Ghost in the Machine

So after a month of tweaks and testing, this is the final build for my stealth kit deck. I felt that this was the best I could do, so I brought it to the store champs last week, where it went undefeated in all 6 rounds of swiss (though I ended up 5th). The main goal of this deck, like many other stealth decks is to get your rig up (hopefully sooner rather than later) and start making efficient runs every turn. It should be mentioned that O&C was relased 3-4 days before this tournament, so certain card choices are specific choices to deal with the new cards.

A breakdown and explanation for the cards in here:

Sure Gamble: No-brainer. Money is always nice to have.

Scavenge: This deck runs both Cerberus "Lady" H1 and D4vid, which don't trash themselves when they run out of counters, so popping them back into play at full strength for a single click is always nice.

Levy AR Lab Access: I personally wasn't too sure about this card, until I played against PE. It's basically a second wind, which is amazing against PE and great against other decks which turtle for a while.

Legwork: Your main (and only) form of HQ pressure. It's fast and unexpected, so you can usually pull one off before the corp ices HQ too hard, and it usually gets you at least 1 agenda. The main reason i chose this over HQ interface was due to the fact that it's faster and more helpful against NEH. However, you may want to swap in HQI, as playing stealth involves making efficient runs every turn, rather than many potent runs in a single turn, but it is a bit slower, and more expensive in the short term.

Akamatsu Mem Chip: Every stealth deck suffers from the problem of memory constraints. Thankfully, we're shaper and mem is an in-faction specialty. These chips are cheap and you don't need much extra memory in this deck, so a single chip with astrolabe is almost always more than enough. Heck, even astrolabe alone is usually enough mem with proper management, but it's always nice to have these as they make installation choices easier.

Astrolabe: An excellent, cheap console which gives you both draw power and some extra memory. It is always nice to have every game, and a godsend against NEH and Jinteki PE, who go horizontal like crazy.

Clone Chip: Standard recursion for any programs that get trashed, or an SMC needed mid run. An important thing I should mention is that whenver you install a new program, if you have no scavenges in hand, you should probably trash empty "Lady"s and D4vids, so you can bring them back with this. It's more costly than a scavenge, but it's also a lot more reliable.

Lockpick: It's stealth Kit, and you're playing refractor. Pretty much an auto include (no reason why it shouldn't be). Going up to 3 copies is nice as it means you see about 2 every game, allowing to get to your cheaper runs faster.

Plascrete Carapace: A single plascrete against anyone trying to scorch you to death. Should be an include most of the time, became an auto include once O&C came out. 1 copy was always enough as the deck has enough draw for you to pull it in a reasonable amount of time.

R&D Interface: Standard Shaper R&D pressure. 1) Drop them down 2) Start making those efficient stealth runs on R&D. 3) ??? 4) Pull agendas and win (evil laugh optional).

Ghost Runner: Extra stealth credits for dagger and refractor is always nice, especially when it doesn't eat up any of your precious, limited MU. Also has the added benefit of letting you pull NAPD contracts with only 1 credit.

Kati Jones: The 1st half of your economic engine. My meta already featured a reasonable amount of glacier builds, and O&C coming out just encouraged that sort of style more (with bigger ice and some fast advance hate). Pop Kati down and slowly start clicking her. It's always a nice feeling when you suddenly pull a ton of money off her and jump back in control of the game. 3 copies so that you can see her as fast as possible.

Professional Contacts: The other half of your economic engine, and only source of card draw besides astrolabe. You usually want to mulligan for this in your opening hand. Playing it does set you back a bit, but stealth kit was never that fast in the first place. After a while (usually 3 turns) it will pay for itself and have gotten some nice draws too. In every single game, I found that this and kati were enough to weather almost every corp, and the draw was always helpful. 3 copies of proco is pretty much mandatory, as you have no tutoring for it and is a core part of making this deck function.

SMC: Standard shaper tutoring, pull whatever you need mid run and keep on going.

Refractor: Not sure how stealth kit would work without this. Super efficient, super beautiful card which lets you apply early pressure on the corp for low to no cost depending on your setup. 3 copies means you see it fast, and you need this as soon as possible.

Cloak: Stealth credits everywhere! Cloak credits will usually pump refractor together with lockpick, and later on dagger once the corp has its nasty sentries out.

