Krim Kit (Startup, (8-0) in the Ashes to Ashes Tournament)

asqwasqw 309

Kit, beneath her mystic veneer, is a criminal through and through.

Carries around a blade everywhere? Check

Full of Dirty Tricks? Check

Facechecks all the ICE? Check Check Check

I personally think she's the best Criminal in Startup.

Az is too busy tinkering with his arm (for the 37th time). Steve gets sad when HQ gets locked down. Zahya needs financial incentive to multiaccess. Ken is cool, no complaints.
Kit doesn't care about installing a lot of things. She doesn't need recursion to win. She earns plenty of credits natively. And Kit is cooler than Ken.

This deck almost plays like a green Mirromorph, where if you run once a turn, play one event a turn, and do 2 other things (draw, install drip economy, click telework), you're rewarded with crazy efficiency. It's not uncommon to average 6+ credits a turn over the course of a game while running every turn. You will use these credits to hit the Corp from all angles. Run ice without your breaker out. Target their weak points mercilessly. Pressure the remote. Jailbreak HQ. Maker's Eye R&D. Most corps don't run enough ice to protect all their servers. Any ice they rez will both drain their credits, slowing them down, and be easy prey for Gordian Blade once installed. Once a server is too hard to break into, switch to a different one. The corp will have no idea which server you'll hit, and will be unsure if the remote is ever safe to score. It's very easy to surprise the corp with this deck, quickly going from low credits to enough to threaten a remote (or steal a Bellona).

The two key cards in the deck are Aniccam and Gordian Blade.

Aniccam gives you recurring card draw, as long as you don't drain your hand of events too quickly. The extra memory allows you to have Gordian Blade, 2x Rezeki, and SMC out without having to trash a Rezeki. And giving you a card draw even on the corp turn helps prevent deaths from Punitive and Jinteki. The recurring card draw is so good I will mulligan aggressively for Anicam in my starting hand.

Gordian Blade is your only breaker. Do not be afraid. The requirement that the ice be a code gate is not that hard to hit, provided that you only make 1 run a turn and are careful with your tricks. This plays to your benefit, as it encourages the corp to think that they have a scoring window, while you're sitting there with a Boomerang and Pelangi in hand ready to surprise them. The tradeoff of only making one run a turn is worth the power you get from being able to safely break any one ice server and cut through glacier cheaply. Gordian Blade also applies until the end of the run, which means you can hit Ganked into Tyr and break it for only 3 credits.

All the other cards fall into four categories:

Tricks: SMC, Egret, Pelangi, & Boomerang - Use your tricks to get past layered ice or to break ice when it seems like you would be too poor. A surprise SMC is a great way to tutor for a Pelangi or Egret midrun. Try to keep them in your hand, only playing them the turn that you use them. Pelangi is more flexible than Egret since it works on unrezzed ice, but Egret is not vulnerable to purge and can be used multiple times in a turn.

Drip Economy: Rezeki, Daily Casts, Telework - Install and use when you have spare clicks. Try to be mindful of when the end game is, if there aren't many turns left in the game you may want to hold off on playing them.

Event Economy: Creative Commision, Dirty Laundry, Sure Gamble, Wildcat Strike, Overclock - Try to play only one a turn for maximum Aniccam benefit, but don't be afraid to play extra (or play a creative commission click 1) if it means you'll be able to get into a scoring remote. With Aniccam out, you will refresh into another event card half the time, which means you only need to draw every other turn. Wildcat Strike is mostly just a cheaper Sure Gamble. If the Corp gives you cards instead, they're often handing you a lot more economy in the long term, so it's a win win.

MultiAccess: Docklands Pass, Jailbreak, Maker's Eye - Good to save in hand until you have a good reason to hit HQ or R&D (think there's agendas in HQ or remote too locked up). These will often get you the last agenda points you need to win. Jailbreak is especially great value, often giving you 2 cards (with Anicam) and multiaccess for free.

