[Kate] Redefining Shaper Control Decks

I like the look of it, but I can’t help but think that cutting Lucky/Day Job for some combination or Cache/Bank Job + Aesop would be quite good since you’re already running Armitage over ppvp.

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Thats an idea I havent tried. I wouldnt want Bank Job as I wanted non conditional money, hence why Armitage/Daily instead of the standard PPVP suite.

But Cache/Aesops might be an idea. I would probably go to 3 Astrolabes in that too, but who knows.

Not sure how I would adjust it. I just designed that economy suite to be good at all times. Flexible, at the cost of like 10% of the efficiency of a PPVP suite.

3 things stick out:

  • That’s a lot of Atmen without any suckers. What are they for?
  • Wanton over Utopia Shard is weird. It’s less influence, more flexible, combines with Stimhack, and is hidden from the corp until the last second. For all that, it only trashes 1 fewer card.
  • Motorbike!
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Corroder + Mimic + Gordian + 2 Atmans at whatever strength you need them at.

To save money, or to break a sentry you otherwise couldn’t. For example. The stimhacks play them for free… so target what you wanna target.

Almost always get 1 at 4. 5 is usually choice #2. 6 isn’t bad when dealing with Archer… 7 for Wormhole… really just feel it out.

It sounds weird, but I have been playing like that for well over a year. It works, and very well. Hell I had a period after C+C but before Wraparound where I actually just played 3 Atmans, no Suckers, no other breakers. It was wild. I got very used to working with fixed settings and Scavenges back then to reset it. Now that isn’t as needed, but I just view the card in a different way than most. Its a suppliment, not the core.

Wanton over the Shard is a test mainly… getting the 3rd card is key for trying to break up Biotic Labors, Fast Tracks, and Kill pieces like Sea or Scorch. I easily could see it being a Shard… or 5 influence for both to wipe the whole hand.

And yea… The Bike. Riding so fast the haters can’t see my swag.

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I’ve been thinking about the last few cards in @Calimsha’s latest build

The first thing is that I think the deck is better at 45 cards. This seems easy to me - drop an Indexing. It’s a card that’s really hard to use against strong corp players, and I find myself constantly discarding it. Yes, you can use it with the plan of not running R&D again later that same turn… but wouldn’t you rather be playing TME instead?

The other areas where I am considering changes are 1 Atman 2 Cyber-Cypher 2 TME. My two thoughts are 1) I’d love to be able to play 3 TME 2) 2 Cyber-Cypher as the decoders is often awkward.

A lot of corps decks are playing Quandary as their main code gates; against those decks it really sucks to have to install Cyber-Cypher to break a Quandary (you’d rather Parasite them, but often you don’t have a choice), and would rather be playing 1 Cyber-Cypher 1 Zu (though maybe you don’t need Zu since Atman set to 0 also handles Quandary (and lets you save Lady counters when breaking Wraparound against NEH!)). Probably though you really need 2 Cyber-Cypher against decks that run real code gates and I’ve just got tunnel vision from not playing those decks very often.

So from -1 Indexing, I think the potential cuts for a 3rd TME would be Atman or Deus X (or the other Indexing, but I think 1 is still solid), and it’s up to you to decide whether you think you can get away with it in your meta.

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I’ve been trying to figure out how to work in the third SMC to address the Parasite availability problem. I’m currently testing -1 Quality time and +1 SMC with 46 cards, but I haven’t played enough games to conclude anything yet.

I do often find myself holding an Indexing and waiting for the right window to use it, but I think I prefer that to the alternative of not having the one-of when I actually want it.

Atman is my least used card by far. Indexing is really good against NEH if you keep Jackson Howard off the table. It’s much worse in the Weyland matchups but I think that is a sacrifice that I’m personally willing to make considering Indexing is so key to beating NEH.
It’s pretty hard for them to make RnD taxing enough for Indexing to be bad without falling far behind in the race for points.

I strongly considered 1 ZuKey 1 Cyber Cypher. I think that it’s an interesting choice and would improve some matchups and weaken others. I decided to keep 2 cyber cypher for my SC yesterday and i think that 1 zukey would have worked out about the same but things could have really changed if I had matched up against a bunch of Viktor 2s or Merlins.

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I don’t think you need a third SMC (and I definitely wouldn’t drop a QT). The third SMC would prevent the games where you draw a million cards and still don’t see the program you need that happen occasionally (I recall a recent game where I drew 3/4th of my deck without seeing SMC or Lady) at the expense of a wasted card slot in the majority of your games; I don’t think that’s a trade you want to make.

I agree with the -1 indexing. I normally run -2 indexing, +1 RDI, which works for me. Then again, there’s loads of BS in my meta. In terms of Cy-Cy, it’s just so unbelievably good against lotus field. Perhaps you’re right about zu.13, - I’ll try out cy cy + zu and see what I think. Atman is really just there for the emergency of someone using changeling or so forth, which happens enough to warrant sad faces.

@TandooriChicken just got me with double Changeling on R&D and remote out of Gagarin, after a Chronos Project caught me with Mimic and Atman in the bin. Oof.

I’ve found it hard to reliably get the breakers I need fast enough against NEH, which is what had me thinking about the third SMC. Of course, shortly after making that switch, I Dieseled into 2x SMC with one already in hand. :stuck_out_tongue:

-2 Indexing +1 RDI is intriguing. PE has dropped off the map around here.

I agree re Indexing. Maker’s and RDI are both almost always better. It was hard enough to stick a meaningful Indexing when it was just Jackson we were dealing with. Now it’s incrementally harder with Boot Camp (admittedly a niche card, but not a bad one) adding another RND shuffle effect. I guess we will just have to depend on Keyhole-mediated herd immunity against PE. Even if it is prevalent in your meta, it’s certainly beatable without Indexing.

Haven’t played Kate much lately, I wonder how does @Calimsha’s build fare against Blue Sun? Do you SMC->Lady->go immediately when they OAI? Sometimes you can be couple of creds short to do that and later on rezzed Curtain Wall will possibly tax Lady to death.

It crush blue sun by out-econ the Corp.
I was worried at first but in practice the match up is really easy

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BS is one of its best matchups.

I assume the deck will want to run Clot. What does it drop for one of those? (assuming it is real, and only 1 INF)

I’ll probably drop the 2nd Legwork for Clot + 1, maybe a second Stimhack. The 2nd Legwork isn’t as needed if the meta isn’t fastrobiotic-heavy and NEH is enough to hose FA deck. But then, I think the deck will probably need the 3rd SMC.

Agreement all around. Clot will be too good with SMC/CC not to run, amiright?

I loooooove 2x Legwork, but I don’t really see another good cut. Fitting in the third SMC may also force a switch from Indexing to RDI to make a slot.

Again, Indexing is less good if fast FA deck like NEH are out of the meta or already hosed by another card (namely the Clot here). I think I will probably for something like 2 RDI + 1 Indexing or 1 RDI + 2 TME on my R&D Multi-access if clot is a real card.

I’m currently on 1 RDI + 3 TME and 45 cards, so I could see going to 1 RDI + 2 TME, swapping a Legwork for Clot, and then thinking about Stimhack #2 as card 46.

I know that I can out-money them, but given that the deck’s econ is finite (zero indefinitely repeatable econ cards like Kati Jones or Magnum Opus) it feels weird to play so passive. At what point do you begin making runs and what are your goals for those runs? Against other decks I like to face check in order to force them to rez ice to set myself up for multiaccess runs later. But every time I run against Blue Sun (once they are no longer on low credits) they rez something painful like Tollbooth or Caduceus and then pick it up, and I’ve accomplished less than nothing.

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