Kate Giveth, and Kate Taketh Away | 2nd place Dice Saloon SC

This is the runner I piloted to top of swiss and then second place at Dice Saloon SC in Brighton. It is a straight rip-off of Katepocalypse with -2 Day Job, +2 Armitage Codebusting, +1 Turntable.

This deck was very much a meta call. London is swamped with NEH asset spam at the moment (thanks, maxey), and Apocalypse (Apoc to its friends) is an awesome way to deal with large numbers of remotes.

Also, incidentally, a great way to deal with defensive upgrades in remotes.

Not doing a full tournament breakdown because I have a terrible memory and don't recall half my games, but the deck only dropped one game all day, versus Palana.

Game Plan

So, this deck is pretty econ-light, which means that in ICE-heavy matchups you'll want to money up a bit early. Ending the world ain't free. Against faster decks, grab what econ you can, but you probably want to be digging for cards (Turntable, Indexings and Apocalypses) while you money up.

In either case, you're aiming to Apocalypse soon and often. Drop Hyperdriver as soon as you get it. If you have an Astrolabe, drop the SMC too, but otherwise keep it in hand: you want Hyperdriver on the board to set up your first Apoc.

Play cards from hand sparingly. Your momentum depends on being able to keep going after an Apocalypse, so only use what you really need to get in. By all means drop Astrolabe early, but don't play out 2 SMC, 2 Clone Chips and half your breakers, then Apocalypse. Never drop Aesop's before the first Apoc, and whenever possible drop him a click after Apocalypsing (mmmm, Hyperdriver).

Some other tips: - Don't run that remote. Just Apocalypse. - Levy as soon as both your Clone Chips are gone. - A lot of the time you can run through Architect prior to Apocalypsing. Be wary of defensive upgrades and Crisiums, but if you can do it, do it.

Cards

Here's some card-specific tips:

• Turntable: thinking of cutting Turntable for Clot? Don't. Consider that you can't Apocalypse whilst maintaining a Clot lock. Consider that CVS is a card. Consider that you really need your Clone Chips for fetching breakers after you Apocalypse. And consider that Turntable is bananas with Indexing. The following is a totally legitimate, often achievable turn, which you should try to set up for in case they score an Astro (clone chip(s) will help):

  1. Pop hyperdriver
  2. Clicks one to 4, Apocalypse.
  3. Click 5 Index
  4. Click 6 drop Turntable
  5. Click 7 run R&D
  6. ???
  7. Profit!

  You can't always do this all on the same turn, but you can often spread it over two if you're holding SMC/CC. You often can't stop the first Astro. But with Apocalypse, Indexing and Turntable, you can stop the train, and I have yet to see a Fastro deck recover from that. I Turntables loaded astros 3 times that I can remember on Saturday, and every time it was accompanied by an apocalypse and was the turning point of the game. Amazing include. Shout out to @massisi on the #uk Stimhack Slack for the suggestion!

• The third Apocalypse: people say to me "well, there's two Apocalypses in the bin, so I'm probably ok now". Then I Apocalypse them, and after the game they say, "Do you find the third Apocalypse to be worthwhile?"

  There may be a deck which slots one less Apocalypse, and it may be good, but I'm pretty sure it's not this deck. I suspect the cut would substantially dilute the game plan, and that significant alterations to the rest of the deck would have to be made to compensate. On the other hand, this is all speculation. Try it and let me know how it went!

• The missing third Clone Chip : I really want a third Clone Chip, but not enough to cut the third Apoc. Help! Maybe cut Utopia Shard?

• Deus X: seems like an easy cut, right? WRONG! I tried that. Vikram 1.0 ruins your day. Single use breakers are additionally just good in this deck, because you only need one access to Apoc.

Matchups

Let's talk matchups!

Pālanā Glacier: This is the worst matchup. Batty and Caprice on centrals are a pain in the arse. It's not unbeatable, but you need to spend time clearing upgrades off centrals before you can Apoc, which is rubbish. On the bright side, if they don't know what's coming you're going to have a fun time.

NEH Asset Spam: Apocakate massacres this deck. However, I've not played against variants with Hostile Infrastructure much. It's a pretty good answer.

ETF Foodcoats: This one is pretty good, actually. Lots of clickable ICE you can Hyperdrive through, Architect is often blank on the turn you Apocalypse, and being forced to put their single Caprice on a central is going to suck for them.

Butchershop: Not really played this. It's probably quite scary, but luckily it's also not that prevalent at the moment. If it is... I would recommend not cutting Utopia Shard, I suppose. Plascrete Carapace seems bad in here. Generally, tagging ICE like Gutenberg and Data Raven makes you pretty sad.

Changes

I think I'm going to cut ZU, because Chameleon is about as efficient in most cases. Although, there was that one time I had to break a Little Engine on HQ with Zu to Apocalypse because my CyCy was on the Tollbooth on R&D...

That's about all! Let me know how it goes if you try the deck out and any changes you make. gl;hf!