Good question. It’s a little hard to quantify-- in terms of credits-saved, they’re pretty modest in most games ( maybe 5ish?). However, they tend to slow the runner down through either encouraging them to run last click (in which case they normally wait to get a decoder to prevent face-checking a fairchild 3) or encouraging them to click through bioroids so that you can’t stack BTW with the ID ability.
I normally put the first one behind some cheap bioroid (preferably fairchild 1.0), but if the runner is having econ problems and they’re not whizzard or playing Temujin I’ll leave them naked. They also sometimes go into the scoring remote as a never-advance bluff.
It is definitely a choice worth re-examining, might be better as one of the campaigns, which gives you a straight up econ gain without all the nuance
I agree with this. I used to run 3x. Brain-Taping Warehouse, and realized that I kept running into econ issues. Having a 1-2 credit discount is still not that great when you don’t have real money to help out with the rest of the cost.
I switched over to full campaign-based drip econ – 3x Adonis, 3x Eve, 3x BBG – and it has made a really big difference. I haven’t had the chance to test as much against Whizzard, but putting Fairchild 1.0 over Eve + BBG feels great when they pay to get in, pay 7 to trash, and give me a 4-credit rez discount somewhere else. And when you then use Friends in High Places to just reinstall Eve + BBG in that same server, most of them will give up. FiHP with Adonis + BBG recursion is also great.
Not to mention being able to recur your Ice, which you can then rez again with a discount.
You can throw down something cheap and something heavy on your scoring server. When they run, rez the cheapie and get a better return on the heavier piece behind it.
I have to say that I am really just liking the ID in general. It’s more dynamic and interesting than standard ETF, and against some match-ups it saves more money than ETF would earn, so I’m finding the game play to just be more enjoyable overall for my personal preferences.
I am looking forward to seeing the new HB identify out of Terminal Directive, if Damon can create another balanced ID that rivals ETF, it would be great to have even more viable competitive options for deckbuilding.
I think this is kind of the tricky space that they walk with the ID. It is simply too good and might be unbalanced if you take the full pool in comparison.
It might be possible to create an ID that is better or maybe almost equal (we all kind of hoped that AoT would BE that ID), but the card support is just not there and might not be there for some time.
Of course, maybe all of the juicy support to make AoT top tier is just in the next big box.
I love AoT. Its my favorite new ID besides BoN, but the ID needs a lot more help because of its weird playstyle than is currently available.
Maybe a card that lets you sell ice for profit that is playable? Or profit off of rezzed ice that is not only playable halfway through the game?
I was running Peak Efficiency for a while, but I’m trying with the full campaign package instead and it seems stronger so far. Peak Efficiency is incredible in the late game and helps you bounce back from siphons, but on the whole I think that it’s better just to have more unconditional credits.
Right, the deck would love cards that are playable earlier. I liked Peak in the past, it felt strong to play it and just make mad money.
But it isn’t early econ.
And HB as a whole does not have a ton of flexible econ assets that are not sexy bioroids. If you aren’t on CI, you are on sexy bots because they are the gold standard.
I too went to the sex-bot econ package for my Architects build, but I replaced a single Eve with a single Peak Efficiency. It usually comes up late enough that I’m fine with it, or if I have to discard it early I can cycle it back in with Jackson if need be. But when you hit it for 8-10 credits at once, man, it’s a great feeling.
I agree that it’s hard to balance around ETF, but I do think AOT is better than some people give it credit for. I think someone else put it well in a NRDB decklist description: It tends to cause runners to play around the ability, even when doing so might be counterproductive to their game plan. It also has the potential to offer a stronger economic benefit than ETF if you can use its ability at least once every ~3 turns.
I think the greatest weaknesses for AOT, and part of its challenge in the current meta, are strategies that prevent you from rezzing ice (e.g., Blackmail), punish you for rezzing ice (e.g., Run Amok), or trash ice mid-run (see: basically every Anarch list, especially post-Quorum).
Compared to ETF, I think AOT decks are more resilient to straight credit denial or derez-spam strategies; a single Fairchild 1.0 can suddenly allow you to rez a mid-range ice for free, or a high-end ice for 2-5 credits.
What I would like to see in Terminal Directive or Red Sand cycle would be an HB or neutral region or non-unique upgrade that prevents ice from being destroyed, even if it’s limited to ice in that server. That would really help shore up the weaknesses of an AOT build and give more teeth to its ability, while providing more support to glacier decks. You could put some on centrals and your scoring remote, which they would need to run through to trash it the “normal” way, which in turn would trigger your ID ability.
