[Kate] Redefining Shaper Control Decks

How exactly do you plan on forcing PE to play your game when gaining control through Haemhorrage involves running frequently, which is playing right into PE’s game plan?

Sec Testing is just about the only thing that comes to mind.

As I stated earlier PE will still always be a tough matchup for most decks. Yet with only a limited number of ice there is always a soft spot.

Any deck with asset economy (PAD/Medical health clinic) the answer is simple exploit those and burn their hand so they have less opportunities to install over.

Archives can also be an easy target if they are not running shocks. You can afford to take a few shi kyus in order to gain control.

If they have both shocks and no asset econ to exploit they will be very low on ice possibly money. It will become a race, while they durdle around attempting to kill you, try and get set up, remember people are not expecting a hemorrhage deck and fewer people are accustomed to playing against it. Once you can eliminate their hand HQ is a safe place to store up counters (even RnD is fine as we expect to hit snares) they don’t have the luxury of being able to purge as a glacier deck might, due to soft servers and less money you can just build up again.

PE is tough and always a fun match up yet it’s not as fragile as it first may seem with no dmg protection, or levy, and only 40 cards. Once the bleeding begins even the mighty PE the “king of attrition” has a hard time dealing with its own medicine.

Apropos:

I played against a Doppelganger / Hemorrhage deck (out of Noise, but still) with RP and beat it 7-0.

Things were a little uncomfortable until I got ice over Archives (I delayed doing so in order to score a Nisei behind a Lotus Field, which I do at the earliest opportunity against Noise), after which I pretty much just cruised.

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@Calimsha, have you tweaked your list at all? I’m about to start testing with Stimhacks and was curious if you were missing the Femme.

I’ve not had Femme in for a while. It’s occasionally missed (see: when testing v. O&C ICE), but, not really.

Not to deviate from the topic, maybe just a little. What are your thoughts on the O&C ICE after testing?

Cool in the right deck, and pair well with Trick of Light. Builder can be sick. However, outside of Orion, not terribly threatening.

The problem with Orion is that it’s not a Destroyer, IIRC. Was a problem causer. :\

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Not needed so far. In the current card pool, there’s only 2 ICEs I really don’t want to face with my deck, and those are advanced changeling and susanoo no mikoto.
The first one is rarely played in more than 1 in most BS build and the second is almost never seen. So no.

I will probably go back to the drawing board after O&C release but for now, I don’t feel any modifications is needed.

Unfortunately for me, O&C comes out before my first Store Championship on Feb 1.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see either Femme or Datasucker, which you say you cut for the 2x Stimhacks. In the most recent you posted above, you have neither Femme/Sucker or Stimhack.

What did you cut for the Stims? I assume a Legwork for the 2 Influence, but what else? SOT?

One legwork for two stimhack. I’m playing a 46 cards deck.

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Shaper control deck thread? That works for me.

I have 2 builds I think can apply to it. One (the imps) I ran variants of for over a year, including at Worlds '14 which went 4-3. The other (big econ, no ppvp) I run currently, and if you ever play me on OCTGN its the Kate deck I usually play.


Deck 1: Imp Recursion.

Basic idea: Recur Imps, run efficiently with targetted Atmans and good breakers, trash cards from R+D and HQ, trash economy assets. Scavenge imp, clone chip SMC. Stimhack a targetted Atman into play for free, or 2 breakers via smc into clone chip smc.

Framework to the deck:

Kate, no exception. The credit keeps you playing fast.
3x test run
3x scavenge
3x diesel
2x other draw source, your choice (quality time imo)

3x clone chip
2x 1 memory hardware (astrolabe imo)

3x smc
3x atman
1x corroder
1x mimic
1x gordian OR 2x cyber cypher (gordian is safe, cyber is aggressive but costs you imp tokens via scavenge)
1x sharpshooter (needed)
1x deus ex (not needed, highly recommend)
2x or 3x imp (i prefer 3, but if you want influence back, go ahead)

economy suite focusing around Kati, high card-to-credits-gained ratio economy, and 3x stimhack.

imp is your scorched protection. no plascretes.
imp is your primary multi access. this deck is light on multi access.

