A version of PrePaid Kate

Space Cowboy 296

A few things I'm thinking of - adding Refractor, maybe adding Lockpick (whenever it comes back in stock). Would a Comet be a good investment? Replace the Quality Time with another economy card?

4 comments
26 Apr 2015 GammaCodeX

I think refractor way out-classes dagger for this style of play. Not only is lockpick in faction, but also think about it. Its two cheaper to install, and depending on strengths str0 3 4 5 6 7 and 8 costs the same, while strengths 1 and 2 is cheaper with the lockpick. (of course offset by some if on dino and/or touched) The influence could be spend on either tightening your economy with hostage stimhack or lucky find, or on tricks like parasites d4v1d clot, legwork, shards etc. Or you could use it to "buy" a more suitable abillity by switching to kit.

I'm not sure weather you really need 6 stealth sources. Maybe going Magnum opus economy instead of prepaid proco is better. Adding ghost runner for the few situations you need a lot of stealth in a turn.

Comet with prepaid economy is an intersting question. At one side you do play a lot of events for the economy, but you really don't want to play two the same turn, you'd rather spread them out optimally once every turn. I also think Dino really fits the only-one-breaker strategy.

The deck will probably never be like really top tier; everything about it is pretty slow; a lot of pieces need to be in place before running, but i assume this is meant as a cassual deck and not tournament material. Hope you can use some of the feedback, even if its only initial thoughts and not based on testing.

26 Apr 2015 ycombinator

I feel like this is mixing two decks: a stealth deck, and a katman deck. It isn't quite stealth as it doesn't have Refractor. It isn't quite katman as it doesn't have Datasuckers. Its main theme is to get out a really efficient breaker, and then use Paintbrush and Tinkering to use it on everything. You presumably chose a sentry breaker so that face-checking is safe.

The cost you pay for this concept, is that 1) Paintbrush is really click intensive so you want to use it somewhat rarely, and 2) the corp can play around it by making tall servers.

I think the general advice is that steath side of this build might be better in Andy, but it is hard to tell. Emergency Shutdown would pair well with the overall idea, but you'd have to pay influence for Paintbrush, so I'm not sure if it would work.

Given that you have a concept deck here, I think it is reasonable to try and optimize for that concept: a single big breaker, used to get past most ice. Some notes:

  • The prepaid package isn't really helping you out here. You don't have enough events to make it worth-while. Prepaid Kate works because of Lucky Find, which you don't have the influence for. You have very few events that will actually benefit from the Prepaid VoicePADs. Thus, either you want to up the # of events that cost non-zero, or you want to drop the pads. If you up the # of events, you want 3 pads.
  • Same deal for Replicator. With only 12 hardware, it isn't really helping out that much. If you want it to help out with the consistency of 2-of pieces of hardware, then I think you want 3 of them so that you can at least find the Replicator consistently. 1-of hardware with Replicator is anti-synergistic (i.e. the The Personal Touch).
  • You only have 9 econ cards in your deck (not counting the stealth). That isn't enough to be consistent. 2 Kati Jones is fine, but maybe 3 Professional Contacts as it seems pretty integral to your plan. If you have Professional Contacts, then I think that Quality Time is redundant. Watch how you play; if you don't use Professional Contacts more than once per turn often, then Symmetrical Visage is much better. The 5 cost on proco is a huge tempo swing early on.
  • If the idea is stealth, then you certainly want Lockpick + Refractor. I know you don't have the data-packs, so you might want to look into those if you want to go in that direction.
  • The Atman seem to be there to handle ice that you don't want to Paintbrush often. You'll typically have one at strength 4 as a lot of problem ice is there (Eli 1.0, Lotus Field, ...). However, ask yourself this: is it better to just have two breakers for the other two ice types instead? A Refractor and a Corroder would solve the same problem, but the corp won't be able to play around them.
  • If you go in the direction of a single breaker to pass them all, then you might want to consider using a torch instead. With the Test Run+Scavenge combo, you can get it out for cheap, and it doesn't require as many moving pieces (Cloak + Silencer + strength boosters).
  • When you play, and are accessing R&D, as yourself if you're better off going for rare, impactful R&D runs, or you are trying to get into R&D every turn/every other turn. If the former, you should be using The Maker's Eye. If the latter, then keep the R&D Interfaces. I worry that you're spending so many Paintbrush clicks to get in, that you will be able to do it only rarely. If you go in the event direction, also keep in mind that Same Old Things provide more return on your Forged Activation Orders and Tinkering investments...at the cost of more clicks.

3-of vs 2-of: If a card is integral to your plan, you want 3 (or tutors like Self-modifying Code). If you don't necessarily want it in your starting hand, then you want at most 2 (e.g. Kati Jones is a good example...she shines later). If it is a trick card, you often want one.

26 Apr 2015 konradh

I think it is more flexible to bring less copies of Dagger and more Self-Modifying Codes to find them in right time. If you want to have fun with Prepaid VoicePads, you need to invest influence in Lucky Finds, thats the main economy package for this type of decks.

So you either go with Prepaids and Lucky Finds, or ditch them to bring more copies of Kati Jones and Professional Contacts, or go the third way: Opus Magnum.

26 Apr 2015 ycombinator

One more thing: Escher is your best friend if you're going for the one big breaker to rule them all.