With Flashpoint cycle nearing to its end, and most notably the Dawn of Sifr I think it's time to say goodbye to my current Kate build. It wasn't as fun as my 2015 Chameleon build but it is still good old Shaper Magic. But, let's go back to eulogy.

It was a rough last few months for me. For some werid reasons I wasn't able to build deck that could stand against heavy tag meta. After placing at humilating last at Polish Nationals I finally came to this ground breaking conclusion, that New Angeles City Hall and Film Critic are good cards to play if you are afraid of Breaking News and Exchange of Information. And if you want infinitive amounts of money, Magnum Opus is the key.

This isn't tournament winning deck. All I did was finding the perfect deck for me after more than hundred games. This is control build, it works great against slower corps, most asset spam decks, some kill decks (if you find NACH or Film Critic fast) and net dmg decks. It has some problems against hybrid FA Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future decks and requiers careful piloting to win with "Russian" variants of Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center. Thanks to Rumormill there is not much Caprice Nisei decks anymore, so most remote servers are yours to break in. The whole point is to have answers to almost everything and adapt to corp game plan. Which is not ideal, but if I wanted the easy way, I would just play Anarch.

Economy and Draw

The main reason why Magnum Opus is good is that once it hits the table you don't need to draw for more economy cards anymore, you look for your breakers and support cards. Magnum Opus is slow, but reliable, and with Beth Kilrain-Chang it can turn into monster.

Paricia is good support card, because it is clickless economy against asset spam. This deck has some moving parts and tech slots so if you think you don't have much tags or net damage in your meta you could easily fit two copies. It is that good now.

Diesel is bread and butter. Daily Casts don't require you to run. Quality Time combos great with Modded.

Symmetrical Visage could be Quality Time number three, but the main reason I like it in this deck is that when you have Magnum Opus you don't want to waste time drawing cards, you need credits! Visage gives you a cred while you find for your programs and is not as expensive to install as Professional Contacts.

Beth Kilrain-Chang is a star, but you don't want three copies of her to clutter your deck. She can help win, but is not essenstial to the game plan.

Breakers and Hardware

The main reason why Magnum Opus is bad is that once it hits the table you don't have MU for your other programs. You need at least 3 MU to threat remote with Self-modifying Code and Clone Chip or second installed breaker. Shaper has two cheap 2 MU sources in Maya and Mirror, but they don't have much to offer in terms of making this deck better. This is why I fell in love with The Gauntlet. It is more expensive, yes, but you are still playing Kate with three copies of Modded, so installing it for one cred is not a rare sight. It works great as MU source and HQ pressure. My favourite trick is to first run on HQ, make them rez their ICE and then install Gauntlet for free HQ Interface effect.

Now you could easily replace it for the same install and influence cost with Sifr, it should be good economy option and you could combo it with Atman, but why bother without Parasite? This is something I'm planning for my new build.

R&D Interface is slow but reliable R&D pressure, three is too many in current meta, two are enough, you need space for more tech.

Akamatsu Mem Chip is a flex slot. It could be Sports Hopper or even Dyson Mem Chip, because it combos nicely with cloudiness of GS Shrike M2, but I found New Angeles City Hall is good enough for meat damage protection, and Akamatsu is simply cheaper.

Paperclip is the best fracter in the game, at three influence it is a steal. But I'd be careful now with leaving it in the heap for too long. I think Ark Lockdown is gonna be used more and more, so don't get yourself locked out.

Gordian Blade is love. One of the reasons I was playing so badly in the early stages of this cycle, I was trying to make Study Guide work. But it is too slow against fast NBN: Controlling the Message with their Tollbooth or HB with their Fairchild 3.0. The late game dream of breaking everything for cheap must be replaced with sweet vision of actually stealing some damn agendas. But you know which new console works great with Study Guide? Yup, Sifr.

GS Shrike M2 is solid killer that will break almost everything for the same price and will help against some random Komainu or Tour Guide.

Atman is my fail safe which I rarely use but sometimes it's good to install it with four power tokens or even 10 if you want to make Blue Sun players cry.

Support cards

Employee Strike will help you mostly against Blue Sun: Powering the Future, Industrial Genomics: Growing Solutions, NBN: Controlling the Message and Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers, but used in right moment will help you against any corp ID that revolves around using their ability, like Haas-Bioroid: Architects of Tomorrow or Argus Security: Protection Guaranteed. If you want to free up influence try Interdiction, it works great against some prison style decks. Sadly, Net Celebrity is not very good current, and we don't play Indexing to really benefit from "Freedom Through Equality".

Rebirth. Kate is great in setting up, but after getting her discount triggered 8-10 times it is usually not useful anymore. Rebirth can seriously win some NBN matchups when you hop into Jesminder Sareen: Girl Behind the Curtain. Rielle "Kit" Peddler: Transhuman in some situations can work wonders both in economy terms and early pressure, Ele "Smoke" Scovak: Cynosure of the Net is another free creds when you are running, and you can always switch into Chaos Theory: Wünderkind if you really want another MU.

Deus X is in my every shaper deck. It was because there was always someone trying to play Jinteki: Personal Evolution in my meta, and now it is even better, because Fairchilds, Mausolus and DNA Tracker are AP ICE that Deus Ex can be used on. It was tech slot that earned more value just because there were some new corp cards!

Net Shield is a tech card against Jinteki: Potential Unleashed and any prison deck that try to play Bio-Ethics Association. It seriously win games and make people stop playing Jinteki.

One more thing about New Angeles City Hall - sometimes combined with Film Critic is all you need against many NBN ICE. This is not just for evading Breaking News combos. Last time I played against NEH, I got Boomed turn five, so this about it. Two copies, because you want to find it fast when it matters.

Sacrificial Construct is a tech slot. Leave it if you think there will be a lot of Fast Advance decks, so your Clotlock is stronger or replace it with Misdirection or second Paricia.

There is no Levy AR Lab Access because you don't need it. Just draw your Magnum, console and Breakers and go play some classic Android: Netrunner.

Good luck and have fun!