Kitpad Study Session

I run Kit a lot and Study Guide is my breaker of choice - I like the flexibility of it, in spite of its ever demanding costs. After looking at your deck there are some major changes you can make to greatly improve this deck's efficiency.

First off - Levy AR Lab Access. 3 copies?! Between your card draws I doubt you will see beyond 1 burn of a Levy. What you should have is only one copy, and 3 copies of Same Old Thing, especially with THAT MANY events! I mean seriously, the capacity to replay any of your events with Same Old Thing is game changing, and if your Levy AR Lab Access gets binned then you can still use it from your heap.

You're going for a mass draw capacity to get the things you need, I can see that, and you might be having problems storing cards such as Tinkering and Dirty Laundry in hand with all of the other things you're drawing in to. Either make allowances for extra capacity or you will have issues in a few games.

Not sure what you're doing for protection. Feedback Filter saves you from a flatline, but, that's about it. Plascrete Carapace or an increased hand size might help.

Inject is an interesting splash. It's not one I'd consider, especially eating 6 influence of your 10! I would always worry about Inject if you didn't have Clone Chip to pull back the discarded programs. Also, is Test Run doing anything besides searching for a program at a whopping cost of 3, only to have to re-draw it and install it again? I know you have Prepaid VoicePAD but that isn't going to hit the deck before you get out Study Guide. Also, what about Cerberus "Lady" H1? If she goes, or is depleted, how will you get new counters? Clone Chip is important here, and so is Scavenge if you are using Test Run; why not splash for a Femme Fatale to test run? It means you can bypass 1 ice for 1 turn on the cheap. I understand Test Run can pull programs out from the heap, but without any Prepaid VoicePAD that's 7 for Cerberus "Lady" H1!

Lastly, let's talk about Study Guide. When you get to understand it, it's a fickle mistress! What you need to appreciate about Kit is that she's all about early pressure, because everything's a Code Gate in the early phases! Getting Study Guide means you have a breaker you can boost on the fly and make stronger as you go, but you need the financial support to increase its strength fast so as you can get access! Cloak and Lockpick will drip boost the strength, which is too slow early on, and manually dumping your own credits will hurt your economy! Especially since it'll cost a naked Study Guide 11 to break an Ichi 1.0. This is why I love Stimhack. If you can mitigate the brain damage with an increased hand size you can surprise the corp by boosting Study Guide from strength 0 to strength 5 in 1 turn for only 1 and all 9 from Stimhack.

TL;DR - The most important thing you want to do as Kit is minimise early set-up, bombard, (multi-access if possible) those centrals, putting pressure on the corp and scoring early. Having Study Guide boosted early is important, as you can then slowly increase its strength afterwards to match the strength of ICE you will be hitting.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope it helps in some way. :) Let me know if there's anything I can help you with.

@Mechanoise

Hey! Thanks for the comment!

I chose Levy vs SOT, mostly because it doesn't require a 3 click tempo hit to use and it has a massive recursion rate. I have tried SOT in the past and was usually not that impressed with the effect vs cost. Also, ideally Levy is only used once 2-3 Prepaid Voicepads and other econ cards are on the field. In the games against Jinteki, especially blacktree types, I have gone through 2 and sometimes all 3 copies of Levy, just keeping my hand size and econ rolling for feedback filter.

My hand size is usually not an issue, since I can control the draw cards, for the most part. So, draw/install is pretty even, considering most of the cards are cheap.

Protection has been a concern, so thank you for bringing that up. Mostly meat damage. I am thinking -1 Tinkering +1 Plascrete Carapace to compensate.

Inject is really awesome. I had played with 1-2 copies before and just liked it way more at 3. Makes this deck super fast and acts as an extra econ card mid to late game.

Clone Chip hasn't really done it for me for a while. It's a tempo hit to install it and doesn't tutor. For an extra 2 credits ( which usually come from Prepaid Voicepads ) I see more benefit from Test Run. Also, Cerberus "Lady" H1 plays well with Test Run. Recursion of power counters on the first install if tutored and again if played from the heap. Usually though, Lady is installed from grip and stays put, losing maybe 3 counters the whole game or being installed over late game. Not a big issue either way it's played.

Scavenge is too janky for my taste. I have tried it in previous versions and just trashed it for more reliable cards.

Femme is too expensive for a one off effect and is usually only useful for a single turn against decks like Blue Sun, so I feel the influence point is used better for Injects.

Lockpick felt like adding a dead weight to the deck, since it is only useful for Study Guide. Between Ghost Runner(x3), Cloak(x3 - only 2 on field at a time, usually) and Net Celebrity, there are enough stealth and recurring credits to power the rig.

Stimhack again felt like it was doing more harm then good and weighted the deck down. Not only taking up influence from Injects, but also causing permanent damage to grip size. If used early, that damage lasted all game. The juice just isn't worth the squeeze.

Instead, I find it better to Dirty Laundry open servers and at least get a relatively free run out of that click while also boosting Study Guide. The one or two turns spent building up counters along with econ and other rig components while keeping a healthy grip is well worth the time, in my opinion.

Thanks again for the comment, hope you get a chance to enjoy this deck!

@polymaze Once I've tried out my newest rendition of Kit I'll try and post it back to you to give yourself an alternative idea on how to play her :).

She is still my favourite runner, and I'll embrace anyone's alternate play. You're pretty convinced that Inject is doing something for you, and before I judge I'll give it a whirl myself one day.

Maybe we should test the decks only against our corps and see how different the play is. So yeah, I'm intrigued, and I hope to share my deck at some point!

@Mechanoise

I was thinking about some of your suggestions while playing a few online games. It feels like the original version was running much slower then I thought, especially against Chronos Project. Thanks for the feedback and please take a look at the updated deck here:

netrunnerdb.com