Dagger: Your in faction stealth sentry breaker. Switchblade would honestly be better in most cases (eating through RP and archers much better), but tends to be a bit too heavy on the stealth creds and influence. There were times when i wished that switchblade was in this deck, but more often than not, dagger was enough to get the job done, as a single stealth cred gets it up to most sentries' stength (darn you archer!), and kati with proco means you should have enough cash to break the subs 1 by 1.

Cerberus "Lady" H1: Your fracter of choice. I originally only ran 1 copy of her, but found that I almost always had to pop an SMC for her, and she ran out of counters too fast. 2 copies means you can draw into her naturally, and can just pop down another when the first is spent.

Parasite: Your single best counter to RP. SMC this onto any low strength ice (or even midrange stuff like Eli) and use your shaper recursion tricks to tear up the board state. It's a bit slower without any sucker support, but influence is tight and an extra turn doesn't usually mean much anyway against the decks where you want this.

D4v1d: Slotted this in at the last moment when I heard that O&C would be legal, and it was the best decision ever. Not only does it get you through exisiting high strength ice like archer and tollbooth, but it also makes it absurdly easy to deal with all the new high strength, single subroutine ice in the big box.

For playstyle, you usually just want to spend the first few turns setting up your rig and stealth suite, while making light runs to check out the ice on the table. Later on, once your economy gets going, you usually want to have some RDIs on the table and make those sweet, sweet stealth runs and slowly choke the corp to death with the classic R&D lock. An ideal opening hand would be something like: ProCo, Kati, Refractor, Lockpick, something. However, usually ProCo with some part of the stealth build will be enough to see you through the early game.

Matchups (these are the ones I face more commonly):

NEH: You basically flip a coin and pray you can pull their astros before they get the train going. If you have the money, you can try to trash their asset economy. It is important to try to apply an R&D lock as soon as possible, and trash Jackson on sight. Legwork is also extremely good in this matchup, as NEH usually holds agendas in HQ while waiting for their biotics or SanSan.

RP tax glacier: Dan, y u build such stronk deck? This deck is probably your worst matchup that isn't a coin flip. The only saving grace is that their slow play gives you more time to set up you rig, while they build their board state. Here are a few tips, which you should know by now. 1) Trash sundew on sight. No ifs or buts. Burn it, as if it ever gets rolling they pretty much get control of the entire game. 2) Don't try to pressure centrals too early. Their low agenda density and taxing ice makes it more painful for you to do anything early on, and you won't likely get many rewards either. You should instead spend the time building up your rig and start going on the offensive later in, when their R&D is thinner and they might be more likely to be holding agendas and caprice in HQ. 3) Parasite. More Parasite. Their ICE can't tax you if it's trashed, and your recursion means that you can eat through a lot of their ICE. At the end of the day, if you keep cool, build your rig and burn their economy and ICE, you can win this matchup. It's still a massive pain to play against. Yes I'm salty.

Blue Sun: Saw a sudden spike in play once O&C came out. This is where you thank god for your plascrete and D4vids, and this is one of your best matchups possible. They take a while to get rolling, letting you get more time to set up your rig of death, and their outside ice is vulnerable to refractor, while the inner ice is vulnerable to D4vid. You really want ProCo and kati in this matchup, and having ghost runners on the table don't hurt either as D4v1d will eventually run out. Just play the turtle game, build the stealth suite and economy, pop down RDIs and lock them out. If they build a remote, take cash off kati and simply get through with you super efficient stealth tech.

EtF: Really popular right now, both the fast advance and glacier kind. Against the fast adv decks, you will need to poke early, and legwork is always nice when they stockpile points in HQ while waiting for their biotics. You should also make it a point to trash their asset economy, as fast adv does get expensive pretty fast. Thankfully, it's slower than NEH, and you have a bit more time to get the lock going. All in all, a decent matchup.

EtF glacier plays a lot like Blue Sun, minus the scorch threat, and the advice is largely the same. It is also one of your preferred matchups. However, one thing that O&C did do is it lets them bring the twins to the table. If you ever, ever see the twins in R&D against Etf or Blue Sun, TRASH ON SIGHT. Nothing is more painful than Twins + Janus. It hurts and it taxes. That being said, when EtF pop and Blue Sun pop an upgrade into a remote, and are at 16-17 credits, be ready for recurring Januses and Curtain Walls.

That's all I really can say about this deck, and it was really a lot of fun to pilot and I hope that you find success with it as well. Sorry about the long chunks of text, and thanks for taking the time to read my 1st deck here. Feel free to drop any thoughts and feedback down below :3