Can you expand on this a little? I’ve been playing SamRS’s Reina, and I’m having trouble using Kati. I’m a newbie, but she she just seems so slow. And I thought the point of these decks (both this one and his previous Anatomy of Anarchy Tag-Me Reina deck) was to run with tags. I’m confused.
Sam’s list just got better. I’m loving Symmetrical Visage.
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My list doesn’t go tagme if possible. It still runs fairly aggressively but not to the point of siphon lists.
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There are two similar but different sub-archetypes. In Chris Martin’s, you’re trying to Siphon them a whole ton. You’ll usually be tagged all game. In SamRS’s, Kati provides the econ with Vamp+Lamprey as denial. Given that Kati is your money, you never want to be tagged without a really good reason.
In the Kati list, you’re not really rushing, although you will certainly be putting on pressure. As per the title, you’re trying to get them into a “headlock”, where they get to 0 credits and have to spend a turn purging to get rid of your Lamprey while you go wild on centrals. That usually happens in the midgame although it does happen sometimes in the early game.
Controversial point here: the rig is really small (often just Eater) and Vigil is awesome so you want it early. That leaves you with lots of memory.
I think Data Folding has a strong case here. Your programs (Crescentus and Parasite) are transient. Kati doesn’t play well with power turns (installing Lamprey, running three times, or likewise with Keyhole). Kati is vulnerable to Snatch and Grab (which is seeing play). If you are taking from Kati at 6, that’s 2 credits/click - the same as Data Folding at its worst (assuming you value clicks at 1 credit - I value them higher, particularly in this deck). I’ve found 3 Lucky Find, 3 Daily Casts, 3 Liberated, 3 Data Folding plenty of money.
On a less controversial note, Inject is really good in this deck. You need the draw to find the critical money, and with three Clone Chips whatever ends up in the Heap is just as easily accessed.
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Going to post this now since I’m no longer in contention for the top 16. This list went undefeated on the day, although my choice of corps was horrible so maybe not the highest SoS.
Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter (Mala Tempora)
Event (6)
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
2x Vamp (Trace Amount)
1x Test Run (Cyber Exodus) •••
Hardware (5)
3x Clone Chip (Creation and Control) ••••• •
2x Vigil (Order and Chaos)
Resource (18)
3x Liberated Account (Trace Amount)
3x Compromised Employee (Trace Amount) •••
1x Scrubber (A Study in Static)
2x Xanadu (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x Daily Casts (Creation and Control)
3x Earthrise Hotel (The Source)
Icebreaker (5)
3x Knight (Mala Tempora)
2x Eater (Order and Chaos)
Program (11)
3x Parasite (Core Set)
3x Crescentus (A Study in Static) •••
1x Keyhole (True Colors)
3x Lamprey (Upstalk)
1x D4v1d (The Spaces Between)
15 influence spent (maximum 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Order and Chaos
Comp Employee has been an allstar, almost every deck right now is running at least ash, and several decks are running large trace ice to get around calimsha kate. Between that and the credit bonus on rez. Visage went out to make for comp employee, earthrise is definitely the best form of card draw for this deck, but maybe a 2/1 split with visage might be right.
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Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
What was your most common Test Run target?
keyhole is the most common, but I think i’ve used it on every program between the tournament and testing
yeah.
i can’t make myself take the comp employees out of reina.
course, i can’t make myself run eater/keyhole. i hate winning.
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I had to play against it, definitely good tech for asset econ(scrubber no 1), I was RP, not a great draw, but definitely super poor despite running ALL asset economy pretty much.
i’ve been playing with 3x Symmetrical Visage and 1x Test Run/Sneakdoor, and still finding great success with it. Really loving Symmetrical Visage for econ/draw, and the Test Run for grabbing Eater when I don’t get it early or D4v1d for Blue Sun match-ups. I haven’t had to use Sneakdoor yet so sounds like it’s good to drop – Compromised Employee seems like a good replacement.
no I’ve Had Worse seems risky! as does only 2x Eater, especially for face-checking Jinteki ICE. curious why you went 3x Knight instead of the other way around?
Knight: you can tutor eater if need be, but most of the face checking happens face first, lots of knights allows you to get around crisium grids and stop 1 ice remote plays very easily. Knight is also more efficient sometimes.
IHW: Rarely got the trigger, and I already have a pretty good matchup against damage decks due to keyhole and vamp. Earthrise + money early on means you’re probably going to win. Earthrise’s 3 extra cards is worth the wait.
tried this list a couple times last night right after you posted it; first serious games with the archetype since way back when you first posted this thread.
I gotta say, even as a longtime Nasir player, this is a tough deck to pilot! It plays great, very fun (for me) and really strong but so nerve wracking to play! Probably just me but I always catch myself assuming the worse case scenario every time I run on face-down ICE and have to trust that they’re too poor to rez.
One thing I ran into is that they guy I was playing with (and indeed many people in our local) are teching swordsman hard. Eater hate is very real around here, as is overmindstrips and atman hate. Parasites are the deck’s only answer, so each one bought a server 3 turns (at least) of safety (which in my case was put to use crushing out credits on a melange… it was bad news). Not sure it’s worth slotting in mimic, but just something to be aware of in the more ICE heavy jinteki world we now live in.
They want to spend 4 credits to rez a 2 str piece of ice to trash my eater (and lose to parasite)? I’ll take that, since the end result of no ice, no breaker, is a win since the runner doesn’t need cards to get in. Me + swordsman = ain’t shook.
Well done, Sam! I ended 22nd with Reina Siphon and RP Bandwidth. Was just one win away from sneaking into top 16 
I think I got 23rd? Corp deck imploded on itself so I only got to 18 prestige
Sorry if you posted this already (I looked but couldn’t find it). What corp were you playing?
Yeah, I suspect I just got hit with a case of good draw/bad draw - the end result wasn’t “no ice, no breaker,” it was “no breaker, ~28 credit lead from 4 turns of melange while I dug for parasite and a new eater holy shit where are all my goddamn cards” followed by “snatch n grab loaded kati.”
So anyways, that’s just one game obviously, but it’s definitely important with this deck to stay on your toes - even a weak little opening like swordsman can be pried open if the corp times things just right, especially if you’re new to the deck and less ready for the possible counterplays.
A bad Argus deck with a good crim matchup. Hit a bunch of anarch with IHW.
Volto clone chip will let you walk through swordsman, although that’s more for vamp runs then remotes
I still find the issue with this build is that it can’t recover from really bad starts. Kate and MaxX can recover from even the worst starts, which is why I think this deck will always be tier 2. Nothing against it; it is a fun deck.
edit: I am definitely going to try the SSCI build; I like going down to 2 Eater and using 3 Knight. Comployee seems like it could help the economy, too.