For todays entry, I want to talk about the state of the Shapers and more particularly, Kate. For the last few months I've just considered the Shaper faction to just be in a bad spot. They gained some super powerful cards but their overall strategy in the game just didn't seem to fit with the way that the Corp decks were being built. How could we score agendas if our opponent would never build a remote server and just fast advance everything? That was the question that I would ask myself and then would just answer it by tunnel visioning and assuming that you just couldn't and move on to a deck that could (like either of the other two runners).
Recently, I've found out that my thought process was just wrong. I want to start by saying that I don't think Chaos Theory is very good in a vacuum. I think that her +1MU is fine, and 40 cards is certainly good for a Runner, but Kate's ability, if played right, is so much better. I tried all kinds of Chaos Theory decks; from heavy link to Dino based decks that aimed to Personal Touch and Dino all your icebreakers to break through any fort with ease. These decks were all "good" but nothing was really sticking as "great." The deck was slow to set up and it was very difficult to run on the Corp without at least most of a rig set up. Running without a sentry breaker early game was a death wish as cards like Rototurret and the various trash ice cards would ruin your day if not played around properly. Furthermore, you are super reliant on Maker's Eye to score you points and are always a little behind if you don't score at least an Agenda off of each Eye attempt. Another thing that was annoying was that the 40 card minimum for CT didn't really leave us room in our deck for Sure Gamble and without Opus, our economy was less than stellar. I know we could just play with Gamble, but then we'd have to cut something more powerful overall and I don't really consider that "making the deck better."
What came out that compounded these issues? Nothing really, we just have to change the way that we build our Shaper decks. Recently, I've been building Notoriety based Kate decks and having very good results. Notoriety may seem like a mediocre card on the surface, and very hard to score, but in essence it's the new way that the Shapers have to play. As long as NBN and HB fast advance continue to post the best results, we have to make our own points. Because of this, the latest data pack has some goodies for us.
All-Nighter, Doppelganger, and to an extent Underworld Contact are all great additions to the Shaper arsenal. With basically every deck at least playing some sort of Trace card, cards like Rabbit Hole start to look even more enticing than before. I've started to build my Kate decks with 3x Rabbit Hole, 1x Helpful, and 3x Dyson Mem Chips and haven't looked back. Coincidentally this also makes your Code Gate breaker "free" since you can install it for 1 less with Kate's ability and it doesn't take up any MU's when you have link. This basically blanks their Enigma's which is pretty huge early game. Underworld Contact is basically the Armitage Codebusting in this deck. While it won't provide you as much burst, it's more sustained and doesn't require clicks. I had too many games where having Armitage + Magnum Opus was just awkward and unnecessary.
The Doppelganger started off as an experimental card that ended up being extremely good most of the time and very poor some of the time. The times where it's extremely good set up some ridiculous turns and has earned its spot in the deck. Even in the situations where it's somewhat bad, it's still +1 MU for a minimal cost. I'm still trying to decide if it's better than Spinal Modem or even The Toolbox but for now it's staying in the deck. It also combos extremely well with a good portion of the deck.
All-Nighter is the other new card that really deserves mentioning. At it's absolutely very worst, All-Nighter is worth 2 credits (Magnum Opus click) or 1 card (a draw click). At its best, it's worth several points via a big Medium dig turn or scoring multiple Notoriety in a single turn. I have been surprised by the subtle power level of the card and think that more people should be trying it out. It's because of All Nighter and Doppelganger that cards like Medium are playable in Shaper.
That leads us to what our deck is really trying to focus on. Ideally, what we want to do is Test Run for a Medium and just go nuts with Doppelganger and All-Nighters. It's really not that hard to set up and is pretty crippling when it happens. If you happen to draw the Maker's Eye to finish off the cycle then it's just icing on the cake. When/if you draw multiple Notoriety's, you can use the All-Nighters and Doppelganger to set up a multiple Notoriety turn as well. Either way, this is quite good in the current Netrunner tournament structure.
Here's the list I'm working on in its current iteration:
Deck Created with CardGameDB.com
Android: Netrunner Deck Builder
Identity:
Kate
Total Cards: (45)
Event: (15)
Sure Gamble (Core) x3
Test Run (Cyber Exodus) x3
Diesel (Core) x3
Stimhack (Core) x2 ■
Notoriety (Trace Amount) x3
The Maker's Eye (Core) x1
Hardware: (9)
Rabbit Hole (Core) x3
Dyson Mem Chip (Trace Amount) x3
Doppelganger (A Study in Static) x2 ■■
Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead) x1
Program: (11)
Corroder (Core) x2 ■■
Femme Fatale (Core) x2 ■
ZU.13 Key Master (What Lies Ahead) x2
Crypsis (Core) x1
Magnum Opus (Core) x3
Medium (Core) x1 ■■■
Resource: (10)
The Helpful AI (What Lies Ahead) x1
Personal Workshop (Cyber Exodus) x3
All-nighter (A Study in Static) x3
Underworld Contact (A Study in Static) x3
Influence Values Totals -
Anarch: 9
Criminal: 6
Shaper: 53
Now, some card choices:
No Aesop's Pawnshop? No. I had it in the deck for a while but the issue was that all my cards are necessary and I'd have several turns where I wouldn't need or want to pawn something. Rabbit holes are okay to pawn I guess but you aren't really coming out that much ahead there. In the end, they were cut because they just weren't pulling their weight and I haven't been sorry about it.
Only 1 Maker's Eye. I'd really like to fit a second one in but right now there isn't room and I really haven't missed it all that much to be honest. Playing with 1 copy keeps them honest anyway and Medium does most of the dig work in this build.
1 Medium. You really don't need more than 1 because of Test Run. You basically want to set up to where you Test Run it and go crazy on the next turn or draw it and go crazy that turn. Only downside of Test Run'ing it is that the virus counters get reset at the end of the turn. Because of that, you just set up a big Medium on the following turn. Even if your opponent sees what you're up to, they usually can't react to stop you once you have your rig set up.
I'd like to fit in a copy of Nerve Agent somewhere but don't feel comfortable cutting the Stimhacks. I'll try out the no Stimhack build which would be -2 Stims, +1 Maker's Eye, +1 Nerve Agent but I'm not convinced that it's better than what we already have. Stimhack with a few cards on Workshop is really silly and is ultimately the best way to get a Femme into play.
The matchups for the deck are overall better than what I had originally expected. I played a handful of games against NBN and naturally walked through all of the trace ice en route to easy victories. It's very diificult for them to Sea Source you with all your trace and similarly it's very hard for them to even score a Restructured Datapool against you. Against Jinteki, Doppelganger is your friend. You have to play around Snares and such for getting hit by them typically isn't crippling. Make sure you play out all your stuff before running against them as you don't even want to get your Opus Katana'd. Weyland is much like NBN. They are very hardpressed to Sea Source you and Carapace is a bit of a breather from Scorched Earth. Still always try to have 4+ cards in hand, even with a Carapace out as 2x SE's are not that uncommon. HB is really still your toughest matchup. Never run on your last click unless you're sure that you can break their Bioroids. Make use of All-nighters to make sure you can break through their servers.
I welcome any questions or comments, hope you give the deck a try and get similar results as me!
No comments:
Post a Comment