How vigilant are you about Vigil?

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?

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I think for Anarchs, the 1 MU really isn’t enough. This card’s value lies in its ability, but is that effect worth deck slots and a 2 install?

This is a console that could be built around. Is there an Anarch card coming that hurts the corp for having less than their maximum hand size? or one that lowers the corp handsize (i think there is one)?

Yes, you’re thinking of Itinerant Protesters which reduces the corp’s max hand size by 1 for each bad pub they have. It is a current though and can be trashed by the corp scoring an agenda or playing a current of their own.

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Two things in O&C go nicely with Vigil.

Itinerant Protestors out of Valencia (especially with Investigative Journalism) is one. Reducing their handsize to 4 or 3 or less, pretty great – and good whether or not all the pieces are out, I think. It’s a current, but that’s not a huge loss, I don’t think, in 50-card Valencia.

The other is Wanton Destruction. “Oh, you are keeping your handsize low to avoid paying? Well, here, let me help with that.”

In general, it also means that corps that overdraw – NBN/NEH especially, but most glacier decks that try to push out 5/3s are going to do it, too – are going to give you a few free cards, even if they’re otherwise able to play around it. It makes keeping their handsize up to avoid Legwork and the like trickier too, though out of Anarch WD is probably the better choice.

As @moistloaf said, though, the lack of MUs is what’s going to hurt it as an Anarch console. Either folks’re going to need to find a way to run an Anarch deck without many MUs needed (that isn’t Eater-only because I maintain that’s going to fall apart once people adapt), or it’ll fall to the wayside.

Personally, I’m thinking of importing some copies of The Personal Touch to make the fixed-strength breakers less dependent on having multiple datasuckers. Shame Dinosaurus isn’t an option in conjunction with Vigil, but TPT is still pretty darn useful for dealing with Lotus Fields and the like.

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I don’t like the fact that Vigil can be shutdown by the Corp simply deciding to only keep 4 cards in hand. Also, it can be cut off by Research Station, which - believe it or not - I have actually started seeing occasionally.

Having said that, against the right Corp builds, or if you have a way to force the Corp to draw (Laramy Fisk, where are you?) it’s pretty cool.

EDIT: Forgot about the protesters… This thing is OP! Plz nerf! LOL

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The assumption here is that there is no value gained from the corp playing around Vigil. With Nerve Agent out of vogue, and few Anarchs opting to spend their influence on legworks, having corps play 4 card hands just to deny you a credit still works to your advantage (very much the same way the runners denying Tenin tokens are often perpetuating your advantage, and/or doing exactly what you want them to). It helps you keep up against slower decks, by giving you a card or pressuring them to speed up.

The other thing is that its a universal console, there might be some decks that leverage it better than others, but Grimoire, Spinal Modem, and Deep Red all go into very specific decks.

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I feel like if you can make good use of 1MU but don’t plan on playing a ton of viruses, this card is fine. Bonus for playing wonton. Protesters seems a little sketchy to me.

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agree. I’m thinking of this as anarch’s in-faction astrolabe : the card you play when you only need 1 mu and don’t have another console in your gameplan.

I also agree on protesters; I’m feeling very wait-and-see about BP-centric deck strategies, but my suspicion is that it’ll be too slow to get going, and won’t “get” you enough out of it.

side note; memstrips is a freakin’ crazy memory card; it makes in-faction memory as much of a non-issue (which is to say, sometimes still an issue) as in shaper. there are shaper decks that run a small console and a few mem chips, and I think now anarch will be able to do the same.

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what is nice about this card for anarch is that you can improve on it but there really aren’t any deckbuilding strings attached to it like so many other anarch cards. I’d say its a solid card not so much for its effect, it just fits in so easily.

awesome early, ok mid, lousy late-game card.

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Yes, I’m already slotting a Memstrip into my aggro Whizzard build, and contemplating a second because I think I will want to see one every game. Final rig Corroder, Mimic, Atman/Yog, Datasucker, Medium and then open slots for parasiting or Nerve Agent.

Actually makes me look at Grimoire again, as it’s a perfect 2-card solution, and the incoming virus counters help a lot. It all depends on how helpful Vigil’s ability is.

