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Zephro posted:It'll definitely be a big change when the majority of the 3/2s rotate out next year. Never Advance and Fast Advance will both become much less attractive. NA'ing with 3/1s feels like a bad idea even if a bunch of strong 3/1s get printed. Honestly, I think that the game needs 3/2s to work well. Runners are in such a strong state right now that the never advance game is probably the corp's best option, Corps need a defensive upgrade that works while rumour mill is up. 4/2s won't work, unless you manage to score them out fast enough. Otherwise they're too much of a tempo hit in order to actually be successful. Jeeves will probably be the way that HB answers it overall. Slam that in a slightly defended remote, then just try and rush as much as possible in order to try and win before the runner see their tricks. Still, scoring a 4/2 always feels like a really bad tempo hit.
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Sep 25, 2016 08:56
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I ran and participated in a small casual Netrunner tournament on the weekend that ended up with 7 players overall. The tournament had a limited card-pool format with the rule that each deck can only be built from Core Set cards and any 5 Datapacks, with Deluxe Expansions counting as 2 Datapacks each. I decided to run my most favourite “fun” decks that will likely be hit by the card rotation and so should have a last hurrah. My Corp was a nasty bluf-and-flatline focused Jinteki PE with Snares, Junebugs, Mushin, Fetal AIs and all that Jinteki good stuff. It had Ronins, Neural EMP and Bio-Ethics Association to maximise the options for opportunistic killshots, and Trick of Light and 1x Biotic Labor to help facilitate an FA alternate win condition. My Runner deck was a gloriously janky Hivemind/Darwin/Medium deck, with Progenitors for all and Virus Breeding Grounds to boost Hivemind to ungodly levels where I could then break into R&D with an unstoppable Darwin and then see all the cards. This would have plenty of card draw and econ, with no real alternate win conditions planned, but instead a virus-based Anarch big rig. These decks were chosen due to how fun they were to play with the limited cardpool, but they were by no means intended weak or silly decks, but indeed would be well-positioned to completely ruin an opponent who wasn’t prepared for what I would be building towards. Onto the games! Round 1 vs Bek (Silhouette, Jinteki PE) vs Silhouette This is a newer player who was attending her first tournament, so I was eager to see what sort of decks she would be bringing. The answer was very aggressive decks, as her Silhouette started running against everything and when I covered HQ in my turn two, worried mostly about Siphon, she promptly installed Sneakdoor Beta and continued raiding my hand. This results in an early steal of Medical Breakthrough, though more worrying to me is the triggering of Silhouette's expose ability, which seriously threatens my shell game. I keep my funds up and make sure to ICE Archives. Silhouette cannot be stopped and installs HQ Interface and a breaker and just continues making runs but thankfully there are few agendas in HQ. I further shore up Archives and HQ and the runs and Silhoeutte exposes thankfully come to an pause so I begin installing some remotes. Bek runs on and survives a Psychic Field, and then spends a few turns developing her board state. At this point I have managed to install and double advance a Ronin and then a Junebug. I then draw into Mushin-no-Shin and play it immediately to get a Philotic Entanglement out of HQ and on the board. My tentative plan is to score it out and then finish up and trigger the Ronin to land 5 net damage, hopefully enough to flatline the runner. On the runner's turn she plays some economy cards and makes another Sneakdoor run to access HQ and ends up exposing the Philotic. Unwilling to let me score this nasty agenda, she runs on her last click to come steal it, and the Jinteki PE damage reduces her to 2 cards in hand. Next turn I advance, advance and trigger the Ronin for the flatline. vs Jinteki PE This was a tricky deck full of traps and spiky agendas, much like my own. I draw a Medium in opening hand when the Corp doesn't cover R&D in her turn 1 I install it and make digging runs several times to find a Medical Breakthrough. The corp responds by installing some remotes and gathering money, but she doesn't protect R&D at all from my Medium threat. She had mulliganed, so I consider that he might be ICE starved and that I should keep up the pressure. I continue to draw and hit R&D methodically for increasingly deeper digs. When the Corp does draw into ICE she then uses it to defend HQ, which is initially puzzling to me. It could be that she was more worried about Account Siphon than anything else, and that deep digs against Jinteki PE are not really advisable anyway due to the threat of flatline via Snares and other such nasty things. I'm happy to keep running the risk from exploiting this undefended R&D and so I draw up to 6 cards (enough to survive 2 Snares) and continue with the R&D digs. The Corp is making bluff plays, installing new remotes and scoring agendas from previous remotes but I ignore the shell game while I can continue to focus on centrals. A final 6- or 7- card dig ends up finding the winning agenda, a Fetal AI that I pay for and steal. A dangerous game that I could have easily ended up flatlined on but I kept moderate precautions and the decision to take the risks pays off. Score: 4-0 Round 2 vs Francis (Leela Patel, HB Stronger Together) vs Leela My first game is Corp against a criminal again, though this one doesn't expose my cards but can instead bounce advanced traps and Ronins to my hand so is probably even more dangerous. Early on I Mushin out a House of Knives and the runner ignores it to hit centrals for single accesses and finds nothing. I score