Gingerbread vs:
ichi 1.0 - 5c
ichi 2.0 - 5c
Viktor 2.0 - 4c
Viper - 3/4c
Draco - 1c
Caduceus - 4c (2c with 1 data sucker!)
Flare - 5c
Shinobi - 5c
Data Raven - 3c
Uroboros - 4c
Snoop - 5c
Sherlock 1.0 - 4c
Shadow - 1c
Hunter - 3c
Matrix Analyzer - 3c
Data Hound - 1c
Does not break TMI, Viper and Viktor2 are the only non-sentries that it breaks.
Yeah I really think at the very least Gingerbread should have been a red card. Perhaps then it’d see more play since it wouldn’t compete with the best sentry breakers and it pairs with Spinal Modem.
Additional base strength or breaking more subs per credit wouldn’t have made it overpowered either.
for a specialized breaker it isn’t particularly efficient
Gingerbread would be totally playable with various changes, but as it stands it’s at a very awkward strength level and often costs more than just paying for the trace or breaking the ICE with a conventional breaker.
Further, almost every trace ICE is a Sentry, so having a universal trace breaker doesn’t mean very much, especially when it isn’t good against Viper. As it stands, if you’re worried about traces your 3 credits would likely be much better spent on a Dyson Mem Chip (or even two Rabbit Holes).
I feel that the set’s unofficial subtitle could have been what Alex said about Calling in Favours: “Too bad it’s criminals that get it, not Anarchs.” It seems to be a theme…
But yeah, now I’ve seen the numbers Gingerbread is not so impressive. I don’t totally buy the “you’d be better buying link” because Spinal raises the stakes for traces to the point where link alone isn’t necessarily going to do it for you. If the corp has more money at a given point they always have the option of forcing the brain damage, which is going to be really bad news against a number of builds.
Having said that and seeing the numbers, I agree that covering you against two Code Gates isn’t enough to take what is an inefficient breaker. If there are more Code Gate tracers printed that might change, but not yet.
Its kinda funny - SW is going through the same issue and is under significantly worse management, I’m very happy with ants 50-50 win rate although if this falls out of balance i fear for the dbl elim @ gencon and worlds.
That said, i enjoyed your review and i think your rant was appropriate i live in a meta were we promote and run events that reward players for playing unique decks, everyone knows NBN and CI are great decks but they also kill the spirit of the game, the less interaction with the runner the more ANR feels like cardboard masturbation or even worse… a euro game.
That said, Im looking forward to play testing Sterling as i think he rewards the runner for forcing a slower game, with SHI-KYU out there you might be able to start running frame job along with data dealer making blackmail a little bit better. Shi-Kyu also allows corps to run big agendas better. A friend and i imagined a Medtech deck that just ran a bunch of 3/5’s if you get your opponent to hit a Shi-Kyu now they have to score 3 3/5’s and there are not that many in the deck.
anyway, i hope your meta loosens up - we ran leagues forcing players to draw random identities and build to them, it was great for getting all those andy players outside of there comfort zone.
Breaking news: Shiro is absolutely brutal, used the right way.
I’m seeing Inazuma splashed quite a bit. Has me wondering whether Yog is worth including out of faction if you’re not running 2+ Datasuckers.
Re: stagnation.
Remember a cycle ago when runners had a 65% win rate?
FFG heard us and, hey presto, a cycle later we’re at 50\50. Kind of amazing really.
The point is would this have been possible if FFG had started messing about with new formats, ban lists or generally making massive changes to the card pool?
Not really, corps needed a boost, particularly NBN and Jinteki and that’s precisely what we got.
FFG is aware they made mistakes in the core set (Lukas had admitted a few by name) and I’ve seen Damon state they have avenues to pursue to do so before resorting to ban lists etc.
Christ, give them time!
Stage 1: fix the massive corp imbalance, check! (In a single cycle!)
Stage 2: Blow the game wide open…
What I’ve seen about the Lunar cycle makes me think they are planning to do just that, and I dare say that some people aren’t going to like it. But I think it will be awesome.
Don’t panic. Trust FFG. It’s going to be wild.
Notable post-H&P interactions:
In Shaper, Legwork makes running Woman in the Red Dress much, much more appealing. Need to test further.
Bug hosted on Omni Drive seems nifty. Probably not competitive or worth it still though.
PPVP Shaper can actually make otherwise bad events good, including Demolition Run, Singularity, and even Kraken.
Psychic Field really is a good splash in NBN.
Anything else? Sorry I’ll post more to my Shaper and NBN lists when my schedule allows.
I’ve been having fun in Noise using Deja Vu with Mass Install – pulling two Parasites from my heap and putting the both of them (and an Imp, usually) into play with clicks enough to run/take money off of Kati Jones.
While it’s not a direct interaction so much as another “this is an amazing card” point, Mental Health Clinic helps Siphons be so much less worrying than they used to be. Can’t rez in response for cash, but if I lose everything, can still get the drip online.
Inazuma/Susanoo-no-Mikoto have obvious synergy with an (otherwise, in the former’s case) undefended Archives filled with Shock!s and Shi.Kyus.
