligan for is the long term economy, Proco turn one is really good so I almost always mulligan if I don’t have that. Techincal writers early is also really good, so a hand with one or more TWs and hyperdriver or cache is probably ok as well.

Other then that you mostly draw with proco and build your board while making few but high impact runs every now and then (indexing, pressure when they try to score etc.).

If you expect a lot of IG I would not try to squeeze Paricia + Net Shield + Employee-strike in here but rather play another deck I think :stuck_out_tongue: What I’d maybe change depending on meta is notoriety -> plascrete, DeusX or escher, but putting in more then that probably makes the deck
too weak. There are allready lots of tech-cards in here with Polop, clot, film critic and so on.
And I think only one of Paricia/Net Shield/Employee is not enough to swing the IG-matchup in your favour anyway.

1 Like
2490

Nice deck, I’m running quite similar version currently.

My main differences are having the Parasite instead of Caches. This is mainly for the annoying Jinteki ICE which can get out of hand quickly without that.

Also instead of PolOp I’m using that last point of influence on Utopia Shard. This has been working awesome for me, winning me a great deal of the games.

The downside is though that my version is a bit weaker economically (I run Laundry/Gamble/Casts/Kati package with ProCo). If only Shapers would get some solid econ card in faction, I think that might have pushed them back to the top! :slight_smile:

2491

So don’t play cache ?
Problem solved.

2492

Probably wont when I have lost enough with it :stuck_out_tongue:

I blame you for having to test stuff in Kate, you haven’t given me a new list in months :wink:

You talked about how you thought Polop would put Kate back on top (granted, this was before IG was a big thing) have you tested anything yet? =)

4 Likes
2493

This is pretty similar to the Kate deck I piloted to third place in the Madison regionals! I’ve been playing it for about three months. My recommendations:

I don’t think Mimic is really necessary. The deck is rich enough to slot a second Atman in its place which saves you an influence and gives you a better way to deal with Palana decks that like to stack Ichi 1.0 and Assassin in the same server.

Here’s a thought I have that breaks from the general trend at the moment: if you run two Atman and Sharpshooter (which you already have) then you don’t really need to run D4v1d anymore. Think of all the extra influence! I slotted a Stimhack (for Atmans!) and a parasite in its place and felt good about my life so far.

If you get rid of D4v1d, you have enough program recursion that you definitely dont need Inti as a backup barrier breaker.

I absolutely think that you want 3x Self Modifying Code if you aren’t running artist colony. Finding those breakers as soon as possible (without loosing clone chips to recur smc) can make or break some games.

1 Like
2494

Mimic is really good though :stuck_out_tongue: I’ll try 2 atmans over it because it sounds interesting but I think Mimic will still be worth it, especially if things like Cobra is starting to see play. And if the mimic-inf goes towards a stimhack to install the second atman I fell like it’s quite equal anyway.

Yeah I probably prefer parasite+sucker/stimhack in place of d4v1d, but that is one more reason to not play aesop and cache and that is what I want to try atm.

I see Inti more as a nbn-breaker then back-up. 4tman + 1 Lady is mostly enough I feel like anyway.

Agree that 2 smc can be bad sometimes, but most times I just draw into the breakers anyway so I think 2 is fine, however I wont argue that 3 is better if you can get room for it.

Also realised yesterday that I probably want to have either 3 notorietys or 1, since the second quite often wont matter if you dont follow up with a third one. And since I don’t want to cut anything atm I think it will be one noto and add third smc.

3 Likes
2495

I posted this on another thread, but I’m looking for feedback on a build I’m toying around with. The basic idea is to use Patron as an alternative Faust draw engine in a Shaper deck. This is primarily because I think Shaper is just more fun for me to play than Anarch, and I’m trying to see how Patron compares to my expectations.

The goal is to get Patron + Jak Sinclair for a free 2 cards/turn, as long as there is at least 1 unprotected server. There is 1x John Masanori, so if you get that out, you also get 3 cards instead of 2. The card draw engine is flexible, so you can also use the free run from Jak to access and trash an asset, and then use Dirty Laundry to get 2-3 cards and 3 credits in one click.

