Are 5/3s without self-protection dead?

Netrunner General
61

For a 3pt it’s really not fair if you can shuffle it back after being stolen. The reason for it to be OK with 15mins is that it is a 1pt and a nice remote/clot bait. But by playing it, you don’t decrease your density as much as a 3pts. The runner can still get enough agendas within reasonable access. If you have food and a 3pts you can always click it back, then runner probably can never win again.

I wish there will be more face up weyland agendas (dreaming a 3/4), a 3/5 that do something per advance is a really good start.

Actually if IT Department is a Weyland 3/5 agenda that does the same thing as it is now but with spending adv token, I think it would be a good one too.

Edit: I just realize this is not the “how to make weyland good again” thread. But I guess I’m on topic anyway…

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62

You may be right, but with click back, the runner still scores 3 points. When you’re looking down a Medium dig or a late-game Maker’s eye, your click-to-save 5/3s are still vulnerable. And isn’t 3 clicks a significant tempo hit for the corp both early and late? 3 clicks to take back an agenda isn’t comparable to a virus scan because you’re not setting back the board state whatsoever (edit: barring edge cases like Adam’s console). With a limit to 1 per deck, this type of agenda would be okay.

So your IT Dept agenda would just boost every ice by the amount of clicks sunk into then? And there would be no way to turn it off beside Turntable? Sounds oppressive, and it may be powerful enough to beat out Global Food. However, would it turn every Weyland glacier game into a mad race to steal 7 before this gets scored and advanced?

It’s really hard to think of a 5/3 ability that’s powerful enough to compete with self defense while not being broken. If Pri Req gave one power counter that let you rez anything, anytime, it would be better, but most competitive decks would still probably play Food. Say if Exec Retreat let you click anytime to shuffle HQ and draw 5, would that be strong enough to consider over a self-defender? Probably not.

Unless it has an ability that enables a unique line of play, like Hollywood or Hades do with Shutdown combos, or High Risk does with SEA-Seasons Scorch, then most 5/3’s abilities aren’t worth it.

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63

What if there were stronger advanceable ambushes? Right now if any top tier deck IAAs a card it’s almost always an agenda. This is why we need Ash, Caprice, and other defensive upgrades to ensure we can score it. If ambushes were more commonly played then the runner wouldn’t be so confident in running the card, which would also make it so 5/3s wouldn’t be quite as hard to score.

Add a one of Junebug to surprise Faust players? :smile:

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I’m not sure I like this. I actually think ambushes are fine where they are, if they printed even stronger ones it would probably tilt the metagame into shitty mindgames territory, which I would not like at all. A renovation-style agenda that hurts more if there are more advancement tokens on it, but must be installed faceup would be cool though, maybe.

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65

Or worse, shudder, siphon-spam territory! :frowning:

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66

That was not a fun time to start playing Netrunner.

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67

I’m loving my 2-of PrioREK in my Accelerated Sponsorships deck. I’m not saying it’s tier one, but I love having five agendas that can keep a scoring window open for one or two more turns (install ice with TS, rez with PrioREK). TS is the critical piece that makes me choose them over GFI.

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Though this is kind of cool synergy, the only situations in which this happens are situations in which you’re winning enough to be scoring 5/3s and also having a Team Sponsorship on board, and even in decks where you’ve got three, it’s still a ‘combo’ that doesn’t win you the game (or essentially win you the game), it’s just Quite Nice. There will be a lot of times you want to score when you’ve not got Team Sponsorship out, and you should be wary about basing your agenda suite around a minor synergy in specific situations.

It’s easy to score a GFI and think “damn, I wish this was a PriReq” but it’s also very easy to miss the times you’ll lose because the runner stole a PriReq instead of a GFI. You will score more GFIs in decks where you’ve got GFIs because it’s harder for the runner to win. I am confident that your deck would be better with GFI instead of PriReq.

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69

The lower risk associated with trying to score GFI is a pretty strong power too. It means you can push it in windows that aren’t clean enough for a clear 5/3

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70

So what would need to happen for the existing 5/3 agendas to be more pleasurable of media blitz isn’t good enough? Would a card that made the necessary points to win a game 8 make 1 pointer/3 pointer decks better? Maybe one that gave a clear benefit from running them in your deck? You can’t just design better cards, as this is hard to prevent power creep at times, and netrunner is better than that. If 3 pointers are dead, let’s revive them.

71

I don’t necessarily see creating better cards as power creep, as long as those cards are replacing cards that aren’t actually good enough to include. Sure, it’s creep over the unplayable things, but if they’re not playable, than meh. Replace away, imo.

That being said, something to make the ones that exist better isn’t a bad idea.Mainly, there needs to be a good way to protect 3-pointers in R&D and H&Q, I think. Right now Ash and Caprice can keep people out of the scoring server, but they don’t really do the same job of protecting 3-pointers in the centrals; f you’re going to play 3-pointers, you’re going to need to score them, and if Caprice/Ash are on a central then they’re not helping you score any more. It would be interesting to have an upgrade that helped protect agendas above a certain point value (probably above 2) in central servers. I’m not certain what that would look like, as it’s 2:30am here, and my creativity went to bed already.

Actually, maybe a News Team-like upgrade that if the runner steals an agenda worth 3 points or more on that run, they have to take it as an agenda worth -1 point when they access it (effect still occurs on the same run where the runner trashes [upgrade]). Even better, make it a current; that way there’s no run to trash it where the runner doesn’t score points, and it’s alive until the runner does score points. It’s not alive forever, since the runner can run their own currents to counter it, so it’s not OP, I don’t think.

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72

Is a current that says something like agendas with an advancement requirement of 5 or more cannot be stolen except from a remote server completely busted?