the House of Knives but my centrals remain undefended and next turn I am punished for this with Account Siphon. I click up to enough credits to Hedge Fund, and keep a Beanstalk Royalties in hand, but without defending HQ I decide to not fight the Siphons and instead wether the storm, hoping the runner will run out eventually and hopefully doesn't play Deja Vu or Same Old Thing to recur them. I actually do have some ICE I draw into but I see little point in installing any due to being too poor to rez most and worry about Leela's bounce defeating the point of installing them in the first place. I commit to the remote game and leave R&D to defend itself, and I even start ditching ICE when I am over hand size. Through some more bluff installs I get about 4 remote servers out, including Bio-Ethics Association, traps and unadvanced Ronins. The Runner hits me with a Maker's Eye but is thankfully unlucky and I don't have to bounce any servers. I start zapping the runner with House of Knives to slow his runs down a little. My plan is to now focus on scoring out with Biotic/Trick of Light and with enough House of Knives, Medical Breakthroughs and Philotic Entanglement I feel confident that I can reach 7 before the runner does. This point ends up moot as the runner hits me with another Maker's Eye a few turns later and I spend the last House of Knives token to bring him down to three cards, hoping he'll hit enough net damage for a flatline. No Snares are found, but he does hit a Fetal AI which he steals, reducing him to no cards in Grip. With click 4 he draws up to a single card and that's the game. I rez a Bio-Ethics Association before the start of my turn and then play a Neural EMP to close it out. vs Stronger Together The choice of identity signals a high proportion of Bioroids so I prepare to be a little aggressive. My opening hand has econ and a Progenitor, so I keep it. The corp defends both centrals and installs a card. I run it to keep him honest and it's an Adonis that I trash, and I play some econ cards and install a Progenitor. The Corp then Hedge Funds, gains another credit and defends R&D again. This doesn't deter me as I want to try to keep his credit reserves down and am willing to click through Bioroids to to do this. I run against R&D with a full hand and the Corp spends all of his credits to rez a Brainstorm(!). With no way to click through this I take the full 5 brain damage, and will have a hand size of zero for the rest of the game. I continue the run and find no agenda, and then with nothing to lose and a broke Corp I run HQ twice and manage to find both a Priority Requsition and Advanced Concept Hopper. I'm not sure how I feel about trading 5 brain damage for 5 agenda points. Next turn I draw into I've Had Worse and play it to draw Day Job, Sure Gamble and Progenitor. Day Job is effectively useless and I can't quite afford Sure Gamble, so I install the Progenitor and have to ditch the other cards. The game from there is me running empty-handed through a Brainstorm for a few turns, a single stolen agenda or point of damage away from the game ending, with nothing in the world except for the two fleshy ovals laid out on the table in front of me. More runs on R&D reveal nothing, and the corp is unwilling to rez the second R&D ICE, so I transition to HQ to hope that the winning agenda can be found in there. What I access instead is the single Snare out of a full HQ, which was also holding two agendas that would have won me the game. As such there was a decent chance of me winning a game that I had absolutely no business winning, but instead the Snare brought my mad scramble to an end. Score: 6-2 Round 3 vs Stuart (Chaos Theory, Jinteki PE) vs Chaos Theory I look forward to seeing what Chaos Theory decks can do, and wonder how much the smaller deck-size will work in my favour. Unfortunately the Runner drops a Feedback Filter on the first turn, and shortly after a Magnum Opus, and I realise I'm going to have my work cut out for me. With decent money reserves, Feedback Filter can potentially soak up all the net damage I dish out. The more realistic threat is the understanding that most PE flatlines are opportunistic - you wait for an opportunity to arise and then you flatline the runner by a single point. Every 3 credits the runner has is another point of net damage I need to draw into and set up, each one making the kill significantly harder. I race into the shell game to try to intimidate the runner before he can get a big rig set up or too much of a credit bank. With a Mushin I am able to bluff out and score a House of Knives, and manage to score a second House of Knives from face-down unadvanced a couple of turns later. I hope that the pressure of House of Knives is enough to slow the runner down and drain the Feedback Filter credits. Instead, the runner shortly hits me with an Account Siphon (out of Shaper!) and although I double-zap him, the Runner then goes on a remote killing spree, trashing Ronins and Snares that I am too poor to afford. I get my credit reserves back up to re-enable Snare but the loss of these remotes has been a significant setback. The runner steals a couple of agendas and I don't have a lot of options available. I have now built up a Junebug and have two Tricks of Light in hand, so I can trigger a Ronin but the runner should easily survive it, or I can try to FA out some 3-advance agendas but I'm not drawing into them. I end up committing to the idea of the flatline plan as the runner encounters regular net damage that Feedback Filter keeps intercepting but it keeps the Runner's credit reserves low and he ends up on 2 credits for a few turns in a row while focusing on centrals. My deck is very ICE-light as R&D is supposed to defend itself with Snares and Fetal AI, but two Snares have already been trashed. With the runner's repeated runs through a Bailiff on R&D I now have plenty of credits to trigger the third Snare but instead agendas come up and the runner