Really Good Kate (GNK 1st-Place, Undefeated)

This Kate deck went undefeated and took me to first place at our local GNK. I have also been doing very well with it on Jnet. There were 12 people with 4 rounds of swiss. My match-ups were Spark, ETF, Blue Sun, and Jinteki Biotech. It went 4-0 on the day. My Corp deck which also went 4-0 is here: https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/37559/sleeper-agent-etf-gnk-1st-place-undefeated-

I absolutely love this deck. It's so simple, and just has really great tempo. Essentially you want to money up and set up all of your big resources such as Professional Contacts, Beth Kilrain-Chang, and The Turning Wheel with Career Fair. All the while, you are Proco-ing and clicking armitage to build up, You can modded out your 3 R&D Interface or save them for your dream team of breakers.

This breaker suite is amazing. All of the breakers are corroder-level good or better once installed Paperclip, Garrote, and Gordian Blade can wreck just about any server. Essentially, you want to be making very key runs to keep your opponent a bit off kilter all while building up your board state to lead to an inevitability. Beth and Dirty Laundry help you keep your tempo going, and Professional contacts ensures that every click is well spent. Essentially, once you have your dream-team out and you're sitting at 30+ credits, you can just keep the tempo going through a levy and be unstoppable.

The Clot is there for Fast Advance obviously, but it is also quite often a surprise as people don't expect to see much clot anymore.

The Self-modifying Code and Clone Chip are in there to create a clot-lock or to get out your breakers if your opponent is rushing. This is usually NOT what you want to do though. Typically, you want to get them out with Modded as their install costs are very high and obviously you ideally want to install paperclip from archives after overdrawing with proco and trashing it. Test run is in there to punish opponents that are rushing. 9 times out of 10, I use the test run for garrote, and then next turn draw it with Proco and install it with modded. It is also an extra clone chip should garrote or your gordian get trashed.

Beth is just amazing. You get free stuff every turn, and if you aren't getting free stuff, then that means that your opponent is below 5 credits which is also a very good thing. Rumor Mill is in there for the Glacier match-up to blank caprice and ash, and is also great against sandburg, jeeves, and of course Jackson Howard if they are leaving cards in archives without popping Jackson. I originally had a Political Operative, but I ended up cutting it and an HQ Interface to fit in rumor mill and then replaced the HQI with a turning wheel. I would prefer to have the HQI over turning wheel as you often don't make a lot of runs, but rather very few well calculated runs, but the turning wheel does also let you dig even deeper in R&D so the flexibility is nice.

Film critic is in there to steal all the usual stuff: NAPD, Explode-a-palooza, The Future Perfect, etc... And can also help with your tempo if you are worried about dying but need to steal an agenda in the early game. Film critic also goes well with the turning wheel as you technically didn't steal the agenda and therefore get a counter.

Speaking of dying, the 2 Sports Hopper are in this deck to stop your house from getting burned down from scorch. The extra link is also awesome in the CTM match-up. In fact, against CTM, I want to get two hoppers down as early as possible while money-ing up so I can go trash a bunch of stuff. The link is also really good as a lot of popular ice has traces nowadays and allows you to make runs without breakers in the early game.

Same Old Thing is in there for Levy AR Lab Access and rumor mill and that's about it. You can also use it for a sure gamble if you are about to levy. Daily Casts and Armitage Codebusting are in there for gathering up funds before big runs if you have all your breakers out and astrolabe is in there so that you have enough MU for clot if you need it and also for the extra card draw. This deck is sometimes a bit slow, but if you are playing an asset spam deck with your Astrolabe out, you can really accelerate.

All in all, I really love this deck. It feels like really good classic netrunner, but is also very oppressive in the Mid to late game once you have all your breakers out and are just clicking armitage and gathering up money for big R&D digs or precise remote plays. Beth is probably the MVP of the deck as she combos so well with proco and armitage, and can also help with bioroids.

Some notes: I play armitage over Magnum Opus due to the MU. I am currently experimenting with a variant of this deck that uses maya instead of astrolabe so that you can get out mopus and use it indefinitely, but honestly it just slows down the deck ever so slightly and makes it really tough to play. I really like the quick bursts that armitage gives you and it can also be a surprise. If you are kind of low on money and you have a remote that the corp thinks you can't get into, you can gain a click with beth, drop armitage, click it three times, and then run in for the steal. I highly recommend playing around with this mopus idea though as I think it could be really good. If Maya or Mirror had more synergy with the deck, I feel like it might work better, but for right now I have tested the deck and gotten it to where it is.

Be very careful of Chronos project as you often times will have Paperclip in your archives until the very moment you need it. You only have 1 copy of each breaker and losing any one of them can mean that the game is over for you. Or at the very least, you will be severely limited in your options moving forward. Sandburg (Though not seen often) also sometimes gives this deck trouble as you don't really have any tricks to get around the big ice like D4v1d or Inside Job or any ice destruction. This means that sandburg is really going to tax you. In those match-ups you have to keep the other player as poor as possible and ALWAYS trash sandburg if you can. You need to rush a bit in the sandburg matchup as their late game is actually often better than your late game.

I really love this deck, and I hope you will too! Please share any experiences you've had with it below and any tinkering you may have done with it. Enjoy!