I created a new thread so that the bracket would be easy to find since it’d always be in post 1. Hopefully this thread is allowed. In each pairing, vote for which card you think is worse. If you only want to vote on some pairings, post the letter of that pairing before your verdict.
A) Leviathan vs Toshiyuki Sakai
B) Starlight Crusade Funding vs Exploratory Romp
C) The Professor vs Test Ground
D) Net Police vs Salvage
E) Record Reconstructor vs Neotokyo Grid
F) Disrupter vs Data Hound
G) Zed 1.0 vs Hard at Work
H) Helium-3 Deposit vs Hellion Alpha Test
Pairings were randomly generated but in future rounds we will see the “winner” of A vs the winner of B, and so on. I selected which cards should be in the bracket loosely based on others’ comments, apologies if your favourite bad card is not here.
(This means I think Toshi and Salvage are worse cards than whatever they are competing against, and that I am voting for Toshi and Salvage to make it into the next bracket).
A) Leviathan. At lower levels of play, Toshi sets up that extra level of mind game that opens things up for the already-chaotic PE games.
B) Exploratory Romp. Starlight is playable, in the proper context, and its cost can be neutralized now with Pancakes.
C) Test Ground. Nobody looked at this and said anything more positive than “Huh?”
D) Salvage. 0 Strength, low trace strength, Code Gate (therefore Yog-able). Even before you look at the challenges of making it function to do anything, it already sucks.
E) NeoTokyo Grid. As the game gets more silver-bullet-dependent, the ability to put the irrelevant silver bullets into the opponents hand could become more useful.
F) Disrupter. Data Hound is bad, but could be impactful if everything fell exactly into place.
G) Hard at Work. If it was 3 credits, it might be good, but 2 for the loss of flexibility is pretty mediocre. And as little good as Zed is, it could be huge if you could surprise the runner at exactly the right time.
H) Helium-3 Deposit. Corp cards with power counters you want are rare. Sure, if you can land a Data Raven, Mamba, or Viktor 2.0, it’d be good, but that’s pretty narrow. So is Hellion, but still…
A) Toshiyuki Sakai. Leviathan is only bad because there are no high strength multiple subroutine code gates while Toshiyuki is just badly designed. If you’ve already convinced the runner to bite by running an advanced non-agenda, why would you want to give them a second chance to play mind games by swaping in something else?
B) Exploratory Romp. If FFG had printed support, Starlight Crusade might have been playable and on the level of adjusted chronotype. Exploratory Romp has such narrow applications that I can’t imagine anything that would make it worth slotting.
C) Testing Ground. The Professor is at least an interesting ID. It’s new design space even if it didn’t work out. Testing Ground just doesn’t do anything. Maybe that will change in a future set.
D) Net Police. Salvage is very bad right now due to parasite and how bad it is to spend credits and clicks advancing ice however Net Police is never going to have a major impact in a game. If the runner doesn’t have link it’s useless, if the runner does have link, it’s still useless because it only affects one trace while link affects all traces.
E) Record Reconstructor. Why would you print this card, WHY FFG WHY?
F) Disrupter. Data Hound gets a bad wrap imho. It’s not like the ice actually does much but at least it’s cheap and you get what you pay for.
G) Hard At Work. Zed 1.0 gets a pass for me because it’s cheap. It’s not going to do anything most of the time but at least it doesn’t hurt you to play it like Hard at Work. Hard at Work is so overcosted that it’s bad even with Adjusted Cronotype being printed. Yep that’s wrong, remove its biggest downside and it’s still not worth playing.
A) Toshiyuki Sakai - Completely useless. At least Leviathan has the possibility that huge code gates will be released.
B) Exploratory Romp - Pancakes and more doubles helps Starlight. Maybe if more dangerous advanceable ice or traps were released, ER wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe.
C) Test Ground - At least you can experiment with The Professor. Test Ground needs more “rez for effect” cards like Elizabeth Mills to be released.
D) Salvage - Absolute trash with no excuse for being released. Net Police has a stupid trash cost but could be useful in a mythological meta.
E) Record Reconstructor - If execs were more prevalent, maybe. I’ve used Neotokyo in a Tenin Deck, and it’s bad but useable.
F) Disrupter - It’s boring. Data Hound is an interesting effect completely wasted. Maybe with Rutherford Grid and Improved Tracers it will rise to jank level.
G) Zed - Lame effect, clickable, positional, low strength. Hard at Work at least has Pancakes.
H) Hellion - Super-niche card with with lousy failure effect. H3 at least has potential.
A) Leviathan. Toshiyuki is going to wreck face now that Back Channels is coming, you just watch! (and I’ll pray. I want him to work so bad.)
B) Exploratory Romp. Funding at least has SOME possibility of building around.
C) Test Ground. Fuck you, The Professor is awesome.
D) Salvage. Net Police might have a place, if trace becomes nasty and link becomes popular. Salvage will always die to Yog.
E) Record Reconstructor. Neotokyo Grid has some obvious synergies such as with Tennin Institute. It’s not good, but it can save you some cash and may even be profitable in the right deck.
F) Data Hound. This was a tough one, and if Data Hound were a trap, I think it would have been safe. But given that it dies to Mimic for a cred and its effect is mediocre at best… Disrupter at least might be useful in the future, if extremely nasty traces become a thing.
G) Zed 1.0. Hard at Work could be a cute part of a Wyldside, Chronotype, Gene Shoppe deck. Zed is just laughably bad.
H) Hellion Alpha Test. This is purely because we have so many other options for getting rid of resources, and the bad pub. Don’t get me wrong, He3 is a BAD card but it has the potential to become good if we get something that does stupidly good stuff when it has power counters on it.
A) Toshiyuki Sakai. Leviathan counters Orion
B) Exloratory Romp. Pre-Pancakes I’d vote SCF as Romp is a somewhat nearly reasonable Tennin hate card.Both are soooooo bad though.
C) Test Ground. Professor is sort of playable.
D) Salvage.
E) Record Reconstructor
F) Data Hound
G) Zed 1.0
H) Helion Alpha Test
Ekomind belongs in this thread for actively hurting the Runner
A) Toshiyuki Sakai - In the already tight deck space of a PE deck why would you run this over a Junebug
B) Exploratory Romp - I have a bit of a soft spot for SCF and with Pancakes out it is a card you can actually build around, I once had a doubles MaxX deck that was so fun and silly.
C) Test Ground - Prof is bad, but not as marginal as Test Ground
D) Salvage - The worst of the only advanced when rezzed cards.
E) Neotokyo Grid - Record Reconstructor has actual uses, jank uses but fun nonetheless. Neotokyo is just bad, and boring.
F) Disrupter - With the new NBN current plus improved tracers Data Hound might see some play!
G) Zed 1.0 - Zed wants to be a cheap 2 cred tax on the runner, but trust me its no Pup.
H) Hellion Alpha Test - This card is too hard to pull off and the rewards for doing so are minimal and the punishment too severe, why would ever not just run Snatch and Grab.
