I think Eddy is good. He makes a bunch of decks really sad. I think Whizzard is good to, he also makes a bunch of decks really sad (and 3creds/turn is loads).
I think the link is not the place to look for finding weak abilities. Kate and Andy would still be tier 1 with 0 link. In fact the 0/1 link on IDs is probably a mistake in my opinion.
I’m tempted to say Gabe might be a better comparison for Kim than Whizzard is. Aside from the strength of actually hitting with his ability, one of the big benefits is forcing the Corp to rez more aggressively to protect their centrals. Against most runners, you can just let them hit an HQ full of Biotics and ice while you wait to slam a topdecked agenda, but against both Gabe and Kim, those accesses are a lot scarier. My ideal Kim build punishes those early rezzes with ice destruction and econ denial
Kim is my favorite of the bunch, I think he could potentially be the most powerful, while being least disruptive to your own plan.
I like the build steve. My plan was also to get on my feet and get in fast, but I went down the overmind route. Memstrips should function similar to deep red when it comes to overmind counters, so I made 3 of those mandatory, 3 overminds, and lots of multiaccess, with imp. I do think scavenge is good here, you can reuse imp to trash multiple installed cards per turn, refill d4v1d/cuj0 for blue sun, and if you stick in inject, you can retrieval run a femme (and scavenge to move it)… which is another great slot if you already want RR.
That’s a bit of a dip into my setup, but I do like harbinger as well. I’d go with a few copies though…your deck looks like it might want Djinn with that few copies. I would cut the memstrips in your case and add at least 1 djinn, since you don’t have slots for multiples of important virus cards.
Great thing for the ice destruction deck is that you can nab those huge Overminds and still run a Grimoire to get some more juice out of those parasites. Neat plan there.
Absolutely, I think that is a good route to go, I do think spinal works well with the “run as often as you can” feeling I’m getting from the build.
I dicked around with your setup @steve_houston and took some flavor from my deck…how does this grab you?
Edward Kim Humanity’s Hammer
15 influence spent (max 15) •••••••••••••••
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Order and Chaos
Event (11)
2x Dirty Laundry
3x Scavenge ••••• •
3x Steelskin
3x Sure Gamble
Hardware (5)
3x MemStrips
2x Spinal Modem
Resource (9)
3x Daily Casts
3x Earthrise Hotel
3x Tri-maf Contact •••
Icebreaker (8)
3x Cerberus “Cuj.0” H3
3x Overmind
2x Sage ••••• •
Program (12)
2x D4v1d
3x Imp
2x Medium
2x Nerve Agent
3x Parasite
I realize I gave up datasucker, and its definitely not final, but I think the breakers are good without it, and parasite is for small ice. No (well little with scavenge) recursion, so you have to hit hard and fast before the glacier spins out of control.
The advantages I offer are easier to find multiaccess, quick breaker set up (find 1 overmind and some memstrips, or a sage and cuj.0, or any mix thereof).
Tri-maf was for extended long game money, while still being protected by steelskin, maybe against heavy tagging, only install 1 and keep your hand up.
Again, scavenge works well with a few of the cards, and we could possibly find room for femme, if Tri-maf seems too risky…but then your long term econ is questionable.
I don’t know, I’m just spit-balling a little here with this one.
I’m pretty excited about this guy, though I’l be going a different route: plugging him into my “string theory” style anarch deck (found here). The ability is great for thinning decks/hands during a huge multi-access. As much love as I have for the Whizz (I consider him my default runner) I think Eddie fits really well here (and the 1 link synergizes nicely with the already-boss spinal modem).
Really? Are there any corp decks out there that don’t run operations? I think Kim’s ability is always going to be strong.
I think there a fair number of decks that aren’t going to be crippled if you pay through the nose to break into HQ to trash a hedge fund.
While it’s true that there will never be a matchup where Ed is a “blank ID” as occasionally happens with the Whizz, I think there are definitely cases where his ability won’t get him very much, or falls into the category of a “win-more” ability.
All that said, I think @Ilza probably understated Eddie’s strengths with that statement, as he significantly undermines a basic concept for many opponents (that ops are untrashable) whereas Whizzard is just Econ.
I think there are several corporations that only run some operations as economy, and you do very limited damage against them since they will probably not let economy sit in hand against Edward Kim (and the big thing with mr. Kim is the pressure on HQ). Sure you might find something in R&D but that doesn’t really influence the corps actions that much.
Examples of these kind of decks in the current meta would be HB (either non-FA or FA with SanSan) and Jinteki RP.
I’m not saying he is bad in the current meta, just that he is very meta-dependent (like Whizzard).
Edward Kim is pretty strong against the corps that run several utility operations, but don’t trick yourself thinking he is good against the entire field.
Which ones? Asking seriously. RP has ELP and Interns it wants to hang onto, not to mention Celebrity Gift. PE doesn’t need Neural EMP or Scorched but losing them sucks as does whatever econ cards they happen to be running. NEH wants Fast Track and Biotic.
I can’t really think of other corps that could be described as not being somewhat event dependent, though I play in a meat damage heavy meta and that may bias me.
I agree that Operations seem very important to most of the Corporation’s games. I’ve been thrilled to play Kim ever since he was spoiled. I still think he might be the best ID in the big box, but only time will tell. That ability got me so excited when I saw it. Trashing that Biotic or ELP can save you the game, for sure.
