Seamus' Stealth Kit (4th place UK Nationals)

I really like how little this deck themes around Kit's ability.

It's really easy to get carried away with Kit trying to overwork the Code Gate theme by running Cypher and Study Guide... then you'll need Tinkering... and Spooned... and maybe Paintbrush...

This is just a good deck that happens to gain good aggressive value in the early game by knowing Ice will be Code Gates. It kind of reminds me of how much Cerberus' Leela deck is careful in avoiding theming too much around Leela/Logos.

Thanks for the comment. Part of me wishes it had more of a whacky focus on exploiting Kit's ability but having played around with various builds for a long while now this is the most effective build I've got to.

Just the benefit of getting to use Refractor on every run is really significant. Cheap/free early runs generally allow building up for the mid/late game while keeping the corp under pressure.

@Seamus Yeah, absolutely. It's the Kit deck stripped down to the necessities.

It's been really eye-opening to see what happens when you remove all the clutter that so often turns up in Kit.

I've been saying this to a few people, but Refractor is just... horrible. Early on, your single-iced servers might as well just not be iced, and most double iced servers (heaven forbid you double code-gate a server, or just get stuck with the code gate on the inside!) and broken for pennies.

Looking forward to the report!

Can you chat about why you ran three clone chips in the end? Is it for pretty much a perpetual clot or recursion in case of program trashing?

Can You explain the why you run Professional Contacts over Symmetrical Visage. is the 5 credits investment worth it?

Hi guys. I've answered both these in the added write-up but it's a bit of a long read so in brief -

Clone Chips can be used to recur clot or self-mod if I only see a single one and need to set up my rig quickly. They're also good for Deus X or for ditching breakers while digging for economy, although of course this is now more risky due to Blacklist and Chronos Protocol.

I chose to take the risk that Professional Contacts wouldn't show up early enough to be worth installing over the more limited utility of Symmetrical Visage after doing a little testing with Visage. As a rule if I'm setting up I'll pro-con twice in a turn and sometimes more. Professional Contacts suits my deck and my play-style.

Thanks for the report, our game was the round 5 one (as you know, I'm way too pleased about the pro Isabel McGuire play in our game). On first blush I figured I might have a favourable matchup with that deck as the assets and Ash can pressure your credit pool rather than your breaker suite (which, as you've mentioned, is hyper efficient). It wasn't to be, though, you just walked all over my servers and took the victory :P

What are your thoughts on the future of the deck? Any emerging trends you might change things around for? I know you think it's not really a full-on RP killer, anything you would change to bolster that match up?

It's the combination of Ash, asset economy and cheap taxing ICE that can make HB a nightmare match-up. In all honesty, our match up could have gone very differently had you had a slightly better start. Pretty sure I stole four points from R&D before you could even find ICE for it, no?

Right now I'm just looking forward to branching out and playing new stuff. In terms of Kit, I'd experiment with adding a datasucker in place of the mimic although that may cause memory issues. I suppose the influence could also be spent on a Stimhack which might be quite nice. The deck does lack a bit of surprise pressure.

I think the obvious change for RP busting would be replacing the Clot with Parasite. Even if it's only taking out Pups or Enigmas that are preventing using the Refractor on better ICE that'd be great. I suppose one could consider replacing a Legwork with a Vamp but that's only useful if the economy comes nicely and you're able to get the accesses to kill Sundews. Otherwise it's going to be a dead card.

I really like the look of Analogue Dreamers (not least for the art). I think it has the potential to be pretty useful in the current meta but is one of those cards that doesn't necessarily work directly towards victory so might not find a slot for tournaments.

I'd definitely be interested if anyone has any thoughts on improvements to the deck though.

1x Paricia might be the call you want to make. If you can fight RP's economy then it tends to struggle to rez all the Ice that's slowing you down so much.

If you had Paricia and maybe a Net Celebrity or two I think you could run quite efficiently vs RP and keep them poor.

I used to be an exclusive Kit player when I began to play Netrunner, but it's been a long time since I quit this identity (if you call last fall a long time ago). But your deck makes me want to give it a try.

