Originally published at: Store Champions Invitational Meta Analysis by ussgordon captain - StimHack
Fresh off a strong performance in the SSCI Last Chance Qualifier, ussgordoncaptain shares his metagame speculations to help you figure out what to play in the main event.
Good article. I’m super-excited to see the meta in the coming tournament. Kinda funny that even with caprice and ash everywhere, I really don’t expect to see Unregistered S&W like… anywhere. You know it’s a bad card when what it hates on is everywhere and it’s still not seeing play.
I’m also quite interested as to how many clots see play in the tournament. If people perceive there’s going to be lots, there’s going to be no NBN. Wonder how many people are going to gamble on low #clot and play some mixed strategy (like HBFA).
Thanks for the article. I agreed with most of it and thought it was sound. Biggest disagreement though is your perception of NEH as a playable id in regard to scorch. I think that the dedicated meat damage decks can kill and because it’s NEH still be able to score if need be. Just my two cents, for what they’re worth.
No mention of Vamp? I think it could become a very important counter to Caprice.
NBN can’t be played, clot shouldn’t be played and account siphon is so broken… A little too heavy handed for my taste
I’m kind of surprised Running Interference didn’t get a mention.
It’s time for QUEST COMPLETED to SHINE!!11!
I’m not totally sold on Mopus, as it doesn’t play well vs the click compression of RP. Pretty solid article for the rest though.
To be fair, NEH Scorch relies heavily on the threat of FA. Clot hurts it just as hard, as the runner can ignore unrezzed SanSans and even the threat of Biotic Labor once they have Clot available, which not only makes it more difficult to score, but more difficult to get the econ advantage necessary to land Midseasons. The amount of deck space taken up by the kill package make it quite difficult to fit anything like Shipment from SanSan if you want to pay any respect to Clot whatsoever.
Goddamn it, every single one of those cards were in my 2 decks for this weekend. Oh wait, this is a champions tourney? I guess everyone already knew they were the nuts.
I’m seriously rooting for someone to wreck house with some kind of rush NBN deck.
Snakes on a train. Lols.
I agree with your points but I feel a deck like the Butcher deck could handle it. I’m not saying it’s the best but I don’t think Weyland is the only viable scorch deck out there.
Here’s the deck for reference (I’m on my phone and terrible at markdown)
I approve of this article as I plan on playing NEH FA (with a few tweaks to make it Clot resistant) in the next store championship and I would love to see people bring slow runner decks to the table without clot.
That being said, I think the speculation is pretty accurate. Good cards will still be good and I expect corp and runner to build more for late game then they were before. We’ll have to see what happens in the next couple of SCs to confirm this prediction though.
Can someone help me out with this while Clot thing? It will counter the hardcore FA decks but as a runner you shouldn’t play it?
It it just the fact that the threat of it lowers the consistency enough that other archetypes are brought into the fold?
I can’t help but think that HB FA/Rush type deck is going to benefit from the potential lack of clot.
Like most of the article. Think you could’ve gone more into the Clot stuff, but that wasn’t the point, and I think there are some good points about glacier and midrange corp play for people not super-familiar with 'em.
[quote=“groober, post:2, topic:3415”]
I really don’t expect to see Unregistered S&W like… anywhere.
[/quote]Yeah. The only time I can see this getting play is in a situation where we have Drive By and FA is still largely dead. Means that if they dodge the Drive By by rezzing early you can make the kill and get in, potentially.
Right now, though, if they can rez 'em in the first place they’ve probably done what they needed to do anyway.
[quote=“jerklin, post:11, topic:3415”]
I’m seriously rooting for someone to wreck house with some kind of rush NBN deck.
[/quote]Me too. Maybe AggSec bluffing to draw out their Clot and cost 'em heavy on the attempt to follow-up steal? Seems risky, still.
[quote=“HalfDayDeemo, post:15, topic:3415”]
It it just the fact that the threat of it lowers the consistency enough that other archetypes are brought into the fold?
[/quote]It’s mostly the influence, I think. Running something like 1-2 Plascretes costs deckspace/consistency, but not having them just kills you dead in a variety of matchups and doesn’t impact anything else. Clot has more of an opportunity cost to have in your deck in the first place, especially in Criminal, say – especially because, to be useful, you need some way of getting it out between clicks on their turn, like Clone Chip or SMC.
So it’s great in PPVP Kate, for instance, but nigh-impossible in Stealth Andy.
On the flipside, unlike Plascrete, it doesn’t actually guarantee safety if you have it, or defeat if you don’t. It’s very good, but not quite at that level of broadness. Add that only two factions can really manage FA, whereas all four can run some kind of Meat Damage threat, and the bigger FA one (NBN) doesn’t have much else going for it and it’ll be less common… well, Clot’s not looking great.
Which means FA’s in the Dredge-Zone. If you bring it when no one is ready, you’ll clean house. If people are ready, though, you’ll get taken down. And since Kate can afford to splash it anyway and is super popular, well… most folks shouldn’t worry too hard about splashing for it, but counting on not seeing it as Corp is doubtful strategy. Kate’s probably the strongest ID at the moment, after all (and Clot is cheaper for her to install at instant-speed, too, in comparison to other Shapers, even).
All that said, HB FA has a much stronger chance of surviving, as they’ve got more ability to do multiple plans (FA-Rush hybrids, Glacier with FA to close out, etc.). It’s easy enough to take a rich glacier deck and squeeze in some Biotic Labors to take advantage of a runner’s lack of ability to Clot at points without hurting the deck overall if they can just access it at will. So they’ll likely see something of a surge with people that like playing FA-style stuff, while others migrate to Blue Sun and RP Glacier builds that’ve proven themselves powerful time and again.
Not sure I follow on this. How will clot keep a midseasons deck from getting its econ advantage?
Thanks for the article.
Regarding Clot, I think the opportunity cost of including it is important in how prevalent it will be long-term. For example, if Criminal is out in force for whatever reason, then you might as well bring Fastrobiotics because they can’t afford to play it.
Another factor is that preparation and comfort with your deck is really important and a lot of players have a huge amount of practice with FA right now. At this point in the meta these players have a tough choice between retraining on short notice and just bringing something they’re used to and praying.
Based on this I’m bringing Clot this weekend, but we’ll see how things shift by Regionals.
If we get a shift to Glacier then D4V1D + Knifed/Spooned becomes a big deal. It’s the orange Emergency Shutdown except you don’t need to get into HQ and that 8-14 cost ICE is just gone. Blow R&D open for the Medium dig, or soften up the remote for repeated runs.
NBN creates its econ advantage by compelling the runner to run unadvanced, face-down remotes and trash things like Daily Business Show and SanSan City Grid, as well as check for Astros, lest the runner find themselves facing down an Astrotrain. If they do score Astro, the econ advantage is sustained because the runner is forced to run centrals for random accesses before the corp can score out the win. If the runner can stifle the corp’s FA at any point in the game with Clot, they can spend more time gaining money and less time running and trashing without having to worry nearly as much about losing the game to FA.
Gotcha. Good point. In that situation the corp should be able to install naked astros then, knowing the runner’s not wasting time checking facedown stuff.
Clot is feeling more and more like Will o’ the Wisp right now. The sky was falling when that card came out too…