Kate Don't Need No Prepaid! (2nd, Santa Clara, CA Regionals)

westonodom 1120

Intro

This is the latest version of my "Supplikate" deck. I played it to 2nd place out of 89 total in the Santa Clara, CA regionals on May 30th. I've been working on this deck for several months, playing and tweaking (sometimes in big ways) the entire time. It's definitely not the standard PPVP Kate deck, so I'll give a brief rundown of the deck. It's really not too complicated so I don't think it'll take much.

The basic idea is to use the supplier and all the resources to create a very strong supply of cards and credits. Over the course of the game the econ package compares very favorably with prepaid in terms of both credits per card, per influence, and per click. As games go on your econ doesn't stop, and it creates a very strong sense of inevitability for the corp.

The Tournament

After three rounds I was 3-3 with one of the wins being timed (had the last agenda on the board advanced, but I didn't have the half-turn to score it). We were estimating you could only lose 3 or 4 to make the cut, so I knew I was in a rough spot (almost certainly already out of it with 4 rounds to go). I proceeded to win 7 or my next 8 games and squeek into the top 8 at 19 prestige.

Elims were insane. So many close games, so many tense moments. It was incredible, and I couldn't have asked for a better end than to be sitting in the grand finals with my friend Noah McKee.

Breakers and Programs

The breaker suite is extremely cheap to install, and many games I'll drop the entire thing (or most of it) in a single stimhack run with an smc and a clone chip or two. Datasucker is there to help out with 4 strength sentries until you get Atman@4 (if that's the best value for the game, and sometimes it's not), and also means that atman hits tollbooth with one counter as well as just being decent all-around. Zu is here over Gordian because it fits in so well with the Dyson/Data Folding combo.

Clot, Stimhack, and Feedback Filter

Clot is Clot. #SlotTheClot. Just do it.

Stimhack helps immensely both early and late game. I stole a ton of agendas sitting behind three ice servers because the corp thought I couldn't get in when starting my turn at 3 credits. Then I get 5 from resources and 9 from stimhack. The deck draws so many cards (the entire deck in many, many games) that often you'll have two in hand, and I've had a lot of games with two consecutive turns like this getting me 4 or 5 points.

The one semi oddball choice in the deck is the feedback filter. Up until the night before this was a quality time. I often found that I held on to the QT for several turns though, and PE was also one of my hardest matchups. With the release of Lockdown and all the HB stuff I thought FF was finally worth the slot.

My ideal gameplan is to draw and install my entire deck, and FF enables me to keep that same plan vs PE since I can just pay through any amount of net damage they can do. Once it's down I just run every remote, all the time, and hit R&D when there aren't any remotes. If it has a trash can, trash it.The only thing to worry about is to never draw last click or else you might get it (or a needed breaker) sniped.

Gamplan

Overall I think the deck is really straightforward. There are no tricks outside of stimhack, and you telegraph everything you're doing with the supplier. The econ package and stimhack just enable you to control remotes and eventually lock R&D with 4-card deep accesses. If it has a trash can on it, trash it. Your econ is better than the corps. In my third game during elims I was playing against butcher shop NEH, and I trashed ~40 credits worth of econ assets, including one or two unrezzed, unclicked marked accounts. Outside of psi games (which are so dumb and I hate them, even though I played RP in the tournament) if the game goes long enough you will almost certainly win.

Future

The only change I'm trying to figure out is how to slot in a femme. I can afford to simply pay through tollbooth usually, but being able to get through for 1 instead of 3 or 4 would made a difference in games where R&D has a caprice at the end. I think it'll either be cutting a stimhack or swapping corroder to snowball, but I'm not quite sure yet. It'll take some testing.

8 comments
31 May 2015 nobo

This deck is super innovative. Many people play "pet decks," but it's not every day a new competitive archetype is created from a player taking a new look at old cards.

It has such a crazy strong late game.

No doubt in my mind that this deck should be a considered for competitive play, I definitely learned a ton from playing against it on a regular basis.

31 May 2015 sruman

Mimic without a sharpshooter seems dangerous, did you hit any program trashing threats along the way -- archer, nebula, etc. ? If so, did you just rely on clone chip as the "defense" ?

1 Jun 2015 westonodom

@Nobo715 - Thanks! Getting wrecked by you on the reg definitely helped me get it to this point, as well as things like you convincing me not to play garrote ;)

@sruman - The only program trashing I saw was against two grail decks, and against those I just avoided servers with upgrades unless I was okay on credits/suckers/could get atman. In general, though, there isn't a lot to worry about. Mimic + Atman@4 + Datasucker covers most things, and worst case I can just let them trash stuff and clone chip it back, then reset atman as needed. Especially in the current meta (at least around here), which is almost entirely RP, NEH, and a few assorted HB/Weyland.

4 Jun 2015 tzeentchling

Thoughts on slotting a Parasite? Might not be needed - I guess Clot takes that influence - but even a single Parasite in Shaper is just so good.

4 Jun 2015 westonodom

@tzeentchling - Yea, that's a consideration I've had, and you're right that it's the clot spot. I've been wanting to try it but I just haven't had time to test yet.

Another option that I'd like to figure out is how to fit Lady in as well, which would also free up some influence for either parasite or an HQ interface.

4 Jun 2015 tzeentchling

I hate to say it, but maybe Snowball instead of Corroder? The extra install cost and 1 less strength are annoying, but it does help with stacked barriers and makes double Eli for instance much more doable.

6 Jun 2015 sruman

What would be your thoughts on dropping 1 stimhack for a femme fatale? Or is the upfront cost just not justifiable when can atman the tollbooth ?

Also, when I was trying to make a Supplier Kate deck work back a few months ago (with much, much less success), I had a Kati (maybe 2?) in there. She comes off the supplier for free and, well, we all know the advantages of Ms. Jones. Adding 2-ish-for-a-click onto the drip seems like it can't be that bad in the late and provides a form of burst econ to get into servers.

9 Jun 2015 westonodom

@tzeentchling - It doesn't actually help much with double Eli (unless there are even more high-strength barriers). You'd pay 5 for the first one then 3 for the second one, which is the same as 4 and 4. It's okay though, since most of the time you'll be using Atman4 to break Eli.

@sruman - I tried Femme just a bit and didn't really like it. Usually I'm breaking Tollbooth with Atman, and with Femme added to the mix I felt like I had too many things competing for my Stimhack credits. It's a great card so it's worth testing some more, but right now I'm satisfied not having it.

One thing I have been enjoying is HQ Interface. I made some changes and played them in the Oregon regional this weekend and it was an all-star. I've also been trying out Parasite without Clot and I think that's a reasonable change as well.