wins. He had the resources to defeat me and defense against flatline retaliation and aggressively pushed the advantage to prevent me from having time to work on an alternate win condition. vs Jinteki PE There have been quite a few PEs floating around the tournament (including mine), so I should have a fair idea on how to deal with them. I draw into a decent hand with Progenitor, economy and I've Had Worse. the IHW is going to be vital in a PE matchup but I play the first one manually, correctly guessing that I'll draw into another one before too long and the card draw gets me into some excellent cards. Unfortunately I run R&D and hit a Snare and these excellent cards end up in the bin. I decide to focus on keeping my hand up and setting up a Hivemind/Medium to run the gauntlet of a Jinteki R&D and win in a few glorious runs. Often this deck has trouble drawing into Progenitor but I draw into all three of them very early. The much bigger problem is that the earlier Snare hit one of my Darwins and I'm having trouble finding the second one, or a Djinn to tutor it out. During this time I'm playing Day Jobs and Deuces Wild for card draw, focusing solely on my Virus rig while ignoring the Corp's shell game almost entirely. This results in two House of Knives being scored, one after another. Throughout this time I've now had a Medium and Hivemind installed, and the Hivemind buffed over time with Virus Breeding Ground, and having installed a Deep Thought I can now see the top card of R&D every turn. This does me little good as R&D is defended and I am unwilling to test R&D ICE without at least a killer. I do actually have a Mimic in this deck for such a matchup but with errant net damage having killed it I am forced to continue digging. The Corp purges virus counters a few times to disable the Deep Thought but I balance rebuilding Hive Mind with digging for my breaker. I eventually come into the first Djinn about eight cards from the bottom of the deck, install it and fetch and install a Darwin, which happened to be the next card in the deck. At this point I have precious few cards available for fending off net damage, but with a Mental Health Clinic on the board I ensure I keep a healthy hand of 6 cards at all times and I begin some heavy Medium runs. The R&D ICE turns out to be Sensei into Komainu, so with Darwin and E3 Feedback Implants I let the Sensei fire and break Komainu at a reasonable cost. A few early digs gets me quickly up to 3 agenda points, and then 5 and I'm looking for the final agenda to close out the game. A House of Knives token hits my final I've Had Worse and I draw the remaining 3 cards in my Stack, from now on going it on grip cards alone. The Medium runs continue but I continue to find only ICE and some operations, the biggest dig results in accessing 9 cards but the final agenda is not to be found. The Corp purges virus counters and I slowly rebuild and start testing HQ. I find an Inazuma that Darwin can't reach so in a panic about the next ICE I spend a card with Null to let Darwin break it. The next ICE was a Shiro that I didn't care about, based on my knowledge of the top three cards of R&D, so I regret spending the card on Inazuma but reason that with a single card left I can still afford to steal a winning agenda with a card to spare. I did notice that one of the Corp's upcoming card would be a Swordsman that would dash my hopes in R&D so I race to rebuild the Hivemind and as I do so he overwrites an advanced card in a scoring server. He'd been scoring agendas from this server before but I had left him to it while focusing on R&D, and at a certain point he left an advanced card sitting in it for several turns so I was willing to gamble it was a failed trap and not a waiting Ronin. It turned out to be a trap, I imagine, as he overwrites it for a scoring attempt. I become certain the new card is an agenda, so I briefly weigh up a six-card dig on R&D or intercepting the scoring attempt and I opt for the latter. The first card is Chum and the second a doubly-advanced Ice Wall, but by now my Darwin has reached up to strength 8 so I effortlessly break in and access the card, which indeed is a 2-point agenda. Unfortunately that agenda is a Fetal AI, and so the two-card zap flatlines me before I can steal it. I had lost by a single card, and if I had kept the card I spent on Inazuma I could have stolen the Fetal AI, winning the game and then flatlining victoriously. I ask my opponent what the top six cards of R&D are and it turns out that the first agenda I would access would be a Fetal AI as well. My opponent had played well and made no mistakes and together with poor luck on very deep R&D digs and burning my own deck to look for Darwin it was enough to make me subject to the same PE flatline that I had been subjecting others to before this point. Score: 6-6 Wrapping Up I win exactly half my games and end up placing exactly in the middle at 4 out of 7. I was tied for 4th place with one other player, actually, but with my second- and third- round opponents ending up in the top three I have a solid Strength of Schedule that wins the tiebreaker. The prizes are the beautiful full-bleed cards from the World Championship Packs and I walk away with a 3x Eve Campaign for my efforts. I didn't place as high as I thought I would but I had some of the most exciting, dramatic games of Netrunner I ever had. My games alone had sneaky PE killshots, massive Hivemind/Medium digs and a Brainstorm hit on a fully-loaded runner, and I only played against half the players. I was hearing about early Scorch kills and interesting Making News decks from the other games, and to me it really seemed like the 5-pack restricted format was bringing out the creativity in deckbuilding and exciting lower-powered games that I thought it would. I've been gradually widening the card pool with each successive tournament, but at this stage I think I'm happy to just leave it here and run 5-pack tournaments from now on.