Anyway, I would cut Corroder to put back a Parasite, then make some room for 2 Cerberus Lady. With Parasite and Kit's power, 2-of is enough, and in the worst case scenario, you can burn a clone-chip if needed. For that, i'd cut 2 of the following 3 : Modded, R&D Interface, Deus X.

Not sure that economy can follow, though.

Paricia might be nice but I worry that it's another piece to put together. A lot of the strength of this deck is its simplicity, I think. I'll definitely give it a try as there's plenty asset economy going on up here right now.

Lupus - you make a reasonable case for Lady. I do really like having the Deus X for emergency AP ICE breaks but again it seems like a change worth investigating. I worry about NBN taxing counters with wraparounds but it would be nice to go through Eli for one credit. Another one for me to try at some point.

Thanks guys.

@SeamusCongrats on taking Kit so far. I think this is her most competitive shell. You can mess with the influence to squeeze in Parasites or Switchblades or whatever, but this overarching build feels perfect for Kit. The only downside to this build is that you are very easily tagged. I find myself sitting around 2-6 credits all game.

@hi_impact What's your economy package? I used to run pretty poor till I upped the Daily Casts to three and put in the two Kati Jones. It's pretty decent for money now.

Gamble, 2x Kati, 3x Visage, 3x Daily Casts. That's it! If you don't count Ghost Runner, that is. I can see how your deck runs much richer with Dirty Laundry and 1x Modded.

I play 2x Lady, 1x Scavenge, and 3rd Cloak/Switchblade.

@hi_impact I'd say what may be making a big difference is Pro Con. I notice a big drop in my econ if I see this too late for it to be worth installing. I tested with symmetrical visage and it didn't really compare.

@Seamus "It's the combination of Ash, asset economy and cheap taxing ICE that can make HB a nightmare match-up. In all honesty, our match up could have gone very differently had you had a slightly better start. Pretty sure I stole four points from R&D before you could even find ICE for it, no?"

Yeah, I had a little agenda flood early on, I was kind of glad of you taking those 4 points as it meant I was less likely to draw more agendas (I didn't, I drew another one I think!). But still, I came back from being 6 points down earlier in the day, Kit's ability let you keep the pressure on and I was unable to stabilise. I had a much better game with it at Regionals and you still won then!

As we've talked about, I'm not hugely sure about Lady as I feel Eli's ubiquitousness has really taken a hit. It's not even in my tournament HB deck! I specifically went for a big-multi sub it of ice to burn the counters (which paid off in one game, actually).

I like the sound of Parasite, it would let you squeeze a bit more benefit out of Kit's ability and is a great answer to the common anti-Kit play of sticking your popups on the outside of all your servers. If she had more influence, it'd be great to squeeze in a Scrubber, I think that card is pretty hot at the moment. Analog Dreamers is worth testing, but I feel that's a card designed for use against NA, and it'll just end up forcing the corp to rez their upgrades most of the time (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

Pro Contacts is very good in this deck - a lot of your strength comes from incrementally adding all the little bits to your rig, Lockpicks & Cloaks etc, and so drawing lots of cards is actually part of the plan.

I ran it a few times last night and liked it. I feel like the Modded is slightly random, though I'm a fan of the card any time I get a cheap R&D Interface down in any deck. Have you considered 1x Code Siphon?

I didn't into many serious decks but I did find myself wishing I had Parasite for the low-STR / high-sub Jinteki stuff. And I'm not convinced by Deus' importance in this meta - I feel like I'd rather be smacking Komainu with Parasite than one-off soaking it with Deus.

1x Escher is often hilarious in Kit as well.

Actually, I wonder if Corroder > Inti & 2 Influence?

@unitled Agreed on all points. I think maybe our meta is slightly more focused on wasting Lady tokens while others are just moving away from barriers generally.

Parasite would be in the deck in a second if only Kit had 12 influence. Unfortunately, I feel like Clot is still doing a chunk of work at the moment. Scrubber is interesting but a single copy that can't be tutored has me nervous. I do like a Scrubber though. Trashing becomes an absolute no-brainer.

@Satellite Uplink That's exactly right on Pro Con.

