Hard Stealth Kit

BTrain! Find me on OCTGN, man! :) Name's ligre...

Sweet deck, btw...stealth Kit is beastly. Played a few on OCTGN...went down to the wire each time. :)

Is it really important to play 3x Refractor?

Did you consider Leprechaun? It's good to host SMC and Mopus, no?

Are you happy with the Ghost Runner?

Looks good, i really don't think blackat is worth the effort tho imo id rather just take a corroder over it.

I personally play against a jintiki PE player alot so Deus X would be a necessity really a Philotic Entanglement can be game over without it.

How do you find Refracter to hold up on non-codegate ICE that you've made codegate?

No console? Ballsy. I like it.

(Although with triple Inside Man - I can see Toolbox being viable - I can certainly see however why you wouldn't use it)

@AlsciendeI play 3x Refractor to up my chances of drawing into it without tutors. I'd much rather spend my SMC's on a Magnum Opus or a mid-run Parasite if I have to. I'll tutor it if I must, but it's great to know you're likely to draw into it. I did consider Leprechaun, but meh - too slow, and draw-order dependent. And I wouldn't trade Ghost Runner for the world; stealth creds when you haven't seen your cloaks, and credits when your opponent doesn't think you have enough to steal NAPD. I'll Ghost Run till I die.

@PinkwarriorBlacKat wins games. It deals with middling barriers well enough like the ubiquitous Eli, especially once you have Mopus up and running (make sure to identify those turns where you can just click it four times for 8 credits), and it eats through the bigger stuff with stealth. And I actually just played in a tournament today (4-0 with this deck!), and slotted in a DX because of the sheer amount of Jinteki. Never needed it because the deck moved so fast. And Refractor is a great breaker all around. Two stealth creds and it's at 8 str., and again with Magnum Opus, breaking things with regular money is no big deal.

@Softman25 Astrolabe will find room in here, I swear it!

Love this deck. Refractor + Lockpick is a beast in early game with Kit.

@Alsciende am not sure i agree with Blackat been really good against Elli it costs 2 to buff regard less and 1 to break if u use stealth so you save 1c over corroder and required a stealth cred it also cost u 2 more to install in the first place and an extra influence to have.

I maybe wrong i just dont feel it's worth the extra creds to install and effort. Stealth creds are limited and i can see a bigger ICE like Hadrian's wall really sucking them up using this.

@PinkwarriorIf you think you're going against glacier style, and could run into a Hadrian's or a Heimdall, get your Datasucker out early and get it to start building up those tokens all game long. The deck packs it for a reason, as it's the best tool to supplement the heavy lifting for stealth. Don't be afraid to tutor for it.

I love the idea of this deck! I've been trying to get a good stealth kit build and this gives me some great ideas. Some changes I'll be making...

-1 blackcat +1 corroder. Reason for this, it's 1 point lower influence, which is huge when you only have 10. Stealth credits are at a premium, and with magnum opus the extra money will help you get past glacier with ease. I started with Blackcat but just couldn't be successful with it.

-1 inside man, -1 cybersolutions memchip +2 Astrolabe. I think inside man is great to get your rig setup, but once that's done it's outlived it's usefulness. 2 should be sufficient. Also with 1 cybersolutions in play, and one astrolabe, there will be more than enough memory to host all the ice you want in play.

-1 Dagger +1 Switchblade. I don't think this needs explanation. SWITCHBLADE!

-1 Parasite +1 Datasucker. I think in this deck, Datasucker is much more valuable. Especially for the aforementioned glacier.

@djencodeI have to strongly advise against dropping memory from this deck. Opus eats up 2MU, Cloaks are 3MU, and you want to be able to have room to lay down a 2MU SMC to let you either pressure or pull out pieces of your rig. Astrolabe will certainly help, but if you want to make room it, I'd suggest cutting a clone chip, especially if you're dropping Parasite. Even if you never lay down that third Cyber, you'll want the consistency of making sure you see enough memory. It runs out fast.

And as far as Parasite goes, I agree it's nicer to have two Datasuckers when you're going against glacier, but when you're up against RP, one of the most prominent decks (at least in my meta), you'll want to be able to nuke the central ice that can effectively turn off Kit's ability.

And keep trying BlacKat. I didn't like it at first either, but now I far prefer it to Corroder, even if it means losing Switchblade in the deck. Like you said, stealth creds are at a premium, and both Dagger and BlacKat let you mix stealth and regular credits to break. Switchblade is a necessary 2 stealth every time you want to break even a low strength sentry, and with no dedicated hardware to provide stealth money (Silencer), you're going to eat up your cloaks during runs fairly quickly. Corroder is nice when you have the extra Datasucker support, but for this deck, BlacKat is far and away my preferred fracter.

@BTrain Probably better to take out a clone chip, ya. Did that and put the cybersolutions memchip back in.

RP used to be huge in my meta, but right now Weyland and HB glacier still get a lot of play. I also think that Astrolabe is a good way to deal with RP because it makes them question every time they create a new server. And while Parasite could help with dealing with certain ice, I think Switchblade does a better job since it's only 2 credits to break almost every Sentry Jinteki can throw at you. Komainu? MEH!