I ran a one-off knight in the 2x imp variant before, and it was useful. I can see 2x imp, 2x stimhack for a David if you want it. Otherwise the deck is hard to change, and that’s why I moved on. It is strong vs anything based on operations. It destroys decks running asset economy. It is as good vs NEH as most decks, but free San San clears and economy killing make it interesting… the 2x Cyber Cypher version is the stronger version vs NEH. I have not revisited this deck since All That Remains.


Deck 2: Big economy, no PPVP.

Basic idea: Its like PPVP, but I trade the PPVPs and Dirty Laundrys in for cards that are bigger yield on their own. Lets be a lot more aggressive in my opinion, at the cost of a little less late game money.

Framework:

Kate, though might be alright out of CT also.
2x or 3x test run
3x diesel
2x other draw source, your choice (1 earthrise, 1 levy imo)
3x indexing
1x or 2x other multi access, your choice

3x clone chip
2x 1 memory hardware (astrolabe imo)

3x smc
2x or 3x atman
1x corroder
1x zu or 1x gordian
1x mimic
1x sharpshooter
1x deus ex

2x or 3x stimhack
2x or 3x kati jones
3x armitage codebusting
3x daily casts
3x sure gamble
3x lucky find

1x or 2x scorched protection

You have a ton of money, and Indexings. Kill the asset economy, you can always get back in the game money wise. Same old thing can be added for more Indexings to control their draw, otherwise the Levy gets them back fine. Legwork can be added to be better vs NEH early. Stimhack the Atmans to a strength that obsoletes ice, force them to slow down. Stimhack to kill OAI’d Curtain Wall vs Blue Sun. I like utopia shard in the deck, but thats a take it or leave it.


I play a lot of people, and those 2 decks gave a lot of decks a hard time. Blue Sun is the harder match up for both decks, for different reasons. Corporate Troubleshooter is a problem card. IT Dept I did not play a lot against, but I suspect might be an issue. Adding David to these decks would solve all of this.

CI is kind of a crapshoot. Legworks help here. So does Femme.

These decks performs very well vs RP, imo. These decks does well vs most HB lists, imo. These decks does well vs non-Biotic Labor NBN. These decks are great vs Non-Blue Sun Weyland.

Otherwise its NEH Biotic Labor. But its always NEH, and Clot will fix that. Its not impossible, not even close, but it always feels like a crapshoot on how good my Indexings are. Legwork would really help, as would adding some Makers Eyes to assist the Indexings.

Just let me know if you have feedback or questions.

And yes, I know. Atman… no Datasucker. I don’t like it, this works fine… add Datasucker if you like that, but I enjoy how this style plays now and it does well enough that I dont feel the need to change.

this idea occurred to me, somewhat of a marriage between CT Oracle and PP Kate Dog

PP Comet Theory

Chaos Theory: Wünderkind (Cyber Exodus)

Event (25)

Hardware (9)

Resource (2)

Icebreaker (5)

15 influence spent (max 15)
41 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Breaker Bay

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

maybe test run + scavenge is too gimmicky, if so probably replace the 3 scavenge with dirty laundry. ideally, your scavenges are functioning as economy cards worth 9,7,5. could maybe swap Lady for Ram since your Scavenge will get recycled through after you Levy. higher event density than Kate. had to go with 41 in the spirit of @Calimsha 46 =)

definitely won’t be as fast as Calim’s list, but maybe if we start to see slower corp decks this deck could be okay. was honestly considering double levy just to make sure you can outlast the grindiest of glaciers

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A CT / Blue Sun player just took down the Store Champ I was competing in yesterday. He knocked me down the bracket in elims with his Corp. His CT is a little different, though. He does run Torch, but he also runs Femme and Sneakdoor. Not sure about the rest of the influence since I haven’t played against his runner deck since Worlds, but he’s been playing it for a long time and it seems pretty good.

For my own part, I did pretty well – a friend of mine knocked me out in the game for top 4 – and Prepaid Kate did solid work all day long. I ran 46 cards, but I went for the third SMC over the second SOT. I’m unsure if that was the right call; there was one game where I was desperately digging for a Scavenge and the second one was the bottom card, and if I could have hit the second SOT (first was already used), the game might have gone differently.

