1st Place at UK Nationals 2016: Silver Bullet Kate

This is the 1st time I am posting one of my own deck lists online so please be merciful if you feel I have done anything wrong/dumb. Without further ado this is the runner deck I took to win the UK nationals with. I have played around with a lot of nexus Kate and variations of it in the past with all my friends from Nottingham Chimera and especially with @teh_fluffkins and @badwammerjammer. After the testing it felt like Nexus Kate was just too slow and couldn’t keep up with all the corps out there so I changed a few things and after a while I feel like I refined the deck enough to have a series of silver bullets for all the corps I expected to see at the event, i.e. SYNC, CTM, IG, Gagarin, ETF, CI, Palana.

I will go over a few of the card choices that I imagine everyone will be thinking about and will also go on to talk about improvements that I think can be made to this deck after taking it to a big event.

Please note that for the UK Nationals 2016 the data pack “Blood Money” was not legal. As such certain cards were not considered when taking this deck to the event.

CARD CHOICES:

1) “Freedom Through Equality” – I think this card has been talked about enough but I will just go over it briefly again. The power of this card in the current meta is insane. In an environment where everyone is running a lot of 2 pointers this card can very well be the difference between winning and losing. It also combos extremely well with indexing which is the form of R&D pressure I went with in the end.

2) Employee Strike – I feel like this card is just too amazing to give up on especially for one influence. It works wonders against IG, Gagarin, CI and possibly ETF and Palana if you can keep them off money. With the agenda suite that IG and Gagarin are using the employee strike will practically be live for the rest of the game unless they play their own currents. It also works exceedingly well against CTM if the 5 credit tax of installing rabbit holes are just too much for you at the point where you feel like you need to trash certain assets (Bankers and Sensie).

3) Indexing – A lot of corps are running a low amount of ice right now. So repeated runs into R&D are not so difficult. R&D Interface is too much of a tax on credits and gives too much tempo away when you install them. I prefer Indexing over Maker’s Eye because I also run “Freedom Through Equality”.

4) Lucky Find – This is potentially a flexible slot. It served me well today but it’s certainly not a must keep. I just feel with all the burst draw I have in the form of Diesel and Quality Times that a bit of burst economy is also good. You don’t want to lose too much tempo in terms of economy after using a Quality Time.

5) Vamp – This is mainly used as the CI silver bullet. It’s an opus deck so your ability to spew out money against more passive corps such as CI allows for such plays. You usually want to wait for quite late game against CI before you Vamp them. I usually wait until they have about 7-12 cards left in R&D. This in combination with Employee Strike against a CI deck makes the matchup very favourable. Also if you suspect in a more glacier matchup that there is a caprice in a remote server protecting an agenda then vamping them can act as your pseudo 2nd political operative.

6) Astrolabe (NOT Security Nexus) – So I was asked quite a lot why I didn’t use Security Nexus when I am using Rabbit Holes. Firstly we are in an asset heavy meta where new remotes are created nearly every turn which means astrolabe allows for 1-2 passive draws every corp turn! Secondly Security Nexus costs 8. With the meta being as rushy as it is right now with all the CTM, SYNC, Palana Rush, ETF Rush trying to install a Security Nexus that costs 8 is just too much of a hit. In all my testing it felt like I gave the corps so much tempo whenever I installed it and I never felt good about it. Thirdly a mopus deck needs draw absolutely. Draw is king. This is the reason I put in 3 Diesel and 3 QT’s but even then I felt like the draw was slightly lacking against these more rush style of asset decks. Therefore I chose to go Astrolabe to help alleviate this problem.

7) Rabbit Hole – Hah. If you told me 2 to 3 months ago that Rabbit Holes would be in a deck that took top place at the UK nationals I would have probably laughed at you. Heck I think most people would have laughed at you. But here we are. This is a pure tech card and is mainly used as the silver bullet against CTM and SYNC although it has its uses against HB as well. I didn’t go for other link options because Rabbit Hole’s find themselves once you’ve found the first one. It has major use against a lot of the ice that yellow decks tend to run right now often eliminating the need to find the actual breakers for the ice. It also acts on a more physiological level I have felt. When the corp realises you have 4 link they tend to get very passive about their plays on Hard Hitting News even if they have a fair money advantage over you. I wouldn’t rely on this but it is good to know. A stronger opponent will likely assess the situation more carefully.

8) Film Critic – Great against SYNC and CTM for hosting GFI’s on until you can close the game. Eliminates the chance for EOI to take that agenda and then giving you 2 tags for the pleasure. Also great against IG matchups with TFP’s.

9) Political Operative – Caprices silver bullet. Also good against Dedication Ceremony + Ronin and SanSan.

10) Salsette Slums – Ok. This was a last minute change made by me and I don’t think it was a very good one. Whenever I drew it I never felt I really needed to use it. Usually it just got hit by net damage or was just outright dumped from my grip. Theoretically it should have been great, but maybe the timing wasn’t right when I drew it or maybe it was something else I just felt it wasn’t as useful as I had initially hoped it would be when I put it in. I think if I take out this card I am better served taking out the Snowball and replacing it with Lady.

11) Breakers – I am just going to clump breakers together rather than go through them individually. It should all be fairly self explanatory. Inti is a great barrier breaker with all the resistors/vanilla/wraps etc that are about. ZU.13 Key Master was taken because of memory issues caused by the Magnum Opus. Mimic is there for Architect and everything else that could possibly show up if people feel ‘snowflakey’ enough. 12) Clot- ...Slot Clot. Just do it. Yellow still runs multiple SanSans its not like that was limited to one per deck. Also Breaking News of a SanSan will wreck your day very hard if you don’t have something to stop that.

