Its safe to say that almost every corp deck you see wants to have the maximum number of cards in order to reduce agenda density. Its kind of a no-brainer, reducing the chances a runner will see an agenda is always a good thing for the corp.
The downside of this is that you sacrifice some draw consistency, which is usually worth it, because 49 vs 45 cards doesnt affect your draw chance that much.
The thing is, it doesn’t affect the runners chance to access agendas that much either. Ofc, you have 2 mechanics going against you here, the chance of the runner accessing an agenda from an R&D run, and the increased chance of getting flooded due to mandatory draws.
Still, there is a card called Jackson Howard which helps you with this problem. And what I 've noticed is that thanks to Jackson the times I 've felt I am agenda flooded are fewer than the times I felt I wasn’t drawing something I needed from my deck. Could we make a case that for some type of corp decks 45 cards is better? Maybe NEH or combo scorched earth decks. The fact that you will also have a higher chance to draw that Jackson which helps with agenda flooding could make up for the increased agenda density in R&D.
Having a higher chance to draw Jackson is always a good thing, but Jackson doesn’t decrease your agenda density in R&D, so he doesn’t make up for having a denser R&D.
If you are losing games because you are missing agendas during your scoring windows, you may think about going down to 45. But next, you could just take those 45 cards, slot a Fast Track, put in 3 other nice cards and have an even higher agenda densitiy that is not even helping your opponent…
The difference in power level between the last 4 cards and their equivalent in your core deck is not worth losing 1-2 central accesses earlier IMO.
It certainly is a solution but a single fast track in a 49 deck is not the same as a 45 deck. Plus fast track only brings you agendas. As far as losing 1-2 central accesses earlier I think that’s a bit far fetched, it depends on the game of course, if its a long match that small percentage will build up to what you said, but for most matches I think its significantly lower.
You are removing almost 10% of non-agendas and the runner needs about 17-18 accesses to win on average (if you are not playing TFI, GTO, GFI etc.). The actual difference in average access to win is different for each agenda composition, but just taking 10% of those 17-18 and then maybe rounding it down seems like a reasonable estimate to me.
The accurate difference is probably closer to 1 access than to 2, but I really can’t imagine it being smaller than 1.
I won a GNK tournament with this 45 Card Blue Sun · NetrunnerDB (note: this was just before O&C release, so no IHW around). You need a really, REALLY, good reason to increase your agenda density voluntarily. But scorching and/or rushing (probably and) could be one.
Aside from leaking roughly 10% more points on R&D as @flaw says, the other major problem is that you often start with a 2nd agenda in hand instead of an ICE or economy card, which makes your first two turns worse at a time when you’re very vulnerable.
At this point we have enough good cards in the pool that draw consistency isn’t enough compensation - if it was we would see more success from 40-card IDs like TWIY and Cybernetics Division.
The reason why you include those 4 cards is because you can. You are not dilluting your agenda density too much and aren’t making it greater as well. But what you are getting is 4 valuable cards, cards that will help you gain money, defend your servers, cripple or kill the runner and help you get your agendas without being a liability in your hand.
E.G., imagine playing RP when both sides are on 5 pts. What would you rather have in your hand (assuming you have enough upgrades and cash)? A Nisei Mk2 (or an NAPD) or a Fast Track? Imagine they Legwork you and they hit your Fast Track. That’d have been the game. Instead, you are increasing your agenda density for yourself, but not the runner. But also, you can choose when that card becomes and agenda and don’t have to worry about it clogging your hand and being vulnerable there.
As far as Glacier decks are concerned I believe they should always go for the 49. I certainly wasn’t trying to make the case that 45 is better than 49 universally, I 'm just exploring the possibility of it being favorable in some types of decks. But lets assume that fast track was in a NEH deck, of course as you say in that case it would have saved you .
Some decks wants to draw agendas fast (Astroscript) while others don’t (Glacier). What all of them want though is consistency, meaning drawing that ice you needed, or that econ you are missing at the right time.
The problem is I don’t know if you can accurately calculate this and say “okay if I go to 45 cards I will on average lose the game on X accesses instead of X+1, with the benefit of having a Y percent higher chance to draw my ice and Z percent higher chance to draw my econ (and a higher chance to see Jacksons which means higher impact than Jacksons in a 49 card deck)”, and compare those two values.
Deckbuilding in 45 (or even 40) is a decision you make, not an automatic choice.
I and others made rushing TWIY* 40 working very well… If you can sacrifice a few points of course.
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