GRNDL: What are we missing?

Netrunner General
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Continuing the discussion from Netrunner ID Ratings: Spin Cycle:

Hoobajoo (does he really not have a Stimhack account?) made some pretty bold claims in this in regards to GRNDL. And I actually completely agree, and think FFG was correct to give it 10 influence. Yet, despite the fact that its high-ELO winrate is superior to BABW (warning: sample size), it’s continuously ignored.

So I ask, are we missing something? While Supermodernism is good, it has a tendency to suffer against skilled opponents in the top 8 cut, and players seemed entranced playing it and not trying out other Weyland builds. The way I see it, Supermodernism plays methodically and severely punishes anything less than optimal play. GRNDL on the other hand, pressures the runner more, and presents lose-lose scenarios far more often. Should I force through that Oversighted Curtain Wall to trash it pre-emptively and possibly hit an agenda? Should I waste resources trashing that Refinery, or let him have the money?

There’s clearly someone on a tear on OCTGN with GRNDL. But is it a fluke? Is GRNDL not quite there yet? What are we missing?

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I think people are seeing GRNDL like people see NEXT Design: “More up-front for worse long-run”. But that’s not really the case. Hoobajoo’s right on the money about it having a massive advantage in terms of opening with 10 credits. It’s like you got to score Hostile Takeover before the game started in exchange for shuffling it back into your deck instead of keeping the point.

In a normal game, BABW might make 9-10 at most, barring Subliminal Messaging. Having it upfront means you can rez Ice and score, or pay for Snares, and just generally begin your first turn launching your econ to higher heights, rather than scrabbling to be able to handle the initial assault.

I can only say so much, because the GRNDL deck I play against most (a Supermodernism variant) doesn’t run any of the cards you’ve mentioned and seems to do pretty well. I can’t claim to be pushing it as hard as a better player might, but even so I gather that in person and on OCTGN it wins a fair bit more than not.

My own experience of playing with GRNDL says it’s waaay better than BABW, but people shy away from the BP in favor of forcing themselves to run event economy. “Oh, but event econ is better anyway” you might say. Not… really? I mean, yes, it is, but running 3xBeanstalk, 3xHedge Fun, and 3xRestructure is still tricky (as Restructure is unplayable first turn without at least one of the other two, at which point… Ice?) and forces you into a particular style of play. Sweeps Week helps that style be even better, sure, but…

Well. You should always try for a hand with econ and Ice both, of course, but GRNDL can start without much more easily. Drawing econ that first turn isn’t as essential – and if you’re not trying to rez all the big, expensive things you can find, then you don’t need to be rolling in money in quite the same way. Which isn’t to say you won’t be, with Restructure first-turn playable, but…

It also cuts out Beanstalk Royalties entirely. Other event econ as well, freeing up deckspace for other things. More useful things.

It’s not like Weyland’s Agendas don’t give all the econ you need once they get rolling.

(I’ll bug the person that runs the deck I play against into sharing his thoughts on it, too.)

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Uh, keep in mind that hoobajoo invented Supermodernism and considers GRNDL simply a better identity for the exact same playstyle (I agree with him). There isn’t some secret GRNDL deck that he’s referring to that plays totally different or anything.

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Man I still want to see some high-level supermodernism play. Anyone know of any videos or anything?

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i also would like to see some highlevel play of it. i always struggle playing weyland.

At my store champ , i took a grindel kill deck, and won every game with agenda advance :smile:

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I… wasn’t saying there was? Or wasn’t meaning to. What I was saying with “haven’t seen the cards mentioned” is that I’ve only seen Supermodernism, but not usually Oversight-Curtain Wall or GRNDL Refinery. So my ability to comment on those particular lose-lose scenarios is limited, because I’m more used to Supermodernism’s. I can’t talk much about other GRNDL builds, because aside from ten games playing a House of Cards GRNDL deck I’ve had no experience with non-Supermodernism GRNDL.

Upon reflection, I was referring to things that GRNDL could do as an identity and things that Supermodernism does rather more interchangeably than I should have been – my apologies.

I will confess that before this thread, I wasn’t aware of Supermodernism’s origins as a BABW deck. It seems all but impossible for it to work nearly so well with BABW because of how much that start helps the game progress, so it just never occurred to me that it wouldn’t have originated as a way to take advantage of the GRNDL ID’s ability.

EDIT: Sorry, must have been out of it, thought you were replying to me, not Lysander, and hence was just… very confused.

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Yeah, you’re not missing any super secret builds out there or anything, Supermodernism is simply more effective in GRNDL than BABW. I’m fully on-board with hoobajoo in his opinion of GRNDL here. We talked briefly in the days leading up to Fear and Loathing’s release, and I agreed with him that GRNDL was the perfect fit for his Supermodernism build. I threw the Supermodernism shell into GRNDL and won our first Store Championship the day after Fear and Loathing was released - this despite going down 0-5 in the final round top table match against repeated Blackmail runs, a game that I ended up winning.