Security Testing is an excellent way to dodge that fate, as well, though I imagine it suffers in other matchups, some.
Overmind has been fun in Caissa builds. Its given me a little bit of extra early turn aggression if I don’t draw out Knights. Overmind loves Pawns, as they don’t hurt your MU, but provide both power shutdown protection, potential economy (with Scherry) and recursion of Knights, Rooks and Bishops. Mass Install seems useful to get double rook out or double knight or knight/pawn and recur something with a run somewhere.
I rather like Legwork + Hemorrhage out of Anarch. Legwork is already such a powerful card, but being able to blow up a card or two and then run the hand and see either 3/4ths or the whole thing is pretty potent.
And Hemorrhage likes Security Testing, as it doesn’t force you to be tied down to central only play. Of course Security Testing + Datasucker is fantastic.
Express Delivery has been a pretty decent splash for me in Anarch. Of course, this is for decks that want pieces in a certain order, rather than the pure draw of Quality Time or Diesel. I often feel QT is a big hit economically early game and Express Delivery is very easy to just pick up and play out.
Also Doppleganger feels a bit better than it used to. At least out of Ken. Maybe its those big effectively six click turns using early bird/doppleganger to score out a notoriety or a quest completed. It feels way easier to do. Perhaps even reliably so.
After reading this article, I just wonder how you can plead for bannings when a whole 55 card expansion just hit the scene. Strange, I have optimism. To me the biggest threat is going to be Legwork this will be the replacement to siphon as far as where in Forums the people cry all the time, this card is NUTS. I could have had a turn 1 win with my opponent having a 2, 2, and 3 Agenda in his mulligan. So, bye bye to NBN if you know how to attack NBN’s HQ all the time, like you should. Whatever I guess…
One thing I noticed that made me laugh really hard (in that diabolical, maniacal “mad scientist” kind of way):
Komainu gains the subs based on your handsize whenever encountered, but it gains them until the end of the run. Cell Portal, anyone? If you actually break it the first time around, you might well be truly boned 
Inazuma actually makes this just "f**ing hard instead of “completely impossible”! (also, Tenma Line)
It’s not something to actually build a deck around, but if you’re already running some of the pieces (which you should, because Inazuma and Komainu are strong, and Tenma Line warrants consideration at least, to recover Inazumas/Chums that got their after-ICE parasited away), splashing in one Cell Portal to have the option to make it happen could be worth it.
Doppelganger was always good… it’s just that Desperado was always better - because a credit is always useful, whereas the extra run is sometimes bonkers (Replicating Remotes, various shell games and so on) and sometimes useless (taxing builds where you simply cannot afford to make more than one run per turn anyway).
I agree. Doppelganger is a strong card so long as you have cards that trigger off a successful run. It’s just not flat out insane like Desperado.
I was running Doppelganger/Hemorrhage out of Whizzard before H&P came out and it was much better than people gave it credit for. Legwork might just make into a very good deck. Sadly Cerebral Imaging is a horrible match-up for it.
And what would be the right way to use Shiro? If you put it on R&D it simply is a taxing piece of ice (4c with gordian, ignoring the second sub) with a possibility of actually leaking 2 agendas on a single run without any multiaccess tools. The “trappy” aspect during facechecking is nice, but not very powerful i think.
Which is basically the problem with all criminal consoles, when you get down to it: they have to compete with Desperado. 
You give a convincing argument for why not to put in on RnD… which is fine, because the right way, of course, is to not put it on RnD 
Put it on a server you don’t mind the runner getting into and that he’ll be wanting to access somewhat regularly. (HQ fits this bill in most matchups, especially if you’re running tag punishment and an ICE suite that doesn’t mind an odd Emergency Shutdown here and there).
Its best feature is how little upfront threat it presents compared to the difficulty of breaking it. This means the runner is very tempted to run through and just let the subs run (“worst case is I eat a Snare, right?”), essentially giving you a mini-Precog every time that happens. If you need to send an agenda to the top (because sometimes you do), it’ll cost you 1 credit, otherwise it’s free. You know what the next 3 cards you’re drawing are, and it doesn’t cost you any clicks! This is insane value for 6 bucks, especially if it happens with any sort of regularity.
(there’s also fringe uses like making people eat snares on a Hokusai-Fetal run, tricking people into an unfruitful RnD run by paying 1 credit and so on, but the meat of its usefulness is the precog effect)
edit: now that I think about it though, RnD isn’t such a bad place for it either. It just means the runner will be breaking it mandatorily (possibly only the first sub, getting an extra access out of the deal on some occasions)… if you don’t break it, the only way you’re getting a point is if the top 3 cards are agendas or you’re running a crap-top of multi-access… but it’s still a 5-str Code Gate, and those things are just a pain to break. Still, I wouldn’t put it on RnD unless I really had to.
edit2: here’s a question, though - does the access from Shiro’s sub trigger things like Medium and RnD interface? Looking at the wording, I think it might, but I’m not really sure.
Yes, it would. Similar to how, say, Raymond Flint’s access triggers HQI and Nerve Agent.