Not sure on the full economy package or ID. This seems to make sense to me in Kate, but my friend tried to make a case for Hayley. I just think it needs the money discounts, which combos well with Technical Writer. Should I make room for Councilman or other asset hate? Any other ideas, such as what to cut so I can stay at 45 cards?

Without further ado…

Kate “Mac” McCaffrey: Digital Tinker

Event (11)
3x Diesel
3x Dirty Laundry
1x Levy AR Lab Access
1x Notoriety
3x Sure Gamble

Hardware (8)
2x Astrolabe
3x Clone Chip ☆☆☆
1x Plascrete Carapace
2x R&D Interface

Resource (15)
1x Artist Colony
1x Film Critic
2x Jak Sinclair ••••
1x John Masanori
3x Patron
3x Professional Contacts
1x Same Old Thing
3x Technical Writer

Icebreaker (4)
1x Atman
1x Chameleon
1x Faust ••
1x Inti

Program (8)
1x Clot ••
1x D4v1d ••••
2x Hyperdriver
1x Paricia
3x Self-modifying Code

12 influence spent (max 15-3☆=12)
46 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Salsette Island

2496

The problem with Patron is that it just costs too much and ends up being an awkward card if they ICE all their servers. Horizontal decks are popular these days, but there are a lot of decks trying to counter Whizzard by just not playing assets, and those decks make Patron real sad. The only reason Security Testing is played is because it costs 0, and even then it’s usually relegated to 2 copies rather than 3… If it cost 3, I don’t think it would ever make it into a deck. It’s a similar position with Patron.

If I install Patron, there’s no guarantee how many cards it will draw me. Some games it might be several, but in a lot of those games I’m going to have to pay through an ICE in order to draw them, and that’s counter-productive. If I instead play Quality Time, I’m still paying 3, but it always gets me 5 cards. Plus, the rest aren’t dead (or nearly dead) draws.

Patron’s an interesting card, but the opportunity cost of playing it over other cards makes it not worth it. It’s just not costed competitively enough. It just feels like you’re importing Criminal’s problems into Shaper, and paying more for the card to boot.

3 Likes
2497

I think it’s most interesting in Criminal, where there was an actual problem to solve.

2498

Time to necro the pre-paid Kate thread again! With the release of deuces wild, and the danger of relying on resource-based economy in the face of CTM decks, pre-paid Kate seems like a decent choice once more. The deck is really squeezed for influence–the pre-paids plus neutral events eat up 10 influence-- but the core strategy is still incredibly powerful. Here’s the version I’ve been playing lately:
Kate “Mac” McCaffrey: Digital Tinker

Event (23)
1x “Freedom Through Equality”
3x Deuces Wild ●●●
3x Diesel
3x Dirty Laundry
2x Employee Strike ●●
2x Indexing
1x Levy AR Lab Access
2x Lucky Find ●●●●
1x Quality Time
3x Sure Gamble
2x The Maker’s Eye

Hardware (9)
2x Astrolabe
2x Clone Chip ☆☆
3x Prepaid VoicePAD ☆☆☆
2x Sports Hopper

Resource (5)
2x Councilman
3x Same Old Thing

Icebreaker (6)
1x Atman
1x Cyber-Cypher
1x Gordian Blade
1x Mimic ●
1x Sharpshooter
1x Snowball

Program (2)
2x Self-modifying Code

10 influence spent (max 15-5☆=10, available 0)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to 23 Seconds

Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.

The ability to run indexing, maker’s eye, and freedom through equality gives you a very strong R&D threat, and the burst econ and two employee strikes help fight CTM. I’ve really been liking the sports hoppers. They work as psuedo-plascretes vs. kill, the link is great vs. CTM, and spending 2 credits (with Kate’s discount) to draw 3 cards isn’t that terrible either, so its never a dead card. The biggest problem with the deck is snowball–not a particularly impressive barrier breaker. I might try to find space for an inti as well, so you have a cheap answer to wraparound and vanilla.

I’ve also considered a more radical change of dropping the clone chips entirely and running 1 femme, 1 lady, 1 inti, 2 test run 2 scavenge. Femme is great against tollbooth, and freeing up influence for lady would be nice. Test run is another card that synergizes nicely with the pre-paids. I’ll do some testing and see if this set up works out.

