2016 Regionals Top Cut Data (Updated June 15th, 2016)

If you run six ramajan reliant’s you are signing a death sentence against fast advance and glacier. There is no way you can include six of those and the necessary access, money, and ice destruction. Something has to give.

I’ve Had Worse?

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I’ve Had Worse isn’t net damage prevention.

It draws cards, yes. Like Sports Hopper, it can prevent death to concentrated blasts of damage. It won’t save you any health at all when getting slowly bled out against a diffuse, prickly deck. It will only save you a couple of clicks. In fact, if it causes you to overdraw, it can actually lose you health.

@Arthur_Barnhouse: I think you misread my post. I wasn’t suggesting you played Ramujan-Reliant 50 BMI. I was noting that it is the first net damage prevention card that wasn’t in Shaper! And it’s the worst too. Shaper should be the best-placed faction against prickly net damage, if only they played the cards they have.

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When I said that IG punishes people who play Shaper, I mean it punishes the better Shaper decks.

Those decks are geared to beat NEH and also have the tools to beat Palana and HB and other remote focused decks.

Once you include Net Shield, you’re already hurting your deck’s chances in those other matchups. Net Shield alone isn’t enough. Slums and Archives Interface are the only reliable ways to actually beat the lock, both of which are in Anarch.

That means the best way to play Shaper is to import those answers (which costs influence and means your other matchups are worse) or ignore IG completely and just be as good as you can be against NEH and glacier.

Most players seem to have formed the view that neither of those ideas are as good as just straight up playing Anarch and being teched vs IG plus good enough against remotes and NEH (even if not as good as a non-IG-teched Shaper).

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I think this is the real reason.

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BTW, I think that there are better reasonable shaper decks than Whiz vs Hot Tubs, which I think is significantly better than IG right now because it has a significantly better Whiz matchup. Banker’s group and not having to fuck with Archives ensure they can’t easily keep you poor, you start up a lot faster, and random midgame SEA to trash a bunch of shit usually wins the game.

It also can score agendas, which is hugely important in the cut where it seems like the majority of IG losses are to time. Based on a conclusive study where I root for all the IG players and then get pissed off because they lose to time.

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Oh I see. That makes sense.

That may be the case - I haven’t tested extensively against Gagarin with MCH, Mumba and MoH but from the few games I have played it seems really strong.

That really reinforces the fact that MCH, Mumba and MoH used in concert are almost certainly overpowered as a package. There really are so few ways to profitably interact, and the corp and runner meta would be more diverse if those cards didn’t interact in the way they do.

MoH removes the fundamental pressure in the game on the corp to score agendas, and that is, in my opinion, a really bad thing.

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Great data, thanks for the post. Doesn’t make for pretty reading does it.

I funking love stats, me.

I believe the City Hall is what really put these decks on the map. Before the arrival of MCH, asset-based Corps were durdling a lot, but were not winning a lot. With the city hall, IG and Gaga can completely setup before turn 3 and tutor their best tools at will. The ability to spam Salem’s every turn in Gaga (at a profit even, no less) is frankly ridiculous.

The MWL savaged the Kate deck that was NEHs main predator. It pinched 3 inf from good fast criminal decks to boot. I like that it shook up the metagame, but it needs regular updates too.

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“Regular” meaning more than twice-yearly. I think once a quarter would be about right. Hell, they release tournament kits on a Spring/Summer/Fall schedule, right?

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I think every 3 packs. I’d like architect to be everywhere again - I miss him.

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As a runner, I think I see just about as much Architect as I like =P I expect him in HB, and am occasionally surprised by him outside of it. Having to find Mimic before checking any ICE ever or lose a massive amount of tempo felt awful.

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Damon, if you’re reading this; please put MCH and MoH on the MWL!

Also Faust, but I think you’re doing that anyway :pray:t2::fuelpump:

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I’ll be updating this within the next few days with the results from this weekend. Should include all regionals marked “Yes” on this spreadsheet. If you want to get me any of the missing results, do it quick!

Desperado and PPVP on the MWL have been pretty bad for the meta. Remove these two, and you will see a rebalancing of faction representation on both sides.

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It depends if you want balancing of factions, or balancing of decks. Until the MWL for several months PPVP Kate was shaper in competition. Pitchforky decks might not have emerged from that shadow. It’s not all bad. I’d just like a new list now.

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True. I’d place balancing of faction representation above balancing of decks within the factions. And I really doubt removing a deck that had 75%+ wins vs. NEH from the meta helped to alleviate anyone’s frustration with the deck.

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