I just think the extra influence cost isn't worth it to me. The problem with Blackcat, is that if you want it to be good, you need to spend 2 stealth credits. Otherwise it's a shitty Corroder. And it's 3 influence. Where as Corroder is 2 influence, and is only marginally more expensive if we count in the use of stealth credits. And Switchblade, I know the way you look at it, is it has to cost 2 stealth creds from Dagger or Ghost Runner every time you run, but the way I look at it, is with Lockpick dedicating itself to Refractor, there are 2 stealth credits to spare for Switchblade. Especially since in most cases, that's ALL it'll need.

Anyhow I'll try out this build and let you know how it goes!

Also, what are your thoughts on finding a way to slot in Paintbrush or Tinkering?

I've never liked them. At a certain point, this deck can get through most everything without those cards' help, and if you're not at that point, you'd rather spend that click getting money, drawing cards, or building your rig. It's lateral movement in a build that wants to move forward as fast as it can.

Hi. We still don't have First Contact yet but I would really like to start using this build. I'm replacing BlacKat with Corroder, first then probably Gordian for Refracter. Any other suggestions for decoders? Thanks!

Thanks for sharing! I've been running various iterations of Stealth Kit (hell, stealth anything) since Refractor hit, and this one has been the most fun to play.

I did swap in Net Celebrity in place of Dirty Laundry. Without a significant number of run events, I wanted a harder counter to ELP (which is everywhere in my meta). Plus, that Net Celeb credit can do a lot of lifting early on.

@loki1227All I can say is get First Contact ASAP :\ This build isn't entirely viable in its current form without those two stealth breakers. BlacKat can be swapped for Corroder, as some people have done as a matter of preference/meta composition, but this deck hinges a lot on Refractor being able to do a lot of heavy lifting for you right out of the gate.

@FameByProxyGlad you're liking it so far! One reason I prefer Dirty Laundry is because this deck isn't too hindered by it (you're only making one run a turn anyway, and once ELP hits I usually spend a turn or two either digging like crazy for pieces, or getting things installed to make those runs even more painful for the corp), and the money from Dirty Laundry both negates ELP and gives you money to get yourself built up. But I can certainly see why you'd run Net Celebrity too - let me know how it handles!

There has to be something better than BlacKat. Running on servers with 4 or more ice and 2 barrier ice is really uphill. That being said, accessing 4 cards per run on the R&D is unbelievable!

What is Test Run for? Just having more tutors? What about Diesel? I'm hardly trying to cut off to 45 and even add one Deus X. Hard.

Too bad we need room for Plascrete now.. :P I agree that BlacKat is awesome, but the cost to get it out (and potentially tutor for it) just for a Wraparound does suck. Still won't swap it out for Corroder just yet.

@karmaportraitIt's a bit rash to put BlacKat in a vacuum and compare it to Corroder vs. Wraparound and then say BlacKat isn't worth running (and if you're tutoring it out specifically to deal with Wraparound aren't you conceivably doing the same thing with Corroder?). All things equal, BlacKat is only ever going to cost you 2 credits more, and this is a deck that runs Magnum Opus. You will have the money. What you really need to focus on when deciding whether to run BlacKat is how often you plan to lean on your recurring stealth credits. This deck is built to prioritize establishing those stealth creds and then using them to make one run a turn. That can be accomplished out of the gate with just a Refractor and a stealth source thanks to Kit's ability, and that lets us focus on building up our rig to make those runs more and more efficient through hardware and a more diversified breaker suite. With that in mind, BlacKat fits. When you use it to break barriers, you're spending stealth cash that you will get back the next turn, meaning you can instead spend your real credits on hardware that inevitably makes your runs extremely painful for the corp. Your meta could be far different from mine, and I'm not saying BlacKat is the only logical choice over Corroder, but for the mindset this deck is built around, Corroder slows everything to a crawl.

This is very similar to my Stealth Repli-Kit-er deck I have been running. I have thought of swapping the Silencer's for HQ Interfaces. Might go back to BlacKat instead of Corroder if I do that.

I have discovered that I LOVE Box-E for the extra hand size with this deck. The extra padding makes for a nice Net/Meat damage buffer when I feel I need it.

I have found the Levy AR Lab Access to be very important, as I have decked myself a few times against Jinteki with this deck.

@BTrain Things I learned from my play testing. In my meta, barriers are huge. Sentries, not so much. I think the only person who plays a bunch of sentries is me hahaha. As a result Switchblade got minimal use. But more importantly, there were definitely situations where I wish I could SMC out a parasite and datasucker to nuke a nuisance ice. So sadly in order to accommodate Parasite, I gotta bring back Blackcat, take out Switchblade, and put Dagger back in.

Also, Astrolabe vs NEH = AHAHAHAHAHAHA It always makes them think twice about creating that new server.

@BTrain Need a Plascrete Carapace. Been killed by double Snare! when accessing R&D with three R&D Interface and by double Scorched Earth right after a SEA Source running with nine credits. Otherwise, am liking it a lot.