Sovereign Sight Community Review and Meta Predictions (Corp)

Originally published at: Sovereign Sight Community Review and Meta Predictions (Corp) - StimHack

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Thanks for the card reviews, although I have to say I don’t quite get why this BigBoy guy only rates in low numbers, that doesn’t really help the viewers to get a good opinion on the cards and it feels more like a troll?

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If you consider the new cards along the current card pool, which includes Mumbad and Flashpoint, none of these cards really stand out against their current alternatives that they would displace (e.g. Yusuf vs Paperclip).

Some of these cards may be good in the future, when more support comes out for them (e.g. Yusuf), or if new archetypes evolve, but as they are now, the cards in this pack do not define new viable archetypes (for competitive play), nor enhance any existing archetypes.

Until Mumbad and Flashpoint (and to a lesser extend, Data and Destiny) rotate, I think we will see similar reactions to many new cards.

Working as intended, request closed.

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@CrushU 11/10 Dodson reference.

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(5/10 in TBB units)

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“No agenda” is a stupid limit with the current cards. People would throw agenda first instal, then throw something else instead of doing something else - agenda. Can’t do Agenda - agenda which is stupid anyway (the benefit of that is so small compared to a Whampoa Reclamation : this need a card (Premeptive) that coudl have been a Whampao for double the effect.).

This limitation, I think, is because something like my imaginary Rock Guitar is coming (aka an etr trap).

I would say the agenda restriction is to prevent using e.g. Advanced Assembly Lines to install an agenda at the end of the runners turn. I’m not sure that would be overpowered, but the restriction on AAL indicates that FFG thinks so.

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Fair enough, but : Political Dealings

Political dealings is harder, you need the agenda to be on top of r&d instead of in hq. That makes sense why Asa is worded that way now.

I guess that with Urban Renewal you need another two damage to finish the runner off, maybe Contract Killer and Dedication Ceremony could do it? But I don’t know how often the runner will let Urb fire.

It’s funny how people complain about punisher mechanics when they’re explicitly spelled out, e.g. on Wake Up Call in this article, when the whole game is practically built on giving the opponent choices, especially for the corp. Traces give the runner the choice to pay or (whatever the trace does). Ice that doesn’t end the run gives the runner the choice to break it or take the subroutines. If it’s bioroid ice there are even more options. The runner even has choices about what server to run; if you defend your remote too well, they can let you score in there but try to steal agendas from r&d, for example. If you don’t like punisher mechanics you’re probably in the wrong game.

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It’s funny how you equate things that have nothing to do with each other. People don’t complain about punisher cards. People complain about badly designed punisher cards. Wake up call only ever fires if there is hardware or non-virtual resource installed, and is only relevant when important hardware or non-virtual resource is installed. Comparing that to facecheck ICE like Architect or Cobra makes no sense.

@rumirumirumirumi Thanks, Netrunner cards messing with my vocab

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Most traces the Corp goes out of their way to fire are less about giving the runner a choice and more about forcing a high cost for the Corp. Punitive is a good example: the best use is to flatline the runner with no choice but the let the trace be successful, while the worst use is to give them a choice about paying.

Something that makes the choice about ice very different is that ice stays around once the choice is made, and the runner has to pay the cost or face the subs each time they run against it. Ice more often than not is used as a tax, with the sub being a worst case than paying the money to get through. If letting the sub fire is a consistent and best choice for the runner, that ice may not be doing its job well.

Wake-Up Call is hard to place for what the Corp actually wants to do with it because it’s hard to make a best use case for it. It will never flatline a runner, but many runners will take the damage to save their card from being trashed. I think it’s a stronger card than O2 Shortage, but punishers work in a very different way than the other choices the Corp gives the runner.

@Labbes, that’s not what equivocate means.

I tried to “spam” wake up call, it’s a nice card by itself… In Weyland, the runner can’t say if you play Neural or if it’s a bluff, and even not killing the runner : 4 clicks of homework / trash console is a really tough question against horizontal deck.

This is very well put. For me, the first thing that comes to my when it comes to punisher mechanics is assets. While you theoretically can build a board state where the runner has no good choices, every asset nevertheless gives the runner a choice: trash it or let me have it.

In evaluating a card with an explicit punisher mechanic, we have to walk between two lines:

  1. Punisher cards tend to look a little better than they are, because our brains forget that when we give a choice to our opponent, we are almost always going to get the choice that is worse for us.
  2. Seasoned card game players know that punisher cards tend to look better than they are so we don’t want to overlook a busted punisher card.

I thought the reviews that talked about the concept did that pretty well. Specifically, no one said the card was inherently bad just because it is a Punisher card. I think the closest was FightingWalloon suggesting that the card would draw people’s ire because it was explicitly a punisher card which I think is pretty fair.

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