Modded is just there as an extra splash of one-click econ and has the added benefit of clearing two cards from hand. There are plenty of targets and I rarely if ever find myself disappointed to see it. You're right though in saying that it's far from central to the plan.

I really want to like Code Siphon. I love the art and I love the theme. I even built a Chaos Theory specifically to exploit it and it was fine at best. Without breakers installed it's worse than a Self-Mod, with a double ICE'd R&D it's worse than a Self-Mod (none of my programmes cost more than 3), with an unprotected R&D it's more expensive than a Self-Mod. Have you had any success with it?

I agree that Parasite is much better than Deus X. Influence is the real issue. I suppose Deus X is one of the last few remaining "personal preference" cards in the deck and would be first in line to make room for further efficiencies. It did get me through a surprise Wall of Thorns against David in the third round when I didn't want to take the net damage and my corroder was in hand for an agenda which was nice but it definitely gets ditched to archives a lot.

Escher almost went back in at the last minute. I think the reason I decided against it is that I'm aiming to apply pressure to HQ almost equally as to R&D which means cheap runs there late in the game (when Escher is best) aren't likely to be cheap and sacrificing the access plus the cost of the card is a little problematic. It is wonderful in some games though.

I suggested Siphon just because I think it's better in Kit than other decks because you can more reliably run R&D early in the game. And yes it's worse than Self Mod but you're not allowed to run 4x Self Mod :-) I think you're probably right, I've not tried it precisely because it keeps being card 47-48 in my deck of 45 cards.

I wonder if: -1 Legwork, -1 Modded, -1 Corroder +1 Inti, +2 Parasite

@Satellite Uplink I used to run Inti. It can be completely crippling. While there are match-ups when you never need to boost it and it's an absolute dream, the first time an Eli (8 credits) or even a Wall of Static (5 credits) is rezzed on the inside of a remote you'll want to scream. The reason this deck has been more successful than some other Kit builds (at least all those that I've built and played) is that it has a full effective breaker suite.

In my experience, relying on Kit's ability with an efficient decoder and weak killers/fractors (I used to run Femme and Inti) isn't good enough in enough match-ups that it prevents really consistent high deck performance.

Fair play.

I'm going to try and squeeze in some Net Celebrity for my next session, I think. We're just playing around the edges though, the core of the deck is very solid.

@Satellite Uplink Oh absolutely. Let me know how you get on with any variations you try.

Was really nice to meet you. Hope to get a rematch in the future. (hopefully one not including psi games). Congratulations :)

@Cerberus Likewise man. Real pleasure.

Definitely. You sure about not including Psi games though? Surely I couldn't win another...

@Cerberus Also - congratulations to you too, of course.

What are your thoughts about a Nerve Agent instead of the Legworks so that you can add a Parasite? One would have to include some Akamatsu Mem Chips though.

I have played around with Nerve Agent in Shaper and I do quite like it. The reason I didn't consider it in this deck is partially the one you identify - MU. Although I only run two cloak there are plenty of times you'll want an SMC kicking around into the midgame and requiring that additional MU for HQ pressure could cause some issues. Deckspace is relatively tight and reducing my MU needs and the MU cards to support it was a really positive change for the deck. The fact that this change would be made to bring yet another programme into the deck (admittedly not one that would be permanently installed but still). There's also obviously the slight benefit of the surprise factor of Legwork that makes it such a popular card over HQ Interface and Nerve Agent.

However, I've not tested Nerve Agent in this deck and it could be effective. The constant pressure on HQ as well as R&D could be really nice and the ability to tutor for it in games where everything is going right except drawing into Legwork.

I think the real deciding factor in testing would be whether the games where HQ runs to build up counters are cheap/free due to recurring credits are more common than those where making repeat runs on HQ are expensive.

If you get a chance to test it let me know how it goes.

How did Modded work for you on the day? With only 3 solid targets (RDI's), 2 others you might be SMC'ing (mimic + dagger), and 1 situational (plascrete), it seems that it might sit in your hand unused for awhile. Would you consider swapping for another econ card or possibly the Escher (the most kit of kit cards I think).