I played against:

  • Untrashable RP, I trashed all of the econ for long enough to slow him down while I liberated a Nisei and two NAPDs, then hit the Nisei he went for behind Lotus Field + Caprice with CyCy on the remote.
  • EtF glacier, I don’t remember this game at all. Indexing may have been involved. I won.
  • 6-6 tie at time in game 1 vs Blue Sun with Scorch. Three rezzed Archers and no window to reset Atman from 8 (Janus) to 6. However, I forgot my bad pub here several times, and would have gotten a Maker’s Eye run off on the last turn if I’d had one more credit. Whoops.
  • Win over RP Grail, we’re 4-4 and he has a Nisei counter. I Index and see nothing, but run again and bluff him into using the counter. Later, he IAAs The Future Perfect with Caprice in his remote. Since he has no Nisei counter, I Stimhack in last click last card (i.e. I die if I don’t get it). I’m sure he’s going to bid 0 on the psi game, and he does. Victory!
  • Loss to NEXT Design FA, 8-4. We only had 13 minutes for this game after a crazy game 1 with his MaxX vs my Blue Sun and its Crisium Grid recursion (which I won). I played way too fast and sloppy and let him get 2 Architect fires, which was enough to find him what he needed to score it out on the final turn after time was called. However…
  • Win over NEXT Design in round 1 of elims. We had 35 minutes for this game, that was more like it. We’re at 6-6 and I Index him with a facedown card on his SanSan that I think is an NAPD. I leave EffCom on top (it was already there) and run again. He rezzes a Jackson on the SanSan (!) and shuffles. I cut, and pull… the EffCom!
  • Loss to Blue Sun. I got a slow start whereas he got his economy up. I couldn’t get into his scoring remote, so I make a hail mary Indexing into Maker’s run even though he has a facedown card in a second remote. Jackson. There had been 3 agendas on top (and I already had 3 points), but after the Jackson shuffle there were zero. I fire Utopia Shard after the ensuing SEA, but hit the two non-Scorch cards in his four-card hand. Alas.

On the whole, the deck is very solid and scares the crap out of everyone who sits down across from me and has played against it before. Yet for some reason I’m still the only Prepaid Kate player around here. I’m going to try to turn that advantage into more game wins during these Store Champs; we’ll see how things go.

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I traded in my Lucky Finds, my Decoy, and my Utopia Shard and my Levy for 2 Wanton Destruction, Dirty Laundrys, a Day Job, and “the Bike” (the new hardware) in my Big Economy but no PPVP Kate.

Gonna keep trying but Wanton is a really welcome addition, and Im not that much lower on Econ for doing it.

Trashing 3 cards lets me break up Grail Ice, break up kill combos, safe pseudo-access on Jinteki kill decks, and make a more aggressive play when NEH puts what I expect is a San San down. I like it, and I’m gonna play in my next SC with a version like this.

The Bike is cool in Kate. Installs for 1, and you can avoid the tag when you know it could be an issue. Biggest reasons would be if DRT decks are big in your meta, or if you wanna save 2 bucks thru Data Raven period… or avoiding the Supermodernism style bait “Run it, you die… dont run it I win” Since you avoid the tag now… or, and this is the big one that made me realize how much I like the Bike, lose 1 click if you are trying to be greedy with Kati vs Snatch n Grab. I think thats a good card for BS decks to have, and I’ll lose 1-2 dollars to just keep kati safe until I get my money safe.

Combine with Stimhacks, and losing 1 click isnt the end of days. I suggest trying the bike out, and seeing if you like it over Plascrete… they serve different functions.

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those sound like some killer games!

It was a pretty crazy day of Netrunner, for sure! Most of the people I played against were other strong local players – e.g. the NEXT Design player was @Xavi, who was one win off the cut at Worlds with that same Corp deck. I’m honestly thinking pretty hard about trying it out, it’s a really interesting build and it seems strong. And no one who hasn’t seen it before has a clue how to play against it, he does crazy stuff like score a previously double advanced EffCom on a SanSan, then use the remaining click to make 4 clicks, install Melange and fire Melange. It’s awesome.

