Quick & Quiet Kit

Mechanoise 1595

I'm a big fan of Kit; in-spite of her punishing lower influence and knock-back from the Most Wanted List I still run with her, as her ability is one of the most interesting when attacking servers.

The key principle of a Kit deck is that she must take advantage of the game early, all while building her rig to deal with future multi-layered servers. Balancing these two was difficult - name a variation of a Kit deck and I'll likely have tried it.

Yog.0saurus takes too long and costs too much, (though I do love that Dino.)

Central pressure Cyber-Cyphers felt too restrictive, memory intensive, and a pain to set up.

MultiStudies was great, but again, memory intensive, and sometimes required Stimhack to boost Study Guide to a viable strength quickly.

Stealth has been, by far, the most success I've had with Kit in a long time, and with the odd 1 or two tweaks I'm confident she can be the high tier Runner she deserves to be. Kati Jones has replaced Magnum Opus and I couldn't be happier for it, since the ever-amazing Maya now supports the main rig alone, with the Atman in-hand on stand-by. Credits are generated through Professional Contacts while Kati is being loaded, and the various stealth credits used when running do not hurt your wallet.

The base rig needed for early aggression is Refractor and a Stealth card, (Lockpick or Cloak preferably.) Considering Self-modifying Code, and the likelihood of seeing said cards in a starting hand, from turn 1 it can be "run, break, access" for each turn thereafter, putting constant pressure on the corp when they know it barely taxes you, if at all.

Some interesting inclusions: Public Sympathy helps retain cards you Pro-co, and dissuade Scorch kills. Traffic Jam is great to shut down Cerebral Static, (or any current), and hinder future agenda scores. And Artist Colony is a life-saving search+rescue card that can eat through News Teams and Shi Kius.

If you ever want to try a Kit deck, and stay true to the mantra of Always be Running, without the side-effects, then a Stealth Kit deck is a great shout!

8 comments
18 Feb 2016 rwknoll

Thanks for sharing. I've been playing Stealth Kit as well, and have been really enjoying it. I've tried other variations and have had similar satisfaction with the stealth rig.

Thoughts about Dagger vs. Switchblade? A lot of the most popular sentries right now (Assassin, Ichi 1.0, Vikram 1.0) are 5 strength or less. Although they do all tend to be multi-sub, putting the advantage with Switchblade, Dagger is influence-free and only needs 1 stealth credit to be effective. I personally have only tried Dagger, but I'm curious how Switchblade has been holding up for you.

My biggest issue right now with Stealth Kit is that I'm struggling to have enough credits to setup, run aggressively, and trash their economy/critical assets early game. I can usually get in consistently, but then have a hard time doing anything productive until mid- to late-game. How do you find your economy package in the first few turns?

Finally, my biggest reasons for Astrolabe over Maya is the extra card draw, lower install cost, and infrequency with which I actually use all 3 Cloaks. Any thoughts on Astrolabe as a contender here?

18 Feb 2016 enk

I'll give this list a try at some point if my current Kit fails me. I'm currently fiddling with a semi-stealth build that uses Lockpick and Ghost Runner but no Cloak, and only uses stealth for Refractor. It's basically a Spooned Kit deck but no CyCy for the reasons you stated - I want to easily hit everywhere. The deck needs only 4 MU and doesn't even have a console.

I opted to solve the overdraw problem from ProCo with Bookmark instead as it's cheaper to install and can act as poor man's double scorch protection in a pinch (but falls to Power Shutdown sadly).

I'm curious about HQ Interface vs Legwork here.

18 Feb 2016 Mechanoise

@rwknoll Switchblade has done wonders. I agree that many sentries are strength 5, but with 2 cloaks you can take down a sentry for, effectively, free. Because of Kit's ability Refractor plays a crucial role and it makes it very difficult for the corp to consider placement of their ICE. If you wish to free up that influence and go for Dagger, it's not a bad shout, and can be meta dependent, but I love being able to break every sub in one.

Economy is normally pretty solid. Professional Contacts must come early, and if you play like me and draw at least 2 cards most turns, you have enough clicks to use Kati Jones and make a run. They key for me has always been aggression, and deciding on what to trash is always a judgement call, but if you can't trash it yet don't worry too much, just keep hunting the agendas and get up on points early, it puts the corp into a panic.

As for console, I love Astrolabe but Maya trumps it. The console's ability is really big if you spot something frightening, and as stated before you don't need supporting memory to fill your rig. Pro-co is my draw, and it has served me well.

18 Feb 2016 Mechanoise

@enk Spooned is an interesting card. The influence kills me, although I can see the value in having 1 with a bunch of Same Old Things. Cloak is really nice, if you treat it like a Lockpick in the early turns then you're chances of seeing a Refractor reoccurring credit have doubled from 3 to 6. If you're worried about influence, run Dagger as your Killer to compliment the stealth credits, it's a really good card, but I just love Switchblade that little bit more.

As for the multi access, I'm sold on the Interfaces. My breakers are supported by reoccurring credits, that's huge, and if you get a major lead then for 2 credits more than The Maker's Eye or Legwork you have 'constant' multi access on the centrals, which to some corps is terrifying when they're already behind.

As I've stated before, aggression is what you want to make this work, an unrelenting pressure that puts the corp at a disadvantage. You could always replace Atman with Feedback Filter if you're up against a lot of PE's, otherwise, rig up and roll in.

18 Feb 2016 enk

I'm currently using Mongoose in the killer department. Backed up with Tinkering for emergencies and Spooned to peel away ICE layers, it's usually enough. Atman can solve one particular sentry problem.

The reason I swayed away from Cloak in this build is that I just got tired of not finding my memory and decided to try a build that doesn't need any. I get what you're saying about just doubling the chances of finding a recurring stealth credit though.

I also love Switchblade over Dagger.

I actually bled enough influence to have 2x Spooned. I think one is too unreliable. Sadly that means 4 inf for solving the killer problem, HQ multiaccess.

19 Feb 2016 shykoreangirl

I more or less exclusively play Kit runner decks and have been experimenting with every popular archetype. Specifically stealth versions, paintbrush/surfer combos, and nexus Kits. I think I prefer stealth kit the most as it tends to easiest to set up early without relying on cyber-cypher or test-run scavenge combos.

My only question is that like most Kit decks i think i surfer against NBN ID's, specifically harpsichord. I've been running a Flim critic to help with the big RD/HQ digs. Any advice on what to do against NBN decks still running fast advance + scorched decks?

20 Feb 2016 Mechanoise

@shykoreangirl Its the conclusion I came to. Stealth just takes pressure off of your economy and is very quick to set up. I'm sure other variations of Kit work, but Stealth is one of the best.

I can recommend a few options you can tailor for your Meta. To slow Fast Advance, use Traffic Jam. Clot is great, but hurts influence and is usually nulled by Cyberdex, (which affects nothing in this deck). Of course Traffic Jam works only for already scored agendas, but you need to run a current to ensure Cerebral Static doesn't shut you down completely.

To prevent a Scorch kill, get yourself Film Critic and New Angeles City Hall. NACH will prevent any tags the corp tries to land, so long as you have the money. With it you don't need a Plascrete, the Film Critic is there to prevent it from being trashed. Consider adding Artist Colony to drag any piece out on the fly.

4 Apr 2016 dawspawn

@Mechanoise This deck looks really interesting, I really want to try out an aggressive stealth runner. How important is it to have a current? Was that more of a meta call? I ask because with Switchblade, Atman, and Maya all costing three, as well as the Interfaces costing 4, I was thinking it might not hurt to drop the two Traffic Jam for two Modded?