Why do you think it’s a problem? Is it that it showed up in a lot of the top 16 decks at World? Are you seeing it a lot across the table? If so, I think we have a sample size problem that only time will tell if it’s a real problem. GFI has only been tournament playable for about two months and after Worlds it’s been a mostly quiet season in regards to competitive play.
The way I see it, Global Food Initiative doesn’t so much warp the design space, as much as it reverts the design space back to the original intentions. 5/3 agendas really fell out of favor over the years, and GFI is giving players a reason to IAA again. In exchange for not having a crazy ability that grants a tremendous benefit to the corp, which would help them win, GFI has a crazy ability that reduces the benefit to the runner, which helps the corp not lose.
Global Food Initiative could theoretically be considered a “fair” card if, say, the ability on the average 5/3 agenda was approximately worth slightly more than a 1-agenda-point swing in the corp’s favor (thus justifying the influence cost). I haven’t watched the video linked above yet, but I would guess that it supports that notion. However, if it seems that GFI is worth a lot more than a 1-agenda-point swing, then perhaps it should cost more influence, and earn a spot on the MWL–it’s probably too soon to tell.
Powerful =/= problematic. It opens up a lot of deckbuilding options, letting non-jinteki decks run 5/3s that are more than just a drawback. NAPD was problematic because you almost never had a reason to run a 4/2 over it, and while gfi technically puts that constraint on 5/3s not named future perfect, those were unused anyway outside of fringe decks that tended to not like having the 5/3.
Food is probably fine. The only reason to add it to the list is if Food cripples the design space for future 5/3 agendas. (I think it may well do, but it’s way too early to say, and Damon was completely correct in taking that stance. We’d already established 5/3 agendas were already very problematic cards, so it might be we just never see any more printed. That’s actually probably fine.)
I’m not sure GFI creates terribly interesting interactions. It’s just a good, but fairly boring, card.
As an aside, given how popular the GFI-powered “I need three agendas, you need four” deckbuilds are on the Corp side at the minute, I’m surprised that Notoriety doesn’t see more play as a lucky singleton for just this situation.
[quote=“SamRS, post:31, topic:6494”]
Powerful =/= problematic.
[/quote] This. The real issue is not that this card is “too powerful,” it’s that every other 5/3 but TFP has been made by an utterly flawed design philosophy that rendered them all complete garbage - I think going forward we’ll see a lot more defensively-minded 5/3s, as this is the only space for them that makes any sense from a deckbuilding perspective.
Food is incredibly strong. Not only did it storm worlds, but the 90 person (actually think it was more 70-80 given no-shows) Store Champs in London at the weekend you couldn’t move for Foodcoats - most of the top players were running it.
Should it be on the MWL? We’ll see, it’s a bit early. The initial MWL has taken effect yet. It’s having a big impact on the SCs already, but MWL may stablise this, or people may well tech more against Foodcoats decks in coming weeks and reduce the prevalence.
My gut feeling is it should probably be on there. Why? Because it’s strong and neutral. It might need a tweak to make it not a virtual auto-include in HB glacier decks - one of the goals of the MWL is to reduce this sort of thing. If other factions can get good results by playing it, all the better though.
Mainly I don’t think it’s on the list now because it’s too new, compared to the ubiquitous NAPD for example (which always should have cost 1 inf really, given hindsight and the costing of other neutral agendas more recently).
what 5/3s are seeing less use competitively because of it though? future perfect is still played over it, and there is still a decision in deck building between running 3 2 pointers and running 2 of these due to influence and ease of scoring. That’s what makes me think it’ll stay off the list, unless of course damon is taking the ‘anything powerful goes on the list’ option, which is I believe what happened to desperado and sansan.
I just saw Blue Sun playing Food. Not Priority Requisition, not High Risk Investment, not any other 3 point card. When even Blue Sun wants Food enough to pay influence for it, I’d say that it’s restricting diversity. I mean, I think I’d like more good 3 point agendas rather than see Food on the MWL, but hey. Whatever comes is up to Damon.
Yes, lots of glaciers replaced their 5/3 with food, the 5/3 was the weak part of the deck. The difference being now there will be 2-3 people playing blue sun glacier in a 20 man tournament, instead of 0-1. In the same way, tfp didn’t reduce the diversity of rp agenda suites, it just allowed the deck to be played, even though you will see 3 tfp before any other 5/3 in rp
The problem is that the Netrunner community is large and interconnected enough that there’s always going to be a set of best cards and deck archetypes that the community will hone in on. Today it’s GFI, last year it was PPVP and next year it will probably be something else.
I’m not sure TFPs are better than GFIs in all Jinteki. Philotic gets a little better if you play with GFIs and GFIs are imune to Film Critic.
They help to splah 3/1s, snowballing Philotic.
I think CP’s distribution could be something like 3 GFis, 3 HoK, Philotic and a 2 pointer, like Fetal or Med Breakthrough. 3 Shikyu to complete this, and that’s it.
Food is probably better than all other 5/3s, but that may be because the design of all other 5/3s are flawed. The main benefit is the 3 points (winning in 3 scores rather than 4), so defensive abilities will always be better than post-scoring abilities.
Hopefully FFG takes TFP and Food as a new baseline for 5/3s - the alternative is banning both of them IMHO.
I didn’t say any 5/3s were seeing less use, although I’m seeing Weyland use it more. What I am seeing is 5/3s being used now were they weren’t before. Food reduces number of agendas in a deck and doesn’t bleed as much to the runner who steals it. Other 5/3s have powerful effects, but they hurt so bad when they get stolen.
Yeah, I’ve already noticed that.
Food is the best 5/3 if it isn’t the only one, simply because it’s only worth 2 points when stolen, shrinking your deck size.
5/3’s are inherently bad, so no one runs a deck with only 5/3’s. (Except me, but I’m insane. … Ok, fine, there’s one 3/2 in there because WHY NOT.)
Not inherently. They usually have the large disadvantage of being worth 3 points to the runner, but that can be mitigated and built around. In addition, they have unique advantages.