There aren't loads of targets for sure. It's a holdover from when the deck ran Cybersolutions and an Opus. However, it's stuck around because I don't think I've ever ditched it (or wasted it on a cheap card) and it's nice for clearing the hand from overdrawing with Pro Con.

It's definitely one of the cards that would be considered for cutting if an alternative proved itself.

One thing I can say, is that Analog Dreamers looks cute but doesn't fit. I played it today out of curiosity (over Deus) and it was just dead weight. You already threaten R&D enough that it's well defended, if it was a HQ run then it might have a purpose...

I would run Paricia over the Deus, I think. There's enough asset stuff to trash if you can get on top of their economy they can't build the deep Ice towers that trouble Kit so much. I also tried out Net Celebrity, and it was fine but not a slam dunk - I reckon I got more value from it than I did from either Modded or Daily Casts, which it replaced, though.

I tried the deck a couple times the last two days and liked it a lot. Thanks for sharing it.

I replaced Mimic with Datasucker, Clot with Parasite, and Deus X with Paricia. In one game I SMC'd for Paricia and trashed at least four Assets. Well worth it. But the changes are hard to asses with so few plays.

I liked Modded for the reasons @Seamus mentioned. I was able to use it in almost every game to install an RDI, which I might not otherwise have. I also think the econ package is quite good.

Seamus. This is Tim. You were a fantastic opponent as well, you played brilliantly, and made the rest of us look like chumps by doing it all in a sharp as fuck suit.

@b3ar I think those are appropriate changes for a meta where Clot has been successful in removing the threat of fast advance. Is that the case with your meta? Mimic initially replaced a Datasucker because so many decks were exclusively running Architect or the standard old-school RP ICE suite. How did the MU go in the games you tested?

@timfast Hi Tim! Cheers. I really hope we get a chance to play again some time. I have some friends down your way so I'll hit up the Facebook group next time I'm down. Congratulations on the result.

Thanks, it was the bag I was after all along rather than the trip to the States.

Haha. That sweet, sweet backpack.

Yes, in our small meta nobody plays fast advance. It was only me, who previously has. Maybe, the right time to play it :) However, at the Regionals also players from other metas are coming.

I was afraid of not having enough stealth credits without Mimic. However, in the seven games, I never had to install Dagger anyway if I remember correctly. I only installed Datasucker and Parasite in one game. MU has been an issue in that game, but the Datasucker saved a couple credits going through high strength Barriers. I definitely need to play some more with it to really tell, though.

@b3ar In our meta there was some fast advance and a fair amount of Blue Sun (which obviously greatly reduces the effectiveness of Parasite).

Clot doesn't just target straight fast advance though. It is particularly important in shoring up the deck's game against HB and NBN Butchershop which can in some cases be tricky. Removing the threat of scoring from hand makes these match-ups a lot more manageable.

Parasite is obviously also a fantastic card but as it's become less relevant for RP games (with the changes they've made to their ICE composition) I decided that Clot gave slightly more value.

Of course, your mileage may vary.

I think that's been one of the most surprising things about the deck - how few stealth credits it can function on. A friend of mine regularly rezzes two Archer which can make things a little tricky but beyond that it works pretty nicely.

Yeah let me know if you're even down South. A little birdie told me someone called Seamus was leading a team to Quinn's thing next week...

Argh @timfast Seamus is already on an ego trip after various people have complimented his suit, we don't need to keep saying he's 'leading' our team at the tournament!

I wouldn't worry. None of you lot will have much ego left after you get fucked up by team Bristol

I am indeed the Glorious Leader of Team Edinburgh (although I've yet to convince the rest of the team to refer to me as such). Looking forward to potentially facing off again.

Apologies in advance for the vicious crushing of Bristol hubris that will ensue.

This might be a ridiculous question, but do you think Net Ready Eyes might have a place in this deck? I figured that the +1 boost to Dagger, Refractor, might be handy, otherwise it works out as econ for free +STR.

I've only played around with Net Ready Eyes a little in a bad Anarch deck and wasn't too keen. I'm not sure I see (no pun intended) it in this deck. The effect is obviously a positive one but I think there are other things I'd use the deckspace on.