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Sep 26, 2016 23:01
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That was a really amazing write-up and actually had me on the edge of my seat. That sounds like it was a hell of a lot of fun.
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Sep 27, 2016 04:36
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Thank you very much. For whatever reason I always seem to take decks that win or lose fast. Makes for exciting matchups, even if not the most competitive. I might have some sort of Netrunner ADHD.
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Sep 27, 2016 09:59
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I sympathise with the limited-pool idea, actually. There's so many brutally powerful cards and silver bullets flying around at the moment that the game is almost more enjoyable if you don't try to min-max the poo poo out of your deck and just build something fun. Restricting the pool is a good way to force that to happen.
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Sep 27, 2016 11:19
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It's a good way to keep the retired cards useful, too, and will allow combos you won't see in the competitive scene.
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Sep 27, 2016 13:02
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I don't even really mind netdecks in this format, as you still have to put deckbuilding effort into making them work in the restricted format. Some are more viable than others, or come with hard sacrifices to make, so the player still has to be creative to make them work.
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Sep 27, 2016 13:37
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I have a silly question. What happens if I have scored Glenn Station with a Government Takeover hosted on it, and the Runner uses Turntable to swap that Glenn Station into her own score area? I used to think the ruling was that agenda text was inactive while in the Runner's score area, but 15 Minutes wouldn't work if that were the case. So does the GT stay hosted? Or if it falls off, what happens to it - I assume it gets dumped into Archives? Zephro fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Sep 28, 2016 |
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Sep 28, 2016 09:12
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a) 15 mins works since it explicitly notes it's active in the Runner's score area b) Hosted cards don't fall off unless the host is trashed
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Sep 28, 2016 12:24
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StashAugustine posted:a) 15 mins works since it explicitly notes it's active in the Runner's score area e: unless the runner forfeits Glenn Station to Data Dealer or something I guess - I presume forfeiting counts as "trashing" for this purpose?
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Sep 28, 2016 13:52
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From the FAQ: Glenn Station • If Glenn Station is forfeited, any card hosted on it is trashed. • Glenn Station can only host a card through its click ability.
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Sep 28, 2016 14:01
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OK, thanks!
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Sep 28, 2016 14:11
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escalation spoilers dropped here Peregrine doesn't seem too bad versus the current code gate meta. Better than Golden. Still not great though. Houdini is probably best out of smoke, probably not as good in other shapers. But it's nice because of the ability to keep it's strength. Black Orchestra is actually not too bad. Same thing as Peregrine, works decent for strength 0-4 code gates. But it still makes turing cost 6, DNA tracker cost 9. Not great, but that's fine considering that Anarchs are supposed to be bad at code gates. It's usable if you're looking to not use yog, but it's definitely not amazing. Find the truth is the new adam directive. It's basically a pre-installed spy cam for adam, which is useful information. It does give away information about the runner's grip. Which can be a problem vs. NBN/decks that run salem First responders basically completely puts the hammer in the coffin of IG49 and 24/7 Scorch/Scorch. Fairchild 3 is a nasty piece of work. Supertax no matter how you swing it, probably the best card in the pack. Hellion beta test isn't great though with HB typically being unable to outmoney runners aside from anarch. Does hurt anarch pretty well though. The NBN cards this time around aren't actually all that great I feel. Service outage taxes the runner 1 credit per turn? I'd rather have a tarmar or an ELP if I wanted a run tax. Alexa Belsky is a Special report (which isn't that great I feel), that has the potential to tax the runner. Plus it puts a huge tempo hit on the corp, because you now have to draw 5 cards back up. Maybe in an NBN deck that gets decent card draw. berenzen fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Oct 3, 2016 |
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Oct 3, 2016 05:26
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Let it be reiterated that Ark Lockdown is a stupid card. Looks cool though
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Oct 3, 2016 05:35
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First Responders looks absurdly powerful. Unless the runner goes broke, SEA/Scorch/Scorch won't get it done. 24/7 into Boom or Midseasons for 5+ tags then trash First Responders seem like the only way to get kills through, unless you want to hold out for SEA/Biotic/Trash/Scorch/Scorch or SEA/Trash/Subcontract into Scorch/Scorch. Houdini, Blackstone, and presumably a similar Killer make me wonder about a Smoke deck running Escher to stack ICE types together on servers and make running super-efficient.