13) Magnum Opus- I feel like if you’re playing Shaper right now then Mopus is the way to go. Its ability to bounce back from a closed accounts is too good to pass up. It also gives enough money to contest important assets. It can be click intensive but you get a lot of passive draw (Astrolabe) and burst draw (Diesel + QT’s) so more time can be spent clicking for credits.

OPENING HANDS AGAINST CORPS:

Here I will go over what hands I would be looking for against specific corps and what the general game plan is from there.

1. CTM – Even with all the tech that this deck runs this is an incredibly tricky matchup. One wrong move and you’re probably done for. Your ideal opening hand would be Mopus, Astrolabe, Rabbit Hole/Employee Strike, Film Critic, Sure Gamble. The priorities here are Mopus, Astrolabe and Rabbit Hole/Employee Strike. From there you only want to contest there most important assets such as Bankers and Sensie early game. Leave PADS for late game if your money situation is a lot better than theirs. It sucks but the tax for that card is too ridiculous. You must also make sure that they don’t have too much of a money advantage over you when you trash their stuff or that you at least have 8 credits to clear the tags from the HHN. Being HHN early game is very bad for you even if you can bounce back with Opus, the tempo lost is difficult to describe. If you have managed to get this far great work! From here you want to try and pressure their hand a bit. Without Sensie on the board they can’t bury their agendas very well so they may have 1 to 2 agendas floating around in their hand. Still make sure your money situation is a bit better or at least equal to theirs. Never dip below their credit pool without Rabbit Holes on the board. By now hopefully you should be on 2 to 4 points. From here you want to pressure R&D with Indexing. The agendas you want to be stealing follow in this order: Breaking News/Astroscript > Beale > GFI. If you can take all their Breaking News their game becomes much harder. A bit of luck and a series of right decisions and you should have been able to beat this monster of a deck.

2. SYNC – Your opening hand is very much similar to the hand against CTM. Link is king in this matchup. A good chunk of all their ice is based on traces so you really want to see your Mopus and Rabbit Hole early. Once the link is down then you eliminate the need to find actual breakers for a majority of their ice. You can then start to pressure them very well with accesses from HQ and Indexing on R&D. If you feel their money situation is getting a bit out of hand then Vamp them down to 0 and have them do a hard reset for money. Remember to have at least 3 credits and a click to clear the tag you get after this play. If you can keep on top of their money and you have your rabbit holes installed there is not much they can do to stop you.

3. IG – Against this deck your ideal opener would be Mopus, SMC, Astrolabe, Film Critic, Employee Strike. Employee Strike will shut of their ability for the rest of the game unless they manage to score their one 3/2 or play a current of their own. Astrolabe because of all the assets that they run. SMC because it provides you with 2 used memory for their cortex locks. Film Critic for their TFP’s and Fetal AI. Opus to have money to contest their assets. The assets your looking to contest are their Bio-Ethics, Sensie, Tech Startup and Ronin. Also I would recommend running first click to give yourself enough clicks to draw back up in case it’s something spiky like psychic field. Slowly let the agendas build up in their hand and then try and seal the game off from there. If that doesn’t work Indexing them. Again they run low ice count so running in multiples times is not an issue.

4. Gagarin – Similar to the IG matchup you want to see Mopus early with an Astrolabe and an Employee Strike. Trash the assets you feel are critical to their game plan. Let their agendas build up in their hand and try to snipe them. Once you’re on 3 to 5 points go for the kill with an Indexing.

5. ETF – This is a deck I struggled with for the nationals (more than I expected). It was totally due to the reason that I only saw rush ETF who slotted in Eli’s and had taken out my lady for a snowball. I have already mentioned above that I would change the Snowball back to Lady now that I look back on it. Your ideal hand would be Mopus, SMC, Diesel/QT, Sure Gamble, Political Operative/Vamp. You want to see Mopus early and kill of their assets such as Adonis. Rabbit holes are also good in this matchup for the Ash trace. Vamp can also be quite handy in this matchup if they are getting rich enough to rez bigger pieces of ice (Ichi 1). It also acts as pseudo Political Operative for the Caprice. If you’ve pressured them enough and have managed to get to 4 to 6 points then you want to indexing to seal the game.

6. CI – I struggled with this deck before I slotted the Vamp. A friend of mine in my meta regularly plays this deck and was crushing me constantly with it (thanks for that by the way)! I slotted vamp and it worked wonders in combination with Employee Strike too. You want to wait until they have 7 to 12 cards left in R&D and then play the Employee Strike. They will then Biotic out an agenda because they need to get the Employee Strike off the board. By this point there credit total will have dropped by 6. After this is done you then Vamp them and watch them cringe.

7. Palana – Ideal opening hand would be Mopus, SMC, Political Operative/Vamp, Employee Strike, QT/Diesel. In this matchup try and keep them off money by running their ice and buying yourself time. Make them lose as much tempo as possible. A poor Palana can’t do much. If they have put a caprice behind an ice try and run in and tax them their credits. Your ability to make money is better than theirs especially with an Employee Strike on the board. It depends on how the matchup is panning out but stealing their Corporate Sales Team’s is a major boon for you if they are already poor. Remember the game plan here is to keep Palana poor for enough time for you to get setup. Once you’re setup there is very little this deck can do to you to stop you.

So that’s it everyone. This deck is made up of a series of silver bullets for a lot of the decks I imagined I would see at the event and it managed to get me to win the UK Nationals 2016. I had a blast playing it and would like to thank all of my opponents for the wonderful experience. I would also like to thank all of my team mates from Chimera Nottingham for all their support and play testing these last couple of months. If you have any questions about the deck please let me know I will try to answer as soon as I can. I will aim to get my corp deck posted online ASAP it just seemed more people were interested with my runner deck so I did this first.