I got to play a couple of games this weekend against a [Blue Sun][1] deck, and it was pretty interesting. I’m finding it difficult not to phrase my thoughts about how this identity affects the game as complaints, but here are some thoughts I had, and I’m interested to hear from other folks who have played with/against this ID so far.
Massive, reliable economic boost
Oversighting a curtain wall on turn 1 for a giant pile of creds on turn 2 seems way more powerful than GRNDL (balanced by bad pub and reduced influence) or Tennin (balanced by requiring conditions to be met). This is the most powerful identity ability in the game IMO. Even losing a click each turn to spam a piece of ice onto your amazon industrial zone server for 3 creds next turn is pretty great (come trash it, it’s got a secretary on it, lulz)
Opportunity costs are greatly reduced for the corp
Going to 0 creds to rez a piece of ice protecting your agenda remote, or protecting against siphon, or what have you stops being a problem. This to me is a pretty fundamental tool that the runner has that is now cut back pretty hard (and is frankly the part that I feel the most negatively about)
Totally neuters some cards
Parasite, Caissa, Femme - these are all one-time use against this ID
Increases the value of some cards (and not necessarily ones that needed it)
Emergency Shutdown/Crescentus become much more valuable means of denial, and Account Siphon, even though it’s weakened by the ability to ditch credits and get them back later, seems to be paradoxically more important to include since other means of denial (i.e. opportunity cost) are weakened even more.
I don’t yet have any particularly good thoughts on how to play against this ID, but I’m confident that we’ll be seeing a lot of it, so