What ratings do you agree or disagree with? Discuss Alex’s post on Opening Moves: Opening Moves Initial Set Review - StimHack
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I agree with all but maybe Invasion of Privacy. I think it may be more useful than it’s being given credit for, but it’s impossible to accurately theorize without playing it extensively. (As with Celebrity Gift)
As for Illicit ice, my impression was that their intent was to give a great effect at a reduced cost, since the BP will cost you over the course of the game. Swarm is on the cusp of being so, but as you said, 8/5 isn’t exactly great either. I’m willing to overlook it however, since at least both it and Grim are both Sentries, and are therefore harder to break and have a marginally better effect than other cards with similar strength/rez costs.
One thing I’m looking forward to is Clone Retirement. Scenario:
Rez Grim, take one BP
Score Clone Retirement, lose one BP (and score OOH)
Rez Archer, forfeiting Clone Retirement
Though perhaps this won’t be as great as I’m anticipating.
Okay, so thematically, I didn’t think Hostage let you take Kati Jones hostage. I thought what was going on was that you took Thomas Haas hostage and used him to get Kati Jones in exchange 
Yeah, I want to see John Masanori work, but he does stall so much until you have a full breaker suite. However, maybe running 1 might be alright to drop down once you’ve already gotten that suite put together.
I also really like Character Assassination, but barring my desire for the card to be good, I’m on board with your ratings
I wanted Invasion of Privacy to be good, but I think you’re right
I like Cyberdex Trial as a one-of. Helps against fixed breaker Andy and against Katman, screwing them over from getting in anywhere
Yeah I agree. Its a nice effect. Its also a good thing to draw this type of card with Jackson Howard, cheap and easy to unload from your hand for some effect.
I want to like it, as a way to pre-emptively get Siphon out of their hand. But its a 2 cost, Double, thats only trace 2. That really dampens its power. If this thing was 1 click and cost 0? I would love that card a ton.
When you play it, you HAVE to make it succeed. If you go: “okay, its a 5. Blow some money or lose a couple cards”, they go “Spend money, get a bad publicity!”. This card is only good if the runner is broke, AND has multiple good things in their hand. Otherwise it doesnt work or isnt worth it. And it might misfire. You might spend all that money and time on it and then they show you their hand and discard a duplicate Kati Jones and nothing else.
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This is exactly the scenario I was looking forward to…but with Grim actually being a good card.
Doing that whole plan and ending up with a rezzed Ice that you paid 5 for, that SHOULD cost 5, isnt exciting. Its…just another ice that is costed what it should be, but this time you needed a second card to even get up to that level.
If the play was: Rez Grim for 1, remove the Bad Pub with Cloen Retirement, THEN I would be excited. For this combo to be good, we need like a $5 discount on the ice. Not no discount.
I guess Invasion of Privacy only works if you also include Closed Accounts in your deck.
I can only see it working on a Tag’n’Bag deck before hitting them with some Weyland cards.
I think you are underrating Grim a little bit. He obvious could (and probably should) be better without being a backbreaking card, but strength 5 is very hard to deal with considering how bad all sentry killers are compared to their Fracture and Codebreaker counterparts. The other thing to take note of is how good it is when paired with a ETR ICE. Bad pub doesn’t do that much if they can’t get past your ICE Wall. The popularity of Atman also makes this card better, since pairing it with a CTS or Cyberdex makes it a lot easier to lock them out (5 is an awkward number to set it at, and CT can just ruin them). Recently I’ve had some success in locking people out of my centrals to prevent Datasuckers from running me over using Grim and Archer in my Weyland deck. I’ve taken 6 or 7 bad pub in a single game and still won in the end, just by making Datasucker tokens the only things that matter.
Yes, I wish it cost 2 as well, because at 5, they certainly didn’t need to tack on the bad pub. It would be nice to get a strong, relevant, cheap piece of ICE, but that would probably go against FFG’s policy of making sure the corp sucks. Given our meager options however, he still represents a good piece of ICE by comparison considering how weak Rototurret and Ichi are at actually trashing programs.
I’m also not sold on John Masanori. When do you draw cards the most as runner? In the early mid game, and when you reach a board stall. These happen to be the times triggering John’s upside is going to be hardest and when triggering his downside is all too possible. In short, he encourages you to play a much more conservative game without a huge benefit.
Invasion of Privacy is kind of a Criminal hate card, since Criminals have great events and tend to run only the choicest and nicest of resources. That it is a double is a hard blow, but boy I’d love to be a Johnny for a second and imagine getting it and a Hedge Fund in my opening Making News hand vs. Andromeda :).
Go ahead, be a Johnny 
it’s just a game, haha.
But seriously, I’m very excited by this data pack. It brings back a lot of semi-useless cards and makes them interesting again. Maybe try Cortez Chip with Rook, or DLR with Masamoto. This pack definitely opens up a lot of new deck designs, and I like that.