I’m really not sure what other ability they would put on a new HB identity that would be competitive without overlapping or encroaching on another existing design space. It would need to be something that has fairly universal appeal regardless of which runner deck you’re up against, or ETF/AOT are better. Maybe some kind of once per turn ability to add an ETR subroutine to a piece of ice when they encounter it? That would help support a rush HB deck, supports bioroids in particular, and costs the runner an extra click or credit to break.
FWIW, just played my first game against a Sifr deck with this ID. Kit with Atman and Sifr -> need 3 ICE to have a shot at keeping them out (and this ID plays a LOT of code gates due to fairchildren).
It really wasn’t a problem getting that much ICE on the board (my deck runs 17)-- 3 on R&D, 2 on HQ, 3 on scoring remote, 2 on second remote (breaker bay + eve / breaker bay + AAL). The sheer number of subs keeps it reasonably taxing even when the strength can be knocked down to 0. My opponent definitely made a few misplays (missing the fact that Gordian keeps its strength, stimhacking probably one more time than they should have, etc), so I think they could have at least gotten 2 points rather than getting shut out.
That being said, it still felt pretty strong in what should be a matchup that can deal with deep servers. Just one data point, but I think that given this ID’s ability to play expensive ICE with less concern for it getting trashed, build servers with lots of subs, and take advantage of in-faction recursion, it’s probably in reasonable shape for what I expect to be the post-quorum sifr wasteland-- if the meta shifts even further away from glacier, runners will be less prepared to deal with it (assuming you can keep pace with ICE destruction). At any rate, I think the next few weeks/months will be interesting.
I don’t doubt there is something to the ID. Being able to play (and replay thanks to friends) ice is an asset and will be huge in a meta that is rife with ice destruction.
I guess it really is just a pity that AoT’s 3/1 agenda is not good and that we are just slightly behind the curve as of right now. Your 12 influence goes really fast (2/3 Architect, 3 Eli and 3 Jackson) and your defensive upgrades are lacking.
Question about passing. The FAQ says (pg. 6) that after ICE is destroyed “the ice is immediately passed.” So does that mean that parasiting a bioroid triggers AoT’s ID ability?
I found a couple threads with some speculation about the answer, but I am not sure what the actual answer is.
The first time the Runner passes a rezzed piece of bioroid ice each turn, you may rez a bioroid, lowering its rez cost by 4.
I think that whether or not you consider the destruction of the ICE to be passing it, the ICE that was just trashed is no longer considered to be rezzed (since it’s in archives).
Has this been ruled officially anywhere? I was searching FAQ and rules for something to indicate that the destruction of the ice voided the triggering condition for the ID.
So here is a hypothetical interaction.
Runner encounters a rezzed Eli. At 3.1 of the run, she pops a Clone Chip to install a Parasite on Eli and then uses 4 Datasucker tokens to reduce Eli’s strength to zero, which causes the Parasite to trash the now zero-strength ice.
The FAQ tells us on page 6 that the “ice is immediately passed and the run continues after any currently open paid ability windows close.”
The interpretation here is that although the Runner passed a piece of ice (‘the ice is immediately passed’) and that ice was in fact a rezzed bioroid, that since the ice is trashed the Corp cannot trigger its effect.
I assume, however, that if the Runner passed a rezzed bioroid later in the turn, the ability still could trigger because the Runner had not yet – by this logic – actually passed a rezzed bioroid, even though ice was passed.
This is my understanding as well. If someone uses Spooned to break my outer Code Gate, it’s trashed immediately and thus is not rezzed at the time of passing. If they continue and pass my next ice, then it is now the first time this turn in which they passed a rezzed piece of ice, so the ID ability triggers.
I think Architect is a great piece of ice, but I haven’t run him in a long time and have been doing fine without him. After Jackson and Eli (of which I run 3x for each due to how generally solid both cards are), I think you need to really dedicate your remaining influence to shoring up the weaknesses of the deck. For me, that means the scoring plan. My 6 influence are thus spent on 2x GFI and 1x SSCG, the latter of which is a great recursion target for FiHP and allows you to directly convert credits into agenda points. I also pack 3x Biotic to make the FA plan more flexible in case I play against Whizzard or Imp.
Right now my influence is on 3x Jhow, 2x GFI, 2x Eli, 1x Architect, and I’m playing around with the other 4.
A single SSCG seems reasonable, but I’ve also found bootcamp to be really nice against blackmail/ddos, fetching up campaigns etc. Some combination of EBCs, NAPD contract, and more eli/architect seems decent.
