i’ve been experimenting with Paparazzi and Wireless Net Pavilion in a tag-me siphon criminal build, and every time i think ‘hey, i’ve got all these connections and hey! i won’t take meat damage from trashed Tri-Mafs… so i could go Off-Campus Apartment, change these Security Testings to Tri-Mafs, i’ll be in business…’
then i realise it’s still not as good, since Security Testing encourages spreading ICE around and the corp having less remotes (ie: less asset economy). by that point, Kati is all i really need tbh, so i still haven’t fully made the leap yet.
I’ve found that you don’t need as much HQ pressure in Gabe, since you’re trying to hit HQ every turn for your money anyway. If you’re doing that, you’re getting plenty of accesses, and if you aren’t, you have problems that would only compound if you were slotting additional HQ pressure.
I’ve been playing with one copy, and agree that it’s pretty strong. How often do you have more than one installed? Seems scary. Just rely on Faust at that point?
It depends on the game. I’d say in just over 50% of games it’s probably correct for me to slap down the second dealer, but the card’s hard to judge past the first. I’ve put three down before and it has been correct, but it’s a card that requires a decent chunk of skill to figure out if you install Drug Dealers 2 and/or 3.
Either way, I think the card’s good enough to be ran as a three-of even if you don’t want to install all three turn 1. The fact that it really doesn’t care about being trashed is just cherry on the already very sweet cake. FFG really nailed this card, I’m really really impressed with its design.
Say you had an Armitage and a Tri-Maf, you could click the Tri-Maf every turn, and whenever you needed even more credits, you could click the Armitage 1-3 times
armitage or kati both are good supplements. really what drug dealer does is it frees up influence previously spent on card draw and frees up clicks that would have been spent drawing so its easier to sustain run based econ plans and use the powerful criminal events. i’m with xenasis on this one. damn fine design by FFG.
I enjoy John’s Macaroni as much as the next criminal, but Drug Dealer being completely clickless, taking so little out of a resource you’re gaining anyway, and drawing on the CORP’s turn is just way too good of a combo to turn down. He’s not any less good, but Drug Dealer just works better in more blue decks I think.
I think right now Masanori is pretty good. The only criticism is that it makes the good matchups better and makes the trickier matchups worse. That’s not the way around I would choose.
I think the Masanori v. Drug Dealer choice depends on how your deck values clicks, specifically the occasional click spent to clear a tag. I know my deck doesn’t value 1 credit as much as it values the free draw.
The point is that you’re not giving up a credit for a click - you’re giving up a credit a turn for a click & 2 creds sometimes, not more than a few per game. How many credits do you have to give up for the click & 2 to be the better option? 4? 5? I’m not entirely sure, but I’m pretty certain it can’t be much more than that.
My problem with John M is I want to make many probing runs before I’m set up. I don’t want my draw engine to punish me for doing so. John is amazing when he’s giving you free cards, and a liability when he’s not. Drugs are pretty much always good.
I think that’s sort of where I fall on it. When the deck is struggling, John Masanori is harder to use than Drug Dealer. When the deck is working well, John Masanori saves you a credit a turn. A credit a turn is nothing to sneeze at, but when my Criminal games are going well I’m not often losing on margins like that. When I lose, it’s often because I couldn’t get up and running in the first place, and John is a harder card to play with in that case.
I’m not sure which I think is better in the long run, but they definitely have different strengths.
@mendax is one of the better criminal players I know. He has a good feel for the game. John is quite a subtle card, that rewards good decision making. (As is Drug Dealer actually)