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Oct 3, 2016 07:56
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I can never quite get over how Anarchs are meant to be "bad" at code gates, and also have Yog in faction, which will never rotate out. Edit: first responders is interesting - it turns kill decks into tax decks and thousand-cuts PE into a credit tax rather than a click tax. That might be OK, although runners are kind of absurdly rich right now so maybe it'll just hose those decks. It also means the (brief) glory days of Psychic Field / Prisec in a server will probably go away! Edit: Belsky feels like yet another attempt at a Jackson replacement, but (like all the other ones) she's not up to par. Times gonna be hard when Jackson rotates out unless we get something more powerful. Zephro fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Oct 3, 2016 |
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Oct 3, 2016 08:41
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There's still no paid ability window in between accessing multiple cards in the same server, so the Prisec - Psychic Field dream is well alive!
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Oct 3, 2016 10:51
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Karmoderm posted:There's still no paid ability window in between accessing multiple cards in the same server, so the Prisec - Psychic Field dream is well alive! Semi-related: has anyone had any luck with the new Jinteki ID? I want it to be good, but having watched a few games on Jinteki and played around a bit myself it seems worse than thousand-cuts PE in every way.
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Oct 4, 2016 21:47
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Zephro posted:Oops, good point. It's not great unfortunately. It has a lot of potential, but unless you can get 2 or 3 hostile infrastructures up to put them in a very painful catch-22, it's just not good enough to work. I'm going to keep playing with it, but I don't think it has the support it needs.
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Oct 4, 2016 22:20
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berenzen posted:It's not great unfortunately. It has a lot of potential, but unless you can get 2 or 3 hostile infrastructures up to put them in a very painful catch-22, it's just not good enough to work. I'm going to keep playing with it, but I don't think it has the support it needs.
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Oct 4, 2016 22:21
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Zephro posted:Oops, good point. It's good against MaXx and Whizzard when they go WyldCakes, especially if you Chronos Protocol (you don't even have to snipe their levy, just a good half of their deck). It's absolutely miserable against Shapers and Crims of all types. Related: Smoke is just as loving bonkers as she seemed, and Net Mercur/Beth Kilrain-Chang are gross, especially together. Pack your enforcing loyalty, kids, because Switchblade is the real deal in Smoke. I'm also seriously considering Foxfire, between Turning Wheel and how gross Net Mercur is. 
Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 22:28
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Jinteki PU does have that gross HB remove-from-heap card but at 2 inf a pop I don't really see it.
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Oct 4, 2016 23:41
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CirclMastr posted:Houdini, Blackstone, and presumably a similar Killer make me wonder about a Smoke deck running Escher to stack ICE types together on servers and make running super-efficient. Wouldn't Panchatantra/paintbrush and Surfer work as well? Just break one barrier really efficiently.