With steelskin coming, even fewer blue sun builds will want to run meat damage. That just leaves the economy events, which the corp usually fires off immediately (especially immediately against kim). Likewise I don’t think PE cares. That’s half the meta right now.
Cambridge PE cares. PE is so much less scary without damaging operations. Killing any number of Mushin no Shin is huge.
Trashing Econ and OAI from R&D is a real issue for blue sun. Also, means you can’t hang on to OAI until you have a good target. Especially because you can/should also run Imp to trash expensive Assets/Upgrades.
Edward Kim will be a big deal. I can’t think of any corp lists that play fewer than 9 operations. If you get half of them then you’re doing real damage (~10 credits worth I’d guess). If you kill scorched earth, punitive counterstrike, midseasons, trick of light, fast track, psychographics, closed accounts or biotic labour (and others) you’ve just seriously advanced your board position. RP probably cares the least, but even then it’s not wise to hang onto your celebrity gifts - which you often want to do. Supermodernism style decks are really really sad.
Not to mention that against PE you generally want to be slowly digging through RnD before they get there so you can trash traps before they make an appearance as well as get agendas. As Kim, while you’re rooting around in there, you’re also trashing economy operations like Hedge Fund and Sweeps Week. PE is a LOT less dangerous when they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel money-wise, and being able to deny them their most powerful burst econ while doing something that you already want to be doing is fantastic.
Again, I think folks are missing the point a bit. Snagging a Hedge Fund off R&D isn’t much better than if the Corp just never draws it. Some incidental econ denial may result from Kim’s ability, but that’s not what it’s really targeting. Your main advantage is that you can remove combo pieces which sit in HQ waiting for their counterpart, and most Corp decks have those. Astrobiotics and other FA decks have Biotic or Trick of Light, Caimbridge has Neurals and Mushin No Shin. Oversight AI in Blue Sun. Flatline decks have their Scorches. Even RP likes to hold their Celebrity Gifts as they develop an appropriate hand. Those pieces are the ones that are vulnerable, because they can’t be immediately deployed and are important to the deck’s game plan, and they are virtually ubiquitous. Anything else you can disrupt is just gravy.
Strangely, I think that unlike Imp, Kim might threaten R&D more than HQ.
A large majority of operations in corp decks are economy operations. Most corps can quickly play economy operations when they need to, getting them out of hand and making them invulnerable to Kim. They can play in such a way that they’re prepared to play operations the turn they draw them, especially against Kim. However, there isn’t a lot they can do about R&D. Kim’s ability to trash R&D and get another access right afterwards or just deny the corp from ever drawing economy operations might be his general strong suit, rather than attacking HQ, (which would still be pretty good against flatline or combo decks).
Oh, absolutely. I wasn’t saying that trashing econ opps is the reason to run in RnD, it’s just an added bonus if you are able to, and a bonus not provided to other runners. If you use your opp-trash ability for the turn to trash something like a Mushin or Scorch or the like in HQ, that’s almost always going to be a better target for it. But the added perk of screwing econ as well is always a nice thing.
If we look at the current meta you can expect the corp to run between 18% and 29% operations in their deck (between 9 and 14 operations, stats taken from worlds t-16 removing the deck with least and most operations). When you run R&D you can expect those odds of accessing a operation. Trashing a card less than every third R&D access is not a very good ability in itself, especially if it becomes less than every fifth access.
Since you generally need about 17 R&D accesses to win that means that you in the best of cases can expect to trash 5 operations this way (with the corp running at least 14 operations, this is reasonable expectations for a game against Blue Sun). Against corporations that don’t use that many operations your expectation is about 3 operations (this should be expected from NEH & RP). That’s probably not enough to disrupt the entire corp strategy even if it depends on those operations.
For me the value gained from Edward Kim by R&D accesses is not nearly enough to give up the ability of other Anarch runners, so you need to find value elsewhere and the only place for that is HQ runs. Any corp facing Edward Kim should do what it can to limit their operations in hand by playing them as fast as possible which means you have 3-6 targets in the entire deck of your opponent to find, those odds are not great.
Meeedium though. With any number of counters, really. Sure, single accesses won’t do much, but you increase the odds of an extra run in any given turn seeing new cards because the only cards you can’t interact with (without Imp in play) are Ice… which he can be destroying anyway with all those lovely new events + all the old tricks.
Kim with Medium & Imp really does seem like the simplest way of going about things, to me. He makes that old play significantly better, even more than Whizzard does.
So hit R&D to kill ops econ and the occasional other operation you don’t like. Hit HQ to kill combo pieces they’ll want later. Use Imp to mop up those you can’t get normally/easily and kill ice before it hits the table, then focus on murderizing what Ice actually hits the table.
Seems rather eminently doable, to me. I might tinker around with a list some later.
You just said it yourself - the ability means Ed is already disrupting them by making them play their operations as fast as possible. In other words, he’s gaining value even without getting accesses. It’s the same kind of Anarch-typical disruption Reina gets from making ICE more expensive (“hey, it’s only 4-6 credits per game, right?”) and Quetzal gets from making singular small Barriers ineffective (“she still needs to play a Fracter!”).
One of my top fears as corp? That a runner will drop an Imp out of nowhere and go to town on my hand. Ed, he has that almost built-in. Besides, “playing Ops as fast as possible” might be a tall order in the first place: econ Ops might be largely unaffected (unless you, say, wanted to hold a Sweeps for post-Vamp recovery), but good luck “playing your Biotic as fast as possible” 