Some of my closest friends (and decent Netrunner players themselves) have had heated debates with me over this topic. They insist that the long-term credit gain of BABW is better than the up-front economy of GRNDL, and that it’s certainly not worth the 5 influence handicap. I insist they don’t truly understand how powerful having that economy at the beginning of the game in a Supermodernism build is. I have won many early games simply because I had enough credits early on to pull stuff that would not have been possible in a BABW build.

I have several recorded videos with no commentary… I’m planning on (if I ever get some free time) adding commentary and uploading them on YouTube. I’d be happy to share here when/if I do get around to doing that. =)

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Yesterday I tested GRNDL and I saw what you guys said. I easily got to 30 plus credits and never looked back. The runner simply feared that advantage, running was limited to absolute minimum.

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It’s pretty easy to win if the runner doesnt run anymore, yeah. But at least locally and on octgn the simple plan of “see Weyland, play plascretes, make runs” still seems to be pretty effective in the games I’ve seen.

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I think I speak for a lot of high level players in saying that we don’t tend to play a lot of Weyland because it’s pretty bad against other good players. It’s very difficult to win game with Supermodernism when you’re playing against the strongest opponents; most of the time, you rush out one agenda and then never see a window to score another for the rest of the game. GRNDL or BABW doesn’t really make a whole lot of difference. The influence you give up makes you faster but it also makes the runner’s setup a little bit faster; it doesn’t make a huge difference either way. Sly and OrangeDevil streamed a few games with GRNDL when it came out and mostly got steamrolled. Personally, I just take my absurd winning percentage against Weyland as good enough playtesting and do a little dance inside whenever someone busts out Weyland against me at a tournament. Of the four, there is no question in my mind they’re the worst right now.

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I agree completely. I haven’t feared Weyland in a while now, and whenever I see GRNDL I just think of all those delicious credits the BP will give me. All I have to do is not be greedy and clear my tags.

Supermodernism in particular needs to exploit runner mistakes or strokes of bad luck. A good runner will not make those mistakes, so it comes down to them hitting a Snare! at a really bad time, or terrible early draws. I will grant that GRNDL is probably better than BABW for the archetype, because it can immediately pay for Snare! without suffering for it.

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Keep in mind that hoobajoo has won multiple large tournaments, a Plugged-In, etc. In practice, it seems that good players do in fact lose to Weyland.

The current lack of Weyland seems more thanks to trendiness rather than any real weakness.

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I would definitely disagree with this. I also prefer to play against Weyland over any other faction. With Honor and Profit, Jinteki has surpassed Weyland in a competitive setting.

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Dude, Weyland hasn’t gotten a good piece of ICE since Caduceus. Surely that’s relevant towards its competitive strength.

(Hive is decent, but it’s actually better out of faction, so that doesn’t really qualify)

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Even Caduceus is better OOF, since even one BP makes it very easy for linked runners to walk through before a breaker is installed. Too bad all those “advance only while rezzed” ice sucked up so much design space. And Burke Bugs… -shakes head-

In fairness though, Curtain Wall is very, very good. It’s just typically quite unreasonable to justify rezzing.

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weyland is missing its 2nd 3/2 agenda.

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If only Curtain Wall had the “cannot be bypassed” clause, then it’d be reasonable to rez for 14. As it is now, its biggest strength is negated by the need to position it so it’s not completely nullified by Inside Job.

That’s the whole problem with Weyland’s ICE in general - all of them are in the “if only” category. If only Burke Bugs had trace 1, it’d be an awesome piece. etc.

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I would love to know more about his tourney wins! I legitimately want to know how he does it!

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Snare helps Weyland land Scorches, I feel like. It’s harder to play around, short of losing even more momentum, and can make double-scorching relatively doable. The GRNDL I play against runs three, and hitting them often loses games, even if I can shake the tag, because it’s still a successful run (for the Sea-Scorch comb).

The other thing that helps them, if the window opens, is Project Atlas counters. It means you’ve got whatever you need whenever you need it. It can serve as a Fast Track to get a couple more points down, or it can pull your second and third scorches for that desperately needed triple-hit when they left themselves tagged. More than anything else, Project Atlas and False Lead seem to win games – admittedly, scoring them in the first place might be harder against stronger runners.

EDIT: Also, I’m curious, when do you drop Plascrete? That seems like it eats up time that can be used to score an Agenda or two, and if not, then you’re leaving yourself open to a Scorching. If Weyland scores a few Agendas early on before you catch up, they SHOULD be able to use those Agendas to stop you from doing much more.

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Sure it has-- Grim. :stuck_out_tongue:

At this stage all Corp factions seem more or less equally good to me, and differences in faction composition seem largely attributable to trends and fads rather than actual superiority, especially now that tournament conditions have changed and no longer bias results towards fast advance.

This may also be the case for Runner factions, but while I certainly suspect that it is I don’t feel comfortable making that strong a claim just yet.