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Oct 5, 2016 01:34
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Time for a write-up of my hasty and likely incorrect first impressions about Escalation! This is the Decoder pack, with one for each runner faction. The icebreakers in this cycle are following consistent mechanics, with Anarchs getting breakers that buff and break subs together and can be installed from the heap, criminals getting Khan breakers that can return to the grip to derez ICE, and Shapers getting stealth breakers that keep their strength. Of these three, the Shapers are probably getting the best breakers, though Paperclip has unparallelled efficiency as a Fracter and tbh Black Orchestra isn't too bad either. A decent Decoder for those who don't want to play Yogsucker and won't tolerate the awfulness of Force of Nature. Code Gates should be the Anarchs' weakest ICE type anyway, and Shapers should have the best breakers compared to the other runner factions. These are facets of the original Netrunner colour pie, but got kinda derailed early. As early as Core Set if you consider Yog being an exceptional Decoder when Anarchs should be bad at them. If the new cycle is to trying reintroduce and reinforce this aspect of the colour pie then I'm in favour of it. Despite the inherent expensiveness of having to keep reinstalling the Khan breakers I'm now tempted to make a Khan deck to try and make it work as the designers foresaw when making the cards. The breakers are sort of pricy to use but the biggest issue is their install cost. Such a deck will need to focus on Sahasrara, Technical Writer, Autoscripter to recoup this cost, but may end up as a large burden of support cards to make basic breakers work, and Khan only has a 40 card deck. Compare against the ease of getting into HQ and playing Emergency Shutdown. The new Shaper stealth breakers keeping their strength may actually be problematic for the game, despite the appeal that it might bring out the Tinkerings and Paintbrushes. The problem is that Stealth rigs were previously defined as having powerful breakers that could get into any server for very cheap, but with the limitation that you could only do so once per turn. The Corp had decent counter-strategies to Stealth in that they could stack servers and "tax out" the stealth credits, or that they could use defensive upgrades such as Ash/Caprice to force the runner to make multiple successful runs. Stealth breakers keeping their strength works against the first counter-strategy, and the second one is also endangered by all the excellent additional sources of stealth credits such as Net Mercur, the upcoming Smoke identity and even Mirror. I have a vague feeling of unease that a full Shaper stealth rig might be out of control and dominate the meta. I suppose we will wait and see, and think about appropriate counters if that eventuality occurs. Scarcity of Resources looks excellent for two reasons. One is that it is a neutral, 1-cost, 0-influence current and so makes a cheap counterspell for Corps. The only other netural Corp current is the situational Lag Time whereas Runners have the excellent Employee Strike and Freedom Through Equality, so this is good. The other good thing about Scarcity is that it's ability is powerful. Dropping this early will be crippling against the right runner decks. Needless to say that DLR decks will be slowed down dramatically, but also slows down Liberated Accounts, Aesop's Pawnshop, Daily Casts, Professional Contacts, likely a lot more. A strong ability; only some Runner decks would be unimpacted by this current. First Responders is a little worrying for kill decks as the drawing of a single card is often the difference between flatlining the runner and not. This card is cheap enough to use to make a Jinteki PE flatline a real headache, much more of an obstacle than even feedback filter. This doesn't seem novel as Sports Hopper previously introduced the "draw cards to avoid flatline" approach, but a key difference here is that First Responders doesn't trash itself and so can be used again and again. The recourses for a flatline Corp are then to, 1) exhaust the runner's deck completely so First Responders has nothing to draw (the focus of the new Jinteki ID, also Levys can be hunted with Ark Lockdown), 2) tag the runner and trash first responders (meat damage decks can take this approach, similar to having to trash a Crash Space. Net damage can't do this), or 3) trash First Responders using non-tag methods such as Enforcing Loyalty, Hatchet Job(?). Alexa Belsky looks to be another card in the series of Jackson replacements and this is a strategy I'm in favour of. The one deadly secret that Netrunner players don't want you to know is that Jackson Howard just did far too much utility in one card. He did powerful draws, baited runs, saved agendas at instant speed and recurred useful cards. Just like how the spoiled Pre-emptive Action only does recursion, the new Alexa Belsky only does instant-speed agenda saving. In this case, you stockpile agendas (or other sensitive cards such as Boom, Director Haas, etc) in HQ and trigger Alexa to dump them into R&D. The upside over JHow is that this affects more than 3 cards, potentially a huge amount of agendas can be kept relatively safe if you have increased hand size due to e.g. Cybernetics Court or Cerebral Imaging. More upsides is that Alexa is not removed from the game and so can be used repeatedly, and the rez-to-trash difference is greater. The downsides against JHow is that you can't recur cards, she doesn't offer increased draw and, most vitally, the runner can pay credits to prevent you from offloading the agenda. This ties into the credit-count theme of the cycle that you get in other cards such as Observe and Destroy or Beth Kilrain-Chang, in that the Runner can only realistically prevent you if they are rich. It will mostly be a downside, I think, but the silver lining is that this prevention ability comes with two solid sources of