Turquoise Kate (4th place at Gencon)

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Dude, Where's my Nexus?? 2nd NYC (69), 7/8th Philly (55)
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dogstew 450

Turquoise Kate

Took this deck to fourth place at gencon 2016, along with foodcoats.

Derived from my earlier NYC Regionals Nexus list, this is the result of still more testing and improving of the archetype. Most of the card choices should be self-explanatory, and basic gameplay strategy is covered in the NYC list (check the derived from section). I just have a couple quick thoughts.

Card Choices

I was extremely happy with the choices I made. If I were to do it again, I'd consider cutting the 2x Daily Casts for a Deus X and a Paricia. With Blood Money on the Horizon, I'll cut the casts for either 2x Beth, or 1x Beth, 1x Paricia/Deus X.

Several people have commented to me on the Artist Colony/Fan Site inclusion, which to my knowledge other Nexus Kate lists have not had. It's extremely strong. Running this deck at a major tournament without any way to tutor Nexus is borderline reckless, in my opinion. Trade-In filled the slot in earlier iterations, but Artist Colony is faster and more versatile. It also happens to be great in EOI matchups. Don't be afraid to sac real agendas if it keeps the corp off the Breaking News-EOI play.

State of the Meta

Following the announcement of the new MWL, and the release of CtM, I think a lot of people got the idea into their heads that Nexus Kate would become a meta killer, or at least a very safe and reliable call for big tournaments, with a decent chance to take it all. Sadly (and I feel more qualified to say this than most), that is not the case.

If anything, the new MWL has hurt Nexus Kate. HHN is a joke once you're set up, but it slows down your already slow setup even more. It's hard to even run until you've got rabbit holes and magnum opus down, and a decent pool of credits. Not to mention the totally abysmal matchups against IG (54 always, 49 unless you have Deus X) and Hot Tubs (unless you find room for Shrike), both of which were alive and well at Gencon.

If you want to play Nexus Kate, I think this is the best version of the list out there. If you play well and have some luck go your way, you can do extremely well with it. But if you want to win your nationals or worlds, there's probably a better choice. Variance is just too much of an issue, both in terms of the decks you face and getting the right draws early. To be clear, I'm not saying this deck is bad. I think it's actually quite good, and a lot better than a lot of top players give it credit for. But it is high-variance.

Unless you're confident that your meta will mostly be Sync, NEH, HB, Palana, and non-tubs Weyland. In that meta, bring this and go hog wild. You'll win a lot.

Closing Thoughts

Gencon was an amazing time, and I highly recommend it to anyone on the fence for 2017. It was a real honor and privilege to be playing with the best of the best and to make the cut in such a tough field. I played well and worked hard, but I know that the field was full of killers and if luck had worked out slightly differently then it would have been someone else in the top 8 instead of me.

Shout outs to the NYC and DC metas, for being a huge part of why I play this game; to everyone I met at Gencon, for being such a great and welcoming crew; to Mason, for also repping Nexus Kate and for publishing the original list I saw that got me on the archetype in the first place; to Kenny, for being the best possible person to eliminate me from the cut; and to FFG, for creating this game and running an incredible tournament over a very long weekend.

:Fried_Shrimp:

17 comments
8 Aug 2016 ElderMason

Love it! Thanks for posting it. Can't wait to try it myself. Congrats again!

8 Aug 2016 CJFM

I've been playing the deck with Beth and she's absurdly strong.

8 Aug 2016 dogstew

@ElderMason Thanks! And let me know how you like it. Was great meeting you!

@CJFM Yeah, now that I've got my copy of Blood Money and I'm definitely slotting her in. An extra click with a mopus deck for 2cr to install just seems nuts.

8 Aug 2016 mawa

How are you finding Vamp? From my very limited testing, there's not much in the meta that it can do that Political Operative cannot. I guess there's Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers?

8 Aug 2016 dogstew

@RubbishyUsername Vamp prevents ice rezzes. With time, HB can put a 5 ice remote together and then just shove things in there for the never-advance game. Even with nexus and good breakers, it can still cost you 8 credits to make it into the server to check, meaning you're slowing down while they're making money.

Sometimes you get a really fast start and you can afford to let one or two agendas slide while you strangle R&D, but sometimes they rushed to 5 points and you have to check every time or risk losing. Vamp sets the corp back to square one and gives you time to set up the R&D strangle.

As for Political Operative covering the same ground, well... sometimes, having a second answer to Caprice is nice ;)

9 Aug 2016 Abstract

Great meeting you and talking with you at GenCon, congratulations again! I'll definitely give this list a try. Thanks for posting!

9 Aug 2016 dogstew

@Abstract Hey, it was great meeting you too! I hope you like the list; feel free to hit me up here or on stimhack/slack if you ever want to chat about it. See you at worlds?

10 Aug 2016 Abstract

Played the list last night, I like it a lot! I can't make it to worlds unfortunately, but I'll see you on Slack I'm sure, would be great to play sometime. Thanks again for posting!

10 Aug 2016 dogstew

@Abstract Too bad about worlds! Definitely message me on slack (@dogs) anytime you want to play.

11 Aug 2016 dmartel

Do you find you have issues with MU? Opus and the 3 main breakers fill the slots. What happens when you need to install a Clot / Cyper / Atman? I'm guessing you concentrate on R&D or a specific server and install what is needed?

11 Aug 2016 dogstew

@dmartel I install breakers only on an as-needed basis, and pretty much never have MU issues. Zu.13 doesn't cost MU because of all the link, and it's rare that I need to install more than 2 breakers over the course of an entire game. Against yellow decks where you need clot, you don't need Mimic, and rarely need a code gate breaker (all the link generally covers both). Against HB where Atman is extremely useful, you don't often need Lady.

11 Aug 2016 dmartel

@dogstewthanks for the response! Congrats on 4th place :-)

11 Aug 2016 dogstew

@dmartelthanks! And I'm happy to answer any questions you have about the deck.

12 Aug 2016 ruby_fell

Cool deck! Out of curiosity, why do you call it "Turquoise"?

12 Aug 2016 dogstew

@ruby_fell thanks, I'm glad you like the deck!

The name is just a little joke. When I first put Artist Colony/Fan Site in the deck, I had this mental image of Kate, who I think of as this really serious and motivated hacker/engineer badass, rolling up to some weird artist collective rave party and being like "sup everyone, have you seen my Miranda Rhapsody fan page??" Which was just a funny mental image for me, and reminded me of the Rick and Morty screengrab at the top of the description. And so, it became Turquoise Kate.

9 Mar 2017 Your_Engineer

I found that Levy AR Lab Access would probably be good with this, i played against pe and almost lost because i had no cards in my stack

9 Mar 2017 dogstew

@Your_Engineer if you're worried about net damage then I'd play feedback filter. You can find it pretty reliably with artist colony, you have the econ to support it, and it does something other than just let you bleed more before you die. Levy doesn't really do much for this list, since there aren't many cards you really care about recurring. But also this list just generally isn't good for the current meta. I'd definitely make changes if you want to still be on Nexus Kate.