Hard(ware) at Work - BREAKER BAY SPOILERS

Hardware's back in a brand new way.

I've been a long-time Kit player, and a few months ago I tried out my Hard Stealth Kit build, which actually saw a lot of success despite how slow it was. It could go toe-to-toe with NEH FA builds, IF and ONLY IF it saw cards in the right order; and unfortunately living or dying by the draw left me little choice but to put it on the backburner and experiment with something else. Now though, the game has changed. Not only is Clot forcing corporations to slow down, there's also a new card that's completely changing the hardware game and unlocking builds in a way we've never seen.

This decklist includes cards that were recently spoiled by Snowjax on this Breaker Bay Spoilers Reddit thread, so if you want the thrill of cracking open that new pack and getting a face full of fresh cards, then PLEASE STEER CLEAR. You're a stronger person than I am, and you deserve only the best.

Okay

Still here?

Good, me too.

Let's get to work.

First things first: The Helpful AI is a stand-in for the new Shaper resource:

♦ Tyson Observatory
Shaper (2 inf), Resource: Location, Cost 2
, : Search your stack for a piece of hardware, reveal it, and add it to your grip. Shuffle your stack.

And Torch is our as-of-yet unnamed decoder, which for the purposes of this demonstration will read:

Beast Mode Activator
Shaper (4 inf), Program: Icebreaker, Decoder
Cost 3, Strength 0
1
[Beast Mode Activator] has +1 strength for each power counter on it. 1c: Break code gate subroutine.
2c: Place 1 power counter on [Beast Mode Activator].

As I said before, Tyson Observatory changes the hardware game, flat out. All my past hardware builds were so utterly draw dependent that even two cards in reversed order could lose you the game. But there was such promise in them. When they worked, they felt laughably overpowered, and now Tyson Observatory brings the consistency this build needs. Is it slow? Yes, it is. But with the way the meta is shaping up right now, there's no better time to dig your heels in and spend your clicks getting ready to make runs that flat out cannot be stopped.

The second piece of the secret sauce to this deck is the new decoder, our beloved Beast Mode Activator, which combos oh so delightfully with Lockpick (which you can get out fast with a (tutorable!) one-of Replicator) for a free boost of 1 strength per turn, without spending any real credits. The inherent synergy with Stimhack feels almost too good, and don't worry about that dain bramage - we have Box-E to keep the grey matter in tact.

Let's talk about Personal Workshop, and more specifically why I chose to include it over my old favorite card, Inside Man. The thing about Inside Man is that it was a fantastic card to see early, much like Workshop, but unlike its counterpart, its value rapidly dwindled past the first few opening turns. If it wasn't on the table by turn three or four, it felt like a dead draw no matter what. By that point I usually had most of the pieces I needed to start making my stealth-fueled runs, and losing tempo to pay up-front for hardware that you might not see (again, because of a lack of tutor) just felt wrong.

"But you'll see those pieces now," you say. "So why not just keep Inside Man over Workshop?" The obvious answers being Stimhack and Clot. As powerful as Clot is in your heap with a Clone Chip on the table, there's also a new NBN asset coming out in Breaker Bay that prevents you from removing cards from your heap for any reason. That paid ability window you lived by to bring your clot back in time for the IAA play won't fly anymore. But by keeping it with one counter on a workshop, and loading that 'shop up with other cards, you will always be at most 2 credits away from threatening the hard stop to Biotic or SanSan shenanigans. If they want to leave a card in a server for a whole turn, let them. Kit only wants to make one guaranteed run a turn anyway.

As for the other cards in here, Symmetrical Visage, aka BabyFace, is here to speed up our draw while acting like a mini ProCo. And with the new decoder Escher is just too good a one-of to exclude in order to hit the mystical 45 card minimum.

So there you have it. What do you like? What needs to change? What comes next as Tyson Observatory blows the world of hardware wide open?