bluff potential. The first is that you could potentially drain the runner by triggering Alexa Belsky when you don't need to. For example the runner hits you with a Legwork and despite having no agendas in hand you trigger Alexa anyway and bluff that the runner will feel obliged to drain their credit pool to stop you. The second bluff potential comes from the shuffle prevention being random, and so the runner doesn't actually know if your held agendas went back to R&D or not. They might hit HQ looking for an agenda that is now long gone, or they might give up running on a HQ that still has an agenda. The best runner play might be to pay 2c to prevent a single card from being shuffled, with the guarantee that they will then access that one card. Any ability that gives your opponents more options, and thus flexibility, must be considered to have a downside. Observe and Destroy. Kill a Plascrete. Hit the runner with Hard Hitting News, then Closed Accounts and Observe and Destroy to your heart's content. 1 inf might make this a suitable card to splash into Weyland. Trashing _any_ installed card is huge but for whatever reason I consider this a card to help facilitate a flatline. Requires a tag so you would use it for Programs and Hardware, since you can trash Resources when the runner is tagged anyway, with the possible exception to avoid a Wireless Net Pavilion tax. Didn't think much of Door to Door with its low trace but now I can see a decent use in Making News. 3 credit tax to the runner every turn is no joke. Finally, Fairchild 3.0 looks like a worthy addition to the excellent Fairchild family. Some people have been calling DNA Tracker the Jinteki Tollbooth but I’m also seeing Fairchild 3.0 as the HB Tollbooth. It’s efficiently costed, it taxes the runner solid amounts of credits and it can end the run. The third sub in particular is an excellent target for Ravana. The fact that the 4th datapack also appears to have Fairchildy-looking cover art makes me suspect a Fairchild 4.0. One Fairchild every datapack! The new Fairchild is the first 3.0 bioroid that we’ve seen. An interesting observation can be made in that the 2.0's often have 3 subs and so, with the exception of Viktor 2.0, you can't really click through them in a turn. This is because you have to break the subs in pairs, which requires 4 clicks for breaking alone, and together with the 1 click for initiating the run this means that 2.0s are safe from being entirely clicked through. The benefits are that you land one sub guaranteed and the ICE can host Bioroid Efficiency Research or Oversight AI fairly safely (barring breakers, E3, extra click, bunch of other stuff). Not so with Fairchild 3.0! Because the subs are broken in triplets instead of pairs, this means you can run on click 1 and break all subs with clicks 2-4. The subs are bigger and badder, the strength is higher, but curiously enough you can click through a whole 3.0 in a turn but not a 2.0.
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Oct 5, 2016 07:42
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AgentF posted:The new Shaper stealth breakers keeping their strength may actually be problematic for the game, despite the appeal that it might bring out the Tinkerings and Paintbrushes. The problem is that Stealth rigs were previously defined as having powerful breakers that could get into any server for very cheap, but with the limitation that you could only do so once per turn. The Corp had decent counter-strategies to Stealth in that they could stack servers and "tax out" the stealth credits, or that they could use defensive upgrades such as Ash/Caprice to force the runner to make multiple successful runs. Stealth breakers keeping their strength works against the first counter-strategy, and the second one is also endangered by all the excellent additional sources of stealth credits such as Net Mercur, the upcoming Smoke identity and even Mirror. I have a vague feeling of unease that a full Shaper stealth rig might be out of control and dominate the meta. I suppose we will wait and see, and think about appropriate counters if that eventuality occurs. The best counter to stealth decks has been and probably always will be fast advance. Stealth takes time to set up, even out of Smoke. quote:First Responders is a little worrying for kill decks as the drawing of a single card is often the difference between flatlining the runner and not. This card is cheap enough to use to make a Jinteki PE flatline a real headache, much more of an obstacle than even feedback filter. This doesn't seem novel as Sports Hopper previously introduced the "draw cards to avoid flatline" approach, but a key difference here is that First Responders doesn't trash itself and so can be used again and again. The recourses for a flatline Corp are then to, 1) exhaust the runner's deck completely so First Responders has nothing to draw (the focus of the new Jinteki ID, also Levys can be hunted with Ark Lockdown), 2) tag the runner and trash first responders (meat damage decks can take this approach, similar to having to trash a Crash Space. Net damage can't do this), or 3) trash First Responders using non-tag methods such as Enforcing Loyalty, Hatchet Job(?). I still say that First Responders is too powerful. The only reliable kill will be Boom, and the only reliable Boom will be an Accelerated Shutdown combo, and even that is unreliable in the face of Rumor Mill. Enforcing Loyalty isn't much of an answer either, since that is another trashable operation.
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Oct 5, 2016 08:18
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What exactly makes first responders so much better than, say, guru davinder?
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Oct 5, 2016 08:45
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"Oh I took a scorch, better draw 3 more cards before the second one hits." Would subcontract be a way to throw multiple kill cards out there without a chance for interruptions?
