Stealth Kate, Replicating Perfection

Gachnar 13

So this is my take on stealth kate inspired by Turbo-stealth Kate by Penance. I liked the concept of the deck a lot but I felt it was just missing something, that something being replicators. Other notable changes are swapping the BlackKat for sherman, and switching daggers to switch blades. Overall I've found it be very effective.

Ideal opening hand is anything with a modded, magnum, and replicator. The general idea is to get the magnum out early then use the replicator to both thin the deck and get all the hardware installed, with replicator a single copy of any hardware is essentially equivalent to having all three copies in hand.

Card Choices: Sherman: This one probably gets the most raised eyebrows in this deck. I put it in place of blackKat and opted to use it instead of corroder for several reasons. The weakness of stealth decks in my experience is stacked barriers as there is just no way to do it cheaply, blackKat will eat too many stealth credits and is only marginally better than corroder. As for sherman it's equal to corroder on Eli and though it costs more on some of the smaller barriers (markus, wall of static, etc) it saves a bunch of credit on big multi sub ice like curtain wall (8 credits vs 11credits) and I found that Weyland Blue sun was one of the worst matchups.

Switchblade: Aside from needing one additional stealth credit than dagger, it's basically better in every way. Archer for two credits, komainu for two credits. It's the multi sub ice where it really shines. And thanks to the replicator getting out three silencers is not difficult and I've never had a problem with stacked sentries, and ghost runners and cloaks can fill in any gaps.

Levy AR Lab Access: By far the weakest card in this deck but without any recursion I wanted a safety net just in case one of my critical pieces went into the heap, most games it's a dead draw but occasionally it saves me from being permanently locked out. I'd rather have a clone chip or two, but you know MWL. . .

Omitted cards: Clot: I really wanted to put clot in this deck to counter fast advance as I frequently loose to NBN fast advance but without clone chips or some sort of recursion a single clot is fairly useless

Plastacrete: The magnum and stealth rig makes it pretty easy to stay ahead on credits and avoid the seasource/midseasons. 24/7 is another issue though for which I have no real answer.

HQ interface/leg work: I'd love to find room to add one of these to add in a little HQ pressure (in case someone fast tracks an astro or some other such shenanigans) but I'm just not sure what I would cut.

Matchups: Glacier: Their slow set up time gives you lots of time to get all of your pieces in place and I find it's usually a blow-out.

Horizontal asset based builds: Forget the remotes put out 3 R&D interfaces and just hammer it.

Fast advance: Probably the weakest match up as it has no HQ pressure and no clot. Again hammer R&D with multiple interfaces, but if the corp has a great opening hand it's pretty much over before it starts.

Jinteki: net damage can pick out a lot of valuable pieces which is very annoying, and another reason I included the levy

Shell game: So ya it's bad against the shell game, but then again I also play really bad against the shell game and usually loose no matter what I do anyways.

All in all it's a fun deck. Not sure it's quite tournament grade as it destroys some archtypes but folds like a stack of cards to others. Make of it what you will.

5 comments
21 Jan 2016 DarkMite2

Why GS Sherman M3 instead of Corroder? You are going to spend at least 4 for each barrier + 1 more when you use Self-modifying Code to search for it.

21 Jan 2016 Cliquil

If it is stacked barriers you really hate Snowball isn't terrible

21 Jan 2016 Gachnar

There is definitely an argument for corroder in place of sherman as the sherman only shines when facing multi sub and or huge ice (curtain wall, ashigaru, etc). But what I have found is that while sherman costs a little more against the small barriers I can afford the extra credits due to the excessive amount of recurring credits in this build as well as the magnum. Mainly I think I chose sherman because I got tired of losing to huge Weyland multi sub barriers. Bottom line I think there is an argument for either corroder and sherman in this deck and I think one could go either way. And yes snowball was also something I considered except I believe it's 4 to install (so an even bigger tempo hit) and while it's good against stacked barriers its very bad against single barriers. But again I could see it going both ways.

21 Jan 2016 Stratix

Have you considered Hayley Kaplan: Universal Scholar for this deck? So much stuff to install, so many saved clicks.

22 Jan 2016 Gachnar

I definitely did consider Haley for this deck for the same reason you listed. However, I found that the tempo hit I took by paying full price for my installs was brutal in the early game. So in the late game Haley was pretty strong, but early game I found that Kate helped me keep tempo and get set up quickly, and slow set-up being the main problem with stealth decks I decided to keep Kate. But other's may feel differently or have different results.