Kitty Purry - Best KoS performance by a Delawarean (4-1)

Sanjay 3561

I had my heart set on judging Worlds 2018 as soon as I heard about the tournament. There's an interesting jumble of feelings to untangle as to why I wanted to judge instead of compete, but it was a combination including 1) sentimentality about the end of FFG producing my favorite card game, 2) love for the community that has grown around Netrunner, and 3) recognition that tournaments are stressful, tense, and uncertain and that I already peaked with my back to back Worlds Top Tennin titles.

Unfortunately, after inquiring about judging, I heard that they were good on judges. So I instead had to resort to my backup plan: playing at Worlds. Which meant I needed to figure out decks.

Jesminder has always been one of my favorite runners and Hot Pursuit (and to a lesser extent DJ Fenris -> Liza) give you a great reason to play her. I played Jesminder in NY Regionals and had some pretty mediocre results. And while I got some acrylic credit tokens out of the event, the real prize came afterward:

My deck was highlighted on Ben Ni (aka Beyoken)'s incredible Youtube series Successful Demo!

I was positively beaming watching this video. It was incredibly heartwarming hearing a deckbuilder, player, and content creator I admire to the moon say positive things about my deckbuilding decisions. Additionally, Ben had made some edits to the shell that looked really promising, and I wanted to try them out.

I tried out some changes Philadelphia regionals and things didn't go very well. The biggest problem I had was people would put giant ice in front of HQ and turn off my run based economy. Even though breakers like Engolo got through ice relatively well, it just wasn't efficient enough to make runs as often as I wanted. DNA Tracker and Anansi were wrecking me. Thankfully, Ben Ni came through again:

Ben Ni's updated icebreaker analysis video

One of the highlights of the video was pointing out how efficient stealth breakers were at the moment, particularly vs. the ice that was vexing me.

Thus, this deck was born and I think it is pretty good!

Here are some things that are very good about the deck:

  • Thematically, it feels so much better playing stealth with a runner whose theme is actually being stealthy instead of a runner whose theme is livestreaming all her runs. Energy that would have been spent rationalizing a Smoke deck on thematic grounds can instead go toward piloting.
  • While CtM's trace can't be avoided, their game plan involves slowing you down with a lot of tags and taggy ice, and the matchup is pretty decent.
  • You have Employee Strike and nice breakers against annoyingly taxing Jinteki ice, which feels great versus Mti Mwekundu.
  • You get to play DJ Fenris which is a great way to show off your alt art collection.

Ultimately, there was a last minute judging cancellation, and I got to judge after all. I was very excited to do so, judging was a blast, but I am a little disappointed I didn't get to test this pile against the field at Worlds.

As a consolation prize, my friend and great Netrunner content creator Dan let me play the deck on stream on one of his most recent episodes of Day Job.

All in all Netrunner in 2018 may not have been my best year competitively, but it has been my best year by a lot of other metrics. Thanks for sharing it with me.

See you in #mirrormode.

P.S. The deck is called Kitty Purry because Katy Perry has a song called "Hot and Cold" and the deck has Hot Pursuits and Cold Reads and the other fact I know about Katy Perry is she has a cat named Kitty Purry, which is really solid, I must admit.

12 comments
17 Sep 2018 JamesWinters

This is the worst deck name in the history of netrunner.

17 Sep 2018 Sanjay

That sounds like a you problem, @Winterspring.

18 Sep 2018 Lothos

As a Delawarean, a cat owner, and a sincere fan of Katy Perry's Super Bowl performance, I support this deck name. It also looks fun to play, thanks!

18 Sep 2018 Daigelmir

It was an honor and pleasure meeting you at worlds. You did an incredible job as a judge. Would loved to play against this deck. It looks really fun!!! (Love the name btw).

18 Sep 2018 Funkmj

I love this deck, I have actually been following the progression of your deck through its appearances on Day Job. I think the switch to stealth was a really good idea, when this deck gets set up it is almost unstoppable. I have recently experienced some struggles to get set in time. I got frustrated enough to switch all the breakers, bracing for further frustrations I started playing my renewed version on Jenteki.net, but to my surprise it has done really well. I switched to a lady, cyber-cipher, na'not'k, D4v1d breaker suite. To accompany this I switched restricted cards to Aesops, and now always use DJ Feneris as Steve Cambridge. Every time I analyse the deck I feel like it shouldn't work it is a half run based economy half Aesop. It might just be a fluke that this deck has worked out, but I would really love to hear your thoughts.

18 Sep 2018 PureFlight

So, after having given Cold Read a fair chance in a deck with Clone Chip...do you like it? Would you rather have, say, any other economy card that isn't Cold Read?

19 Sep 2018 Sanjay

@PureFlight I really do like Cold Read! It gets Net Mercur set up and is great vs asset spam.

In general, I think you want to use it on a server you aren't planning on using other programs on (besides Self-Modifying Code). But you can also use cloaks to take the Cold Read hit if you desperately need to use Cold Read to get into a server.

19 Sep 2018 Sanjay

@FunkmjThat sounds really fascinating! I haven't had many set up time issues too often, but your approach sounds really cool. Aesops is another good solution to the issue where run based economy wasn't letting me run often enough. Sounds a little wonky for the reasons you are suggesting (half run based/half Aesop-y), but I think the idea has appeal.

I know some other Jesminder deckbuilders have been playing with Aesop Jesminder more, and hopefully they can come up with something cool. I know some of them have experimented with Thunder Art Gallery but found it too unwieldy.

19 Sep 2018 rubyvr00m

You need to go full flavor. Cut the Employee Strikes and swap the Paperclip for Lady. With the new found influence, slot some Rumor Mills.

Now you're Space Kitty Purry.

19 Sep 2018 mrmoody

Great deck, big ups for not baring your midriff on stealth runs (sm0k s0 tires0me), much fun playing with you and @osclate last round of KoS

21 Sep 2018 scumhooligan

After watching this deck in action on Day Job I just had to take it for a spin. It is so enjoyable to pilot! I decided to experiment with the influence a little as you discussed paperclip not being very necessary and have really been enjoying the following changes:

-1 Paperclip, -1 Cold Read, -1 Makers Eye, -1 Shadow Net, -3 Employee Strike

+1 Blackstone, +2 Find the Truth, +2 RNG Key, +2 Mad Dash

Wonderful deck Sanjay!

29 Sep 2018 Pantacruel

Great deck, very well balanced. I have one concern with the console. I felt the +2 is not necessary. So I replaced it with Astrolabe. The extra draw is nice.

And I just want to try Gebrselassie. I think this would help to run big servers and save on stealth creds.