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Oct 5, 2016 08:56
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The draw, primarily, and it's more difficult to deal with. It's 4 credits to draw 2 cards vs. IG49. So even if they hit you down to 3 max hand size with Hiro, you can draw up to 3 or 4 when they hit you with bioethics and get out of ronin kill range. Guru davinder kills dies on each instance of net damage. Davinder also doesn't give you card advantage. If I have a hand full of junk, I might try and go hit that psychic field, then spend money to draw clicklessly cards that might be useful. I don't think it's a broken card, but I do think that the card is incredibly powerful. Where guru davinder just prevents the damage, I can use First responders against kill as a draw engine, which can be dangerous. Subcontract and Power Shutdown combos work by not allowing the runner a paid ability window. Problem with subcontract is that now you have another card that you have to assemble to get off your combo. And Power shutdown combos work far better in NBN when they have access to 24/7 news cycle. berenzen fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 08:56
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2 credits is overpriced for draw though so if you're not using it to to prevent a kill it seems pretty bad. And the only kind of kill it has an advantage against is jinteki kill with lots of little net damage, which isn't that big of a deal to start with? (as opposed to decks which use net damage as a tax, where paying 2 credts/card is a bad deal anyway)
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Oct 5, 2016 09:11
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2$ a click is kind of the standard netrunner valuation though. People be spoiled by diesel, quality time, drug dealer etc. For an offturn ability, I'd say thats pretty good.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:38
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Nah, 2 credits a click is a really high ratio which takes a lot of investment to get repeatedly as a runner. Sure gamble is a really strong econ card because it lets you do that twice (well, 4 for a card and a click) with the extra drawback of needing 5 to start with. To make this worth using as regular draw as opposed to kill protection you need to be getting more than two credits per click, repeatedly.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:46
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:2 credits is overpriced for draw though so if you're not using it to to prevent a kill it seems pretty bad. And the only kind of kill it has an advantage against is jinteki kill with lots of little net damage, which isn't that big of a deal to start with? (as opposed to decks which use net damage as a tax, where paying 2 credts/card is a bad deal anyway) IG49 really can't beat it while it's on the table, you're too all-in on one kill combo. Maybe splashing some Voter Intimidation would work. The big problem with it is that it's permanent kill prevention, the only other one was Feedback Filter which is expensive and narrow enough in scope it didn't get played much.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:48
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:Nah, 2 credits a click is a really high ratio which takes a lot of investment to get repeatedly as a runner. Sure gamble is a really strong econ card because it lets you do that twice (well, 4 for a card and a click) with the extra drawback of needing 5 to start with. So you're saying 3x Au Revoir and Snitch? Or Security Testing and Temüjin Contract? If I'm remembering right, weren't Au Revior/Snitch decks swimming in so much money that they'd use Feedback Filter to become immune to net damage? If they could pay 3 credits to prevent a damage, they could probably afford 2 credits to draw if they wanted.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:52
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Yithian posted:So you're saying 3x Au Revoir and Snitch? Or Security Testing and Temüjin Contract? Now they eat a HHN on the first run when they're still pre-8 credits, then die flailing in tag hell.
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Oct 5, 2016 16:53
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FF was especially popular because a) Museum IG was A Thing b) they had no recursion so losing a combo piece is brutal
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Oct 5, 2016 16:55
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Shockeh posted:Now they eat a HHN on the first run when they're still pre-8 credits, then die flailing in tag hell. I've been messing with a resource-less Anarch build, flip-flopping between Reina and Eddie, and it is so funny when they try and HHN because I am a goddamn maniac who goes tagme on turn 1.
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Oct 5, 2016 17:18
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:I've been messing with a resource-less Anarch build, flip-flopping between Reina and Eddie, and it is so funny when they try and HHN because I am a goddamn maniac who goes tagme on turn 1. Problem there is Closed Accounts, EOI & Psychographics all don't care, because they're not targeting something of yours, per se. Well, CA is, but only as a function of making your unable to trash their assets.
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Oct 5, 2016 18:01
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Closed accounts isn't great, no, but the other two are pretty easy to mitigate with Edward Kim, and 3 Account Siphon + Vamp and recursion makes Psychographics not very useful.
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Oct 5, 2016 18:08
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AgentF posted:Alexa Belsky looks to be another card in the series of Jackson replacements and this is a strategy I'm in favour of. The one deadly secret that Netrunner players don't want you to know is that Jackson Howard just did far too much utility in one card. He did powerful draws, baited runs, saved agendas at instant speed and recurred useful cards.
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Oct 5, 2016 20:39
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| # ? Apr 20, 2024 03:02 |
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There's no way to do it without relaunching the game, but the best idea I heard was just make it four agendas to win and every agenda requires three advancements and just make every agenda have an amazing ability when it is fired
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Oct 5, 2016 20:50
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