I’m pretty excited about Valencia’s upcoming console in O&C, but I’m not sure exactly how good it is.
Thoughts:
I think it will be slightly higher impact than Astrolabe, which is a fine console, but not Desperado league by any means (nothing is, and probably nothing should be). Astrolabe is usually worth between 1-5 cards per game, and using the scientific method of thinking about it some, I’d say it averages 2.5 cards per game. Not bad for a click and a credit, and it gives an MU to boot.
The questions I have about Vigil are how many card draws will it average a game, how hard will it be for the corp to play around, what corps will it be strongest against, and at what points in the game will it be best?
First off, I think it’s safe to say that if Vigil fires at least 75% of the time, it would be Desperado-calibur bananas. There’s a lot of excitement over MaxX’s ability, and being able to have that 3/4s of the game with an MU is strong. I don’t think Vigil will fire even 50% of turns though, but I have hope it will still be a decent draw engine, and that it will change the game for Anarchs.
I think early game most corps will be able to turn off Vigil unless they mulliganed into a bad hand. That’s okay, as there’s nothing wrong to putting the screws to corps with bad hands, but you need help the most when the corp has a strong early set-up, and here Vigil will probably fail runners.
Mid-game, I think Vigil will shine against slower, remote-centric corps. Agendas tend to pile up while econ assets pay off, and Jackson is often used to sculpt the hand and get necessary remote protection in place. Vigil should be earning a card a turn around this time, which is strong, as that makes it easier to threaten the first remote play and harass a central or two.
Against corps like NEH bullshi, ahem, fastrobiotics, and Cambridge or Minh PE, Vigil will probably do little both early and mid game. It seems easy for these decks to spam out remotes and cheap Ice to stay below max hand size. I may be wrong about this analysis as I rarely play these two types of decks, but it seems there’s always plenty to install for cheap. Unfortunately for Anarchs, these are two decks they can have serious trouble with.
Interestingly, Astrolabe and Vigil are somewhat flip sides of the coin, as Astrolabe is excellent against both NEH and PE terror decks, but underwhelming against glaciers.
So how good will Vigil be? What types of decks should it go in? I predict it will become the best Anarch console, which is way more prestigious than Astrolabe’s title as the best Shaper console, but will it be enough to push Anarchs into new levels of aggression?