Anyone else returning to pre-paid? Any thoughts on how to build it?

2499

I tested CtM against a deck almost exactly like this one and won every game very handily. If one Breaking News->Closed slips through you are finished :frowning: You can bounce back from 0 money OK, but you end up way too far behind.

2500

I can see that being a big problem. Most of my games against CTM so far start off well, but then I eventually end up falling behind and needing to go for hail-mary indexing/maker’s eye runs, which sometimes works but isn’t that reliable. Not sure if there’s a fix for that–I considered NACH + film critic, so you could avoid the breaking news tags, but it feels pretty slow and clunky to set up, with the risk of the CTM player just rushing you out or being so far ahead by the time you’re set up that you can’t keep up.

2501

“crumbles to BN->ASI/Closed Accounts” sounds like the “dies to Doomblade” of Netrunner. It’s true of almost every runner deck. This one can actually play an economy card from zero credits, unlike most.

3 Likes
2502

I’ve been doing PrePaid Stealth. I tried something very similar to what you have there, but found that multiple strength Sentries was kind of a pain. Dagger has cured that entirely. Here’s where I’m at atm.

Who Needs Influence When You Have Money?

Kate “Mac” McCaffrey: Digital Tinker (Core Set)

Event (21)

Hardware (8)

Resource (6)

Icebreaker (5)

Program (6)

8 influence spent (max 15-7☆=8, available 0)
46 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Blood Money

The Rumor Mill used to be a third copy of Deuces and either a Turning Wheel or a Political Operative, depending on my mood, but I’ve since dropped a Deuce to fit in that sexy, sexy Mill. With all the credits out of nowhere, this one also has the benefit of recovering from a Closed Accounts faster, since Stealth credits also enable running while broke.

Not sure where I stand on the Fracter, but 2x Lady and 2x CC has been good so far. The Sandberg/Next decks are kind of a pain if they get a lot of Next rezzed, since that can put Silver on 6 subs, but it’s been manageable so far anyhow. It’s not like I’d prefer to pay through the nose with Corroder either.

I usually don’t install Dai V, but it’s nice to have as a backup for something like a billion sub Tour Guide (or some seriously out of control Next Silvers =P). Mirror is good, mostly because you really need 6 MU for the Cloaks, but the reoccurring credit regen is kinda cool, seeing as you also have PrePaid as a target.

2503

Interesting–have you tested this against CTM? I feel like you really want employee strikes in that matchup, and the longer set up time of finding your stealth piece might hamper you in that matchup. On the other hand, refractor would be very nice against tollbooth and archangel.

2504

If you care about the CtM matchup, you could always go Security Nexus Kate. It’s not fast but drawing a single rabbit hole is going to blank their ID. Problem is that Security Nexus Kate gets setup at glacier speed and CtM can simply rush agendas out. I’m running a build with Opus and Underworld Connections for econ and it’s too slow if they get a good start with Sensie.

I’m thinking about switching to a PPVP build for speed as the nexus part of nexus Kate is pretty small. It only takes 6 influence (3 if you run 1 copy of nexus and use trade-ins) and 5 cards and you get 4 link + excellent solution to any single ice.

2505

This is my attempt to make Nexus Kate a bit faster. Clicks are my only solution to stacked Elis at the moment, but the Clot is too important to cut for a better fracter.

Speed comes mainly from Career Fair + Casts/Earthrise and Stimhack. UWC is too slow during setup to run the full 3x

GOOD LUCK I’M BEHIND 7 PROXIES

Kate “Mac” McCaffrey: Digital Tinker (Core Set)

Event (15)

Hardware (11)

Resource (8)

Icebreaker (4)

Program (7)

13 influence spent (max 15-2☆=13, available 0)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Blood Money

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

2 Likes
2506

That actually looks like a better version than my list. The lack of an efficient barrier breaker hurts but we could always go to 1 nexus, 1 trade-in and import a paperclip if high strength barriers come back into fashion.

Nexus Kate I think is something that would have benefit from the kind of deck tuning that PPVP Kate got. I have an intuition that there’s an good deck in there somewhere, just need to refine the list until people figure out what exactly to run.