For those interested, I've swapped out the Mimic for a Crescentus lately and it's done some work. I've not played a huge number of big ICE decks since making the change but it seems a solid choice.

Thanks, Crescentus is a very good idea. I've been playing this deck for a while now with Datasucker in that slot. But it has felt only marginally useful. Crescentus could just be the right tool to deal with big ICE and RP.

Hi, for some time I've been experimenting with similar deck and I have few questions:

1. What about MU? Your max is 5, but the whole setup is at least 6 plus in some cases 7 for bringing back Clot? How do you work around it?

2. How often do you find yourself in situations when you wished you have that #Diesel? Sometimes I feel I need something to speed up my drawing for ProCo when I can't find them early.

Thanks for inspiring deck!

Hi. Thanks for the questions.

The full suite of programs is rarely all installed. Ghost Runners mean I rarely install the second Cloak. Crescentus will only ever be in play to be used (either through SMC or Clone Chip). I've since dropped the Mimic but when it was in the deck it would be replaced with Dagger if needed rather than have both installed in most cases.

The only time memory can get a little tight if you still need to have an SMC in play with two breakers and no Astrolabe has shown up yet.

Totally agree. Diesel would be great in those cases when Pro-Co doesn't show up. There's potentially a couple of slots (Deus X and Modded) that could be swapped out. It's worth testing with although I find Modded really handy and I wouldn't want to use Diesel once Pro-Co is up and running, particularly because my hand is generally very full.

My take on MU problem in stealth Kit is bring one Astrolabe and one Akamatsu Mem Chip. It is less reliable as a draw source, hopefully covered by ProCo, but I can get into 6 MU that way.

I have soft spot for Modded too. It is in my every Shaper deck since playing the core set. Since I'm going the HQ Interface route for some more constant HQ pressure, Im trying to keep 2x Modded and 2 Diesel and see what happens.

Do you want the sixth MU so that you can have two Cloaks and still have room to bring in the Clot if needed? Most FA decks don't have stacked sentries very often. Do you find you regularly need both in play? I suppose losing the Astrolabe ability half the time isn't the biggest blow but I rarely find myself wishing I had six MU.

HQ Interface is interesting. Have you also tested with Legwork to get a comparison?

Yeah, even when sentries aren't stacked, that one Cloak more saves a lot of cash with Corroder or Refractor. But maybe it's just me, playing very carefully around my Ghost Runners credits. Most often I just have huge problems with working around 2 MU from SMC.

With Legwork vs HQI Im kinda torn. I like Legwork in my Anarchs or Prepaid Kate decks, where I can either trash something easily (with Kim, Whizzard or Imp) or I can always come back with Same Old Thing. But since there is no room for SoT in this deck that one singleton HQ Interface grants me some HQ pressure.

Im not sure if I want to invest 4 influence points in Legworks and find my hand flooded with them when I don't have recursion to bring them back from Heap.

Currently Im testing 1 HQI and one Silencer which could futher ease the MU pains.

My approach for that 'second Cloak' was Net Celebrity, which I still think is a good addition for an efficient running rig.

I'm not sure I agree with slowing down to install MU just so you can slow down some more and install a second Cloak AND Clot. You're losing time and deckslots to solve a pretty narrow problem, IMHO.

We're kind of picking hairs on the MU question really. The price of losing an Astrolabe is small (or nothing if you happen to draw it before the Akamatsu). There's a benefit to having an additional Cloak but I don't think it's necessary. One could go either way on it I guess. I definitely wouldn't add more or more expensive MU to the deck though.

Because the rig can really efficiently stay on top of remotes (and Clot deals with the score from hand threat) I find it pretty easy to wait for agenda to build up in HQ and then Legwork to clear it. Swapping one for an HQ Interface (and keeping the second) might be interesting.

Re, Silencer, do you really find the stealth credits to be that pressured?

Four tough games at mini-tourney later, HQ Interface is garbage. It was either too late or in situation I wished it was just 2 creds cheper Legwork. I'll probably go back to your proposed two copies of it.

But!