Overall this deck has been very strong in my testing. It is very aggressive, pressuring the corp to rez ice, slowing them down while giving you time for your multiaccess to work. You often don't need Gordian Blade the first couple of turns, as long as you are careful when you facecheck ice. It is also rich. It tapers out fast late game, but very few games reach that point.

6 comments
8 Jul 2022 Oddball

This deck brings the pressure. Really well piloted and great write-up.

Congrats!

9 Jul 2022 Sauc3

Looks fun, can’t wait to try it! Congrats on first place

9 Jul 2022 asqwasqw

Thanks! Write-ups take a surprising amount of work, but it's really rewarding seeing people have fun with your deck.

10 Jul 2022 Merino

Very excited about this deck as I've been tinkering with a Kit Startup deck myself also. I'm really curious though how easy it has been for you to get away with just 2 Pelangi, 2 Egret and 2 Boomerang to deal with all the non code-gate's out there. What to do with a tripple iced server with a code-gate on the outside? I feel this would eat up Pelangi counters (plus virus purges) fast and there are no Simulchips or Rejig's for recursion here.

Gordian Blade certainly seems the strongest breaker in regards to multi-iced high strength servers or Ganked/Tyr (though the first strength pump and break will still cost 8) but it also feels quite expansive breaker in general. But tinkering with other breaker options (Buzzsaw+Leech, Penrose/Mantle, Atman support) put's one into MU issues requiring DZMZ's for which there just aren't any deck slots left without cutting on econ. Same issue for including Conduit which doesn't seem to work great anyway with the one run a turn philosophy. Then again, 2 DZMZ's, one Conduit and maybe one more SMC cutting Maker's Eye and Jailbreak would free up 2 deck slots (for extra Pelangi or Simulchips). I guess that would cut on too many events. Maybe there's a version without Annicam focussing heavier on hardware and program's possible but then that runs into other issue's (card draw mostly).

There is alot of econ in the deck and no Diesel's. I'm assuming Annicam on it's own provides enough card draw and since you're only planning to power run once a turn there's likely some clicks left here and there for a draw. Would it really be that much worse to add 3 Diesel's into the deck and run a 50 card variant? Since the diesel's might smooth the consistency back up as it would draw 4 thanks to Aniccam.

I'm also considering cutting the Wildcat Strike's for a Light The Fire!. Since this deck might have issues with running a server full of upgrades twice in a turn. Would the value in saved econ/clicks not be worth this include considering the current meta?

10 Jul 2022 asqwasqw

By the time they have a triple ice server out, I've found I only need to run once or twice more on that server to seal the game. It takes a lot of credits to install 3 ice over a server and rez all of them Often the other 2 servers are less defended too, and I can multi access there. This may change as people get more experienced playing vs Kit.

Putting anything else besides Gordian blade and Anicam slows the deck down too much I've found, giving the Corp tempo to install and rez a lot of ice. With this economy, the one time 5 cost of Gordian blade doesn't feel bad at all. 8 credits and 2 clicks to get your rig set up is super empowering.

Diesels might be a good add. With Aniccam out and you holding tricks in your hand for later, I often found it was excessive overdraw. There was one game in the finals where I didn't get an aniccam, breaker or SMC in my first 15 draws, so I had to click to draw for 2 whole turns. A diesel would have helped in that situation, but I feel that's pretty rare.

I took out light the fire as a meta call, thinking that other light the fire decks would scare anoetic void away. I did face an anoetic void deck in the finals, but in the first game I was able to trash 2 out of R&D with Maker's eye, while in the second the runner was too poor after rezzing ice to trigger it. Anoetic works best late game when you have some cards in hand and credits, and this deck does well pressuring both. It still might be a good add to get the last agenda you need on a big remote.

12 Jul 2022 sarasettledown

This deck brings the pressure for sure. Great job, thanks for sharing!