I had my share of both amazing luck (the EffCom pull was 2/35 odds or something) and terrible luck (damn you, Utopia Shard!), so on the day I think I came out more or less even. The RP Grail game was especially crazy, it went very long since most of his agendas were near the bottom – not much either of us could do about that. When he got that Nisei scored I knew I was in trouble, but I’d seen him bid 2 on the first psi game for The Future Perfect (I bid 0 on purpose, expecting to lose), and then later I successfully bid 1 on another psi game to trash a Caprice and steal an NAPD. So I felt like he might suspect I had his psi game number, and use his Nisei token more freely than he might have otherwise. Keeping a straight face during my return run after Indexing was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in a game of Netrunner. He was looking at me and talking through whether he thought I was bluffing him or not, and I had a sudden, powerful impulse to burst into laughter. I managed to suppress it, and he spent the token. Then he drew his card, shouted “YOU ARE SUCH A HUGE TROLL!” with a massive grin on his face, and at that point I pretty much lost it.

Also, the game-winning psi bid to beat Caprice on the Stimhack run was 0, not 1. I had beaten him on a 1 bid previously and had also seen him bid 2 to my 0. I was certain he’d think I would never bid 0 with the game on the line in those specific circumstances. When we both opened our hands and no credits fell out, we went straight into a handshake. I’m pretty sure I had a giant shit-eating grin on my face. Crazy game.

Of course, it took so long that the second game was a 0-0 tie. And then I had that 6-6 tie in game 1 of the next round! But I still made the cut, took a pretty good shot at the eventual winner in the third round of elims, and almost made top 4, so I’ll take it.

I really do mean almost: the elimination game for top 4 was Gabe vs my Blue Sun. I had to leave R&D open early, and he pulled Atlas + NAPD off the top in the first 3 turns. Ouch. Still, I slowly sealed things up and constructed a Curtain Wall + Wormhole scoring remote, getting an NAPD and a zero token Atlas (I had PriReq in hand already and Ash in the remote). In hindsight I should have gone for the Atlas first, that scoring window was more open than I thought. He managed to get a Corporate War off R&D (hence why I should have scored the Atlas and Jacksoned the NAPD back in), so it was 4-6 and I had double PriReq and Atlas in hand since he seemed to be focusing on R&D.

I put Adonis in my remote, hoping to bait a run. He dumps Kati and says he’ll run the remote, then rethinks and maths a bit… and realizes he’s exactly 1 credit shy of getting in and beating an Ash trace. Instead he runs HQ and pulls the game-winning PriReq out of my hand. So close! And I didn’t play it perfectly by any stretch, so I’m happy with the outcome. I just need more reps with the deck (and 65 minute rounds, please!) to get a better sense of when I can be aggressive and when I should durdle. In that game I was nervous because of how quickly he got to 4 points and how long it took me to shut down his R&D accesses, so I played just a little bit too conservatively.

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My brain hurts thinking about our speed game…

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I went to a SC this weekend… went 9-0-1 in the swiss, 1-2 in the cut… with only 1 loss being my runner and it came down to a caprice nisei psi game.

the deck still plays well, tackles all the usual stuff in a good way.


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

Event (20)
3x Stimhack (Core Set) •••
3x Diesel (Core Set)
1x The Maker’s Eye (Core Set)
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
2x Test Run (Cyber Exodus)
1x Quality Time (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x Indexing (Future Proof)
2x Lucky Find (Double Time) ••••
1x Wanton Destruction (Order and Chaos) ••••
1x Day Job (Order and Chaos) •

Hardware (6)
3x Clone Chip (Creation and Control)
2x Astrolabe (Up and Over)
1x Qianju PT (Order and Chaos)

Resource (8)
3x Armitage Codebusting (Core Set)
2x Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x Daily Casts (Creation and Control)

Icebreaker (8)
1x Corroder (Core Set) ••
1x Mimic (Core Set) •
1x Gordian Blade (Core Set)
1x Deus X (A Study in Static)
3x Atman (Creation and Control)
1x Sharpshooter (True Colors)

Program (3)
3x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control)

15 influence spent (maximum 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Order and Chaos

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