Two times matched dragged so much into the lategame, where opponent stacking sentries on one server couldn't keep up with 3 reccuring creds from two Cloaks and Silencer. What really stopped me from keeping RD Lock was expensive barriers like Heimdall 2.0.

Ah and Marcus Batty triggering 4 program wipe from NEXT Gold. But I managed to dig out from that whole with second Refractor in hand and two Clone Chips.

But if I go back to 2 Legworks, I'll have one spare inf. Maybe Ill include that Mimic after all.

That was my fear regarding HQI.

Can you remember the toughest Sentry stack you saw was?

I'd highly recommend Crescentus to deal with things like Heimdall 2.0. Even just having it sit in the trash with a Clone Chip can discourage a cash pressured corp from rezzing anything significant.

That NEXT Gold hit sounds brutal. I played a draft last weekend and accidentally built my deck around tricking people into hitting NEXT Gold. Every time it hit the game was pretty much done. I definitely think it's the nastiest use for Marcus Batty at the moment.

Most "fun" RD I runned against yesterday, was from the outermost position: Architect, Heimdall 2.0, Architect, Eli 1.0 and Architect. Ughh, poor Corroder. In this situation even Snowball would be better. I derped a little, could just saved a lot of money by just running first click thru Heimdall but thought about it just after the game.

If Snowball wasn't such a speed bump in most situations, I would gladly let Corroder go and use that influence on something else, maybe even couple of Career Fair for ProCo and Daily Casts.

Kept two copies of Diesel, but they didn't change much, so Ill probably change them to another Dirty Laundry or Modded. Or put third R&D Interface or single The Maker's Eye.

So I really love the framework of this deck, and I wanted to give it a spin.

After five games, I had a ton of fun with it, but I have to say that in 2 of those games it took me forever to find my Refractor. With only 2 copies of it in the deck, extended to an effective 5 by 3xSMCs, that's admittedly a reasonably high chance of seeing it, but it's a card that Kit absolutely needs immediately (consider that most Kit decks run 4-5 decoders, in addition to tutoring, in addition to silver bullets like Femme Fatale or Atman that can fill in for horrific bad luck).

I was pro-conning like a madman, installing second Lockpicks and third Ghost Runners before I actually could use them effectively. I watched a Blue Sun player pull off two OAI Curtain Walls, and a Haas player use an Eliza's Toybox to rez 2 Janus 1.0s and a Wotan, before I could so much as breath hot air at them. Bad luck, absolutely, but not unreasonably so.

I think I'd be fine throwing in at least another Refractor, if not a Test Run or two, just to guarentee that Kit comes online early (otherwise why play her over Kate?). Diesels, as already mentioned, could also help, although overdrawing makes me neverous in this deck, since it has fairly slim econ and no Personal Workshop to dump stuff on.

I'm going to try -1x Clone Chip +1x Refractor

Hi.

Thanks for commenting.

You're right that there will be the odd game when SMCs/Refractors just won't appear. See my game against Tim in the elimination on the netrunners.co.uk youtube channel for footage of this.

You definitely could take a third Refractor and if it weren't for the deckspace/efficiency calculation I'd just drop it in. I wouldn't recommend Test Run as there are no expensive programmers in the deck that you'd get much value from using it on.

I've not tested any changes to the list other than swapping the Mimic for a Crescentus but the change I'd be looking to make for improved consistency would be squeezing in one or two Diesel. These would address the concern of not finding a Refractor but would also deal with those situations when you haven't drawn Pro-Co or a burst econ card to pay for it.

I think the Modded would be one slot to fit Diesel in. I have dropped to two Clone Chips in the past but they can be lifesavers as pseudo-addtional SMCs.

So, Film Critic. I managed to include two copies, at the cost of Dirty Laundry, because I felt it is more important to find one quickly then Plascrete Carapace.

And this is so great card I have no words. It saves you money from NAPD or Fetal, it defends you from Midseason Replacements (I feel Plascrate must stay for SEA + SE combos) and most important I think, enables RD lock against Jinteki, most important in RP match-up. Before it was "ughh I have a chance to find Future Perfect and maybe win PSI game". Now is "lol, thanks for Future Perfect miss Critic!".