Gots to have some HQ punishment if you’re running Vigil. Nerve Agent vs. Wonton Destruction. Wonton’s probably better, be nice to have 3 clicks take them to 1 or 0 cards.

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Vigil is stronger in more matchups than you think. NEH tends to keep a full hand from the mandatory draw on remote creation. Cards like fast track and biotic labor and agendas like NAPD and Beale tend to sit in HQ. If they’re trying to play around vigil to get below a 5 card hand they’re probably making a lot of suboptimal plays just to get stuff out. PE can also get a cluttered hand, since Neural EMPs get held until they win you the game. PE is also about more than just installing everything you draw, playing like that is a pretty easy way to lose against any runner that knows what’s up. I expect Vigil to reliably fire between 50-75% of the time in all matchups except CI, which it will probably never fire against because their max hand is going to be like 20 and they’ll have 17 cards in hand or some shit. So the average number of turns for a runner before the game ends if I remember right is something like 16, so assuming you get vigil turn one it’ll probably draw you somewhere between 7-12 cards. Some of your draws are now dead though because they’re going to be the additional Vigils. Numbers like that are nice but aren’t really bonkers. Since you brought up Desperado, let’s compare. Desperado is nuts because it makes you something like 20+ credits in a game and synergizes with some of the strongest cards and strategies, and thanks to Andy you almost always see it early. Vigil has probably 6 obvious synergies- itinerant protesters with bad pub, wanton destruction to punish small hands, legwork, nerve agent, hq interface, and imp for the same reason. Not ‘goes great with everything you got your chocolate in my peanut butter’ desperado but works nice with strong cards you’re probably already playing (with the exception of itinerant protesters, which needs bad pub support). I think Vigil occupies a very polite place in the console card pool. Its biggest strength is that it’s good card draw in the faction that needs it the most. Splash for it? Don’t think so. But if you aren’t running grimoire for viruses this is probably the best all purpose anarch console.

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There are two synergies that I think are worth examining: economic denial (they can’t play stuff if they are broke) and Hemorrhage (incentivises the corp padding their hand with trash fodder, punishes half empty hands and also goes well with BP powered multiple runs).

Otherwise I think it’s comparable to Astrolabe. A solid choice for +1 MU and a few free draws but not worth it for the ability alone.

Protestors feels like a 51st card to me.

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I think that between ELP and Accounting, runners will want to have a current on hand to play. If you’re playing Valencia with Vigil, IP helps. It’s not any massive boost on its own, and I don’t know how many times you might want to use something like Investigative Journalism to make it hit harder, but I think that as a 1- or 2-of in Valencia to deal with troublesome Corp currents and make your Memchip draw you cards more often, there’s some possible real benefit there.

Vigil is the shit. People keep saying corps will play around it, but that’s actually not trivial; for instance, if they ever overdraw with Jackson, it triggers.

It might not be Desperado, but I think it’s better than Grimoire, and Grimoire ain’t bad.

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Vigil is going to be an amazing console.

I rarely want to reduce my HQ size. Even if I do, I’ll probably be at 5 cards half of my turns, meaning Vigil is going to give you a better return than Astrolabe, which I find is about 2 to 3 cards a game on average.

If I ‘play around’ Vigil, I haven’t really. Suddenly, chances of hitting singleton agendas in HQ go up dramatically, as well as disrupting combo-centric corp plays.

Not every deck needs Spinal Modem, as good as it is, nor Grimoire due to it’s price point. But Vigil sits cheaply there as ‘I will speed up your economy and getting vital cards’, which Anarch needs after all.

Laramy Fisk.

Jeremy Fisk.

Anarch: Nerve Agent with the optional Demolition run, Wanton Destruction
Shaper: maybe False Echo, Woman in Red
Criminal: Legwork / HQI obviously but also Leela & Laramy, somehow Ehanced Vision

Utopia/Eden Shard

And somehow Gorman Drip if you managed to be threatfull enough with all the above.

I wouldn’t play this console with Valencia, I’d play Spinnal Modem, The Toolbox, Desperado or Logos.

I’ll like this.

There are those times where you really need none of the anarch consoles that are out now, and don’t dare to run on spinal modem. The issue is that it doesn’t do much when you are behind already and the corp can play whatever it wants. If you can pressure them, then sure, this can be very powerful, both in the reduced handsize way or the free card draw.

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