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73

Mother fucker, I literally just posted that same idea in an edit to my above post. You’re mind-hacking my shit, man!

GET OUT OF MY HEAD

Technically it wasn’t the exact idea, but close. I think making it so they can’t be lifted from a central what-so-ever is maybe a bit OP.

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Something like this?

Zurich Vaults
●●●○○ (Neutral) 2c
Upgrade: Region - Alliance
This card costs 0 influence if you have 7 or fewer agendas in your deck.
Install Zurich Vaults only in the root of a central server.
The first time the Runner would access an agenda from this server each turn, put that agenda on the bottom of R&D instead. This applies even during the run on which the Runner trashes Zurich Vaults.
Limit one region per server
Trash 6

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75

I think the biggest problem when trying to make 5/3s better (without designing new ones) is avoiding making the 3/2s stronger at the same time. Which would make the change quite pointless.

So far we have quite a lot of cards that provide interaction with agendas.
You can split them in three main categories: Fast advance, protection, and punishment. You could add a 4th category called bluff and list the other cards in there that can be advanced.

Fast advancing is great if it works, but the tools are most useful for 3/2s, etc. Scoring 5/3s using fast advance is pretty much restricted to combo decks.

Protection in form of other cards like Ash, Caprice, etc helps 5/3s but also helps the 3/2s. Only the effects that are tied to the agenda itself, i.e. TFP and GFI are really helping in that regard.

Punishment in form of Midseaon Replacement doesn’t care which agenda is stolen and if you want to build a deck around it you usually want to have more agendas instead of less, making it boost decks with more 3/2s instead of 5/3s. Punitive is the only card that really has an impact when it comes to 5/3s in this category.

So what can be done in the different areas without actually printing new agendas?

Fast advance - One idea I have is a to make a card that allows fast advance tied to the advance requirement of the agenda. For example an event: Cost X. Double. Place X-10 advance counters on an agenda, with a maximum of counters based on the advancement requirements of the agenda -1 or 4 whichever is lower. Sure it is expensive but it does allow to fast advance a 5/3 and it is pretty much pointless to fast advance a 3/2. (The numbers obviously need some tweeking…)

Protection - We already have a current that forced the runner to play 2 credits if he wants to steal an agenda. An upgrade or current that would base the cost on the advancement requirements would benefit the bigger agendas, too. To avoid a pile of upgrades one could always print on the card that it cannot be rezzed if another upgrade is rezzed in the server.

Punishment - More operations that base the punishment on the point value or the advancement requirements of the stolen agenda. Be it number of tags, amount of credits destroyed, number of cards moved of archives to HQ or R&D, extra clicks gained. There are a lot of options. Basing the punishment on the number of agenda points in the runners score area is another option. We already have cards that base punishment on the number of agendas in the runners score area, why not more variety there?

Overall, I think there is quite a lot of design space left to have a meaningful impact on bigger agendas. At the current time though, I don’t see any reason to play any other 5/3 then GFI or TFP.

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76

This would be so broken hahaha. Simply wait for Excalibur+Ashigaru on the remote and score behind Caprice and Ash because there’s absolutely no other opening for the Runner.

I mean, it’s a cheap, even more difficult to trash Hollywood Station Grid that costs no influence, Genomics would have absolutely no weaknesses with it other than Film Critic :slight_smile:

77

Maybe ;). Getting it on both R&D and HQ wouldn’t be easy though and it can be trashed (after all if you’re playing it the runner knows you’re not able to score out little agendas quickly and can plan accordingly). Since its a region it stops other defensive regions you might want to have. Old Hollywood Grid has the critical advantage of being able to go in the scoring server (and is overcosted imo).

Plus they can just use Showing Off to get the agendas! Totally fine!

78

Your first point is so true, but there’s a similar, corollary point hidden at the end of the post: anything that makes it better to play 5/3s in general; also makes self-protecting 5/3s better (with the possible exception of something like punitive/GFI).

The heart of the matter is this: the only reasons to ever play 5/3s other than TFP or GFI are 1: a punitive centered deck (which if we’re being honest is a bit of a gimmick, will rarely be able to score out, often loses to bad topdecks, and is completely crushed by FC) or 2: for their printed abilities. This scenario is even less likely, given the fact that being able to score 5/3s means you’re already doing something right, so any ability, no matter how good, is simply reduced to a win-more ability since you need to be able to make do without it for most/all of the game.

So yeah, I feel like the answer to the thread title is “Yes, and they always have been.” 5/3s that do nothing until scored have basically been dead design space since the card pool got big enough that corps weren’t forced to run them just to hit 20 points.

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79

But really, just give them abilities that are powerful enough to build around and that make the life harder for the Runner when scored. You know something that ellicits a groan from the Runner when you score it.

Some completly random examples of what I mean, some better than others:

MEDIA OMNIPRESENCE
Agenda - Initiative 5/3
NBN

Currents are not trashed when another current is played. Ignore this if there are two or more currents in play.

When you score Media Omnipresence, you may search R&D a current and add it to HQ. If you do, shuffle R&D.

OMEGA PROTECTION PROTOCOL
Agenda - Security 5/3
Weyland

All ICE with a single subroutine gain a copy of that subroutine (After the original subroutine)

RESTRUCTURATION OF THE ZAIBATSU
Agenda - Initiative 5/3
Jinteki

Click, Click: Trash all cards in HQ, then shuffle Archives into R&D then draw 5 cards.

Really, just make them exciting enough.

80

I think the game is at its worst when it hinges on ‘I’ll try to rush this agenda out as early as possible, and when it works I win and when it fails I lose!’. It’s like all of Astroscript’s frustrations and then some.

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