I went 4-0 last night with this deck at my weekly league, two wins were thanks to Film Critic. Are two too much? Dunno, since they are so cheap and not unique, it not that bad to install them and wait. And will help against our new Haarpsichord Studios overlords.

Film Critic is such a silver bullet for a number of popular archetypes and I've been thinking quite a bit how to squeeze it in.

I really don't think Dirty Laundry is the way to go. That burst (though inferior to Sure Gamble) prior to installing a Professional Contacts on turn one is such a boost. It's also great for jumping up from low credits having, say, installed a Professional Contacts.

I'm considering replacing a Daily Casts (better economy but sometimes a burden to install and doesn't really help with the opening plays) and possibly an R&D interface (if I draw them early I'll often discard one).

We've got a small tournament coming up so I might give that a go and post how it gets on.

@Seamusi love this deck so much. i, too, am looking for a place to fit Film Critic, which is just too good not to include. Maybe 2 over the 1xModded and an RDI? How did you tournament go?

I think -1 RDI, -1 Clone Chip, +2 Diesel makes this shell a little bit better. Both of them suck to install early, especially RDI, and I don't find myself using more than 2 of either basically ever.

I'd go -1 Kati Jones before going -1 Daily Casts. The second Kati is a dead draw, and the third copy of Casts is probably going to make you about as much money as an earlier Kati would have, and if you don't want to spend 3 and a click to install Casts, you probably don't want to spend 2 and 2 clicks to install and load Kati.

I went to Stimhack over Utopia Shard a couple weeks ago and I've found it just way, way better. It makes it a lot easier to contest remote plays out of HB, or to turbo-rig with a Clone Chip and SMC on the table.

I've been screwing around with Multithreader and Hunting Grounds. Multithreader is real good. Like, maybe put-Akamatsu-in-the-deck good. I like Hunting Grounds because it doesn't cost MU and it solves the biggest problem that Crescentus solves (Tollbooth), while being a decent FU to things like Pop-up and Data Raven, and with a singleton Aesop's it can always be sac'd for a bunch of late-game drip.

My take on Kit is generally a little more aggro than yours, but here's what I'm on right now (2nd at an ANRPC):

netrunnerdb.com

Hi! Thanks for commenting and apologies for the delay in response.

I'll post the updated version of the deck since it addresses a lot of these questions but in brief:

153351 - Since the last post the deck has won three of our local GNKs along with my Argus deck so it's definitely still powerful in the final stages of the SanSan meta! I have dropped one Daily Casts and one RDI for two Film Critic. Whilst losing the RDI isn't ideal, if I drew one or more very early one would often get discarded whilst getting set up. Losing the Daily Casts is less of an issue since one of the reasons raw econ was needed was for the Butchershop match-up and Film Critic goes a fair way to addressing this.

HiggsBozo - I've actually already dropped Deus X and Modded for two Diesel to improve consistency (as well as swapping Mimic for Crescentus).

However, I have to say you're dead wrong on dropping a Kati. She is the perfect economy for a Pro-Con build. Pro-Con till you have something to install, then hit Kati with a spare click if you don't need to run that turn. Games where I don't see her are tough and the second being a dead draw is less of an issue when you're still getting the credit from Pro-Con. If you want to see Kati's power in this deck there are a couple of videos on the Neoreading Gird youtube channel, recorded at the UK Nationals.

Stimhack is really appealing but my concern is that you then only have a single SEA/Scorch protection card (which may be less of an issue outside of the UK). It's probably a meta call.

I haven't played with any Data & Destiny stuff yet but I can't speak highly enough of Crescentus. Tollbooth isn't really the primary target. Often it's only the three credits with the break paid for with recurring credits. The real winner is large barriers that get very taxing for Corroder. Recently, in a single run against a Blue Sun deck I Crescentus'd a Curtain Wall, a Hadrian's Wall and a Janus. It's fantastic against Archer too, which otherwise taxes stealth credits a fair bit.

Multithreader definitely seems powerful but it'll take a lot for me to drop Crescentus.