You’re right, Drip is a kick in the balls, but they also packed Grim which allows any faction to trash programs. Granted, it’s not the optimal way to do it, but it adds one more layer to the cake, which is a good thing I think.
I think Masanori needed a (?), because the decks that run it will probably be highly specialized. There are probably going to be a lot of decks that run it and fail, but maybe in the right deck it could be quite effective. I don’t know, it’s all up in the air right now, which is GREAT for a data pack.
Pretty sure I disagree with Invasion of Privacy. Here’s the thing: a lot of times you’ll go to score an agenda the old fashioned way, and you’ll be thinking, well, with their current setup they have no way to score this agenda. However, if they have a (fill in the blank: test run, inside job, account siphon, stimhack) they can. This is a way to deny that possibility. I think a 1-of in a deck could possibly score you 2 points, and since a lot of games between top players come down to 2-3 points this could make all the difference between a win and a loss. If you’re playing NBN, and one card could be the difference between winning and losing, just throw it in. It’s probably like a 2.5.
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Re: Invasion of Privacy.
I missed that its a damage source as well, which can be used as the first part of a combo where it takes a couple cards out of their hand, then you scorch them. Its not super reliable, but its interesting at least.
i was thinking a 1-of invasion of privacy splashed in a jinteki deck could be interesting. there could be scenarios where you can snipe multiple cards with invasion than finish with single neural.
you could go for some crazy plays with the double operations in HB. with all their ways to have extra clicks. efficiency committee -> double gift -> invasion.
the reach of the card in unprecedented thats for sure. i think im going to be super annoyed when the corp uses this on me and it works.
Yes! Or a Ronin!
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Or a punitive counterstrike! (From the 4th set).
That might end up be A THING.
Youre NBN, splashing Punitive Counterstrike. They are poor. You let them take an agenda. Invasion->Counterstrike GG.
Its like Sea Source->Scorch but it costs less influence.
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Here goes…
I’m splashing Frame Job into my Andromeda deck.
Okay, now that that’s sunk in, I’ll attempt a justification. Due to BP giving value every single run, it definitely shouldn’t be underestimated. Since my Andy runs fixed breakers and runs are cheap, with Desperado I’m netting 2c (and Datasucker tokens) a run, which is huge.
One thing I can’t figure out however, is Mr. Li or Professional Contact. Hostage fishes for either, but I’m leaning on the former, as once I have a rig out, I don’t really want to be drawing anymore, and that extra draw power helps me get out of a hole if I have a bad draw. Masanori is amazing in it, by the way.
We thank you in advance for confirming Frame Job’s badness for us. 
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Well, it’s not great so far. I just won three games on OCTGN, all of which I didn’t need to use it because the deck was already extremely economically efficient. Plus, I’m now asking myself why on earth I’m spending the influence when I could just use Data Dealer. So I’ve decided to actually get something useful and not waste my time with either.
I’m a bit concerned about how close Masanori is getting to decking me. Masanori + Mr Li with 3x Hostage to fish for them (and Kati) is an obscene drawing engine.
Also, [quote=“jediloser, post:8, topic:232”]
I’m also not sold on John Masanori. When do you draw cards the most as runner? In the early mid game, and when you reach a board stall. These happen to be the times triggering John’s upside is going to be hardest and when triggering his downside is all too possible. In short, he encourages you to play a much more conservative game without a huge benefit.
[/quote]
I’d agree, except Andromeda mitigates this almost entirely with her stronger mulligan in which to get my breakers. Plus with the inclusion of Hostage, I can reliably fish for my one-of Masanori at the perfect time, which is typically by turn four at most. Even in the games that I couldn’t play him early, he allowed me to get my economic cards and utility (Infiltration, etc).
AR lab access is probably too steep inf wise right ? i’ve decked myself with pro contacts andy several times.
ronin works but 4 counters on ronin is awkward. most of the time i keep ronin at 2-3 so it hides out like its fetal or junebug. some people are great at the slow advance replicating decks but i dont really like the slow advance with personal evo.
the interesting thing is ronin + invasion + neural is now 9 sources of proactive hand disruption. ronin was already borderline ok to use proactively. i would pop ronin if i thought the runner was building up to a big turn ie double siphon or if i saw good cards get discarded after the runner drew. now instead of waiting around for the runner to mess up you can go after him and try to force him awkward situations.
one card i want to take another look at is (don’t laugh) data hound. in combination with all the other disruption it might be playable. all of sudden im taking the siphon out of your hand and the one you were about to draw. im playing jinteki well im going into hand and taking the infiltration and the infiltration you were about to draw.
maybe the economy isnt there yet but i think its worth exploring if we are nearing or at the critical mass to play a proactive disruption deck.
I considered it, but I think Aesop would be the better option. It’s one less influence, and works wonders with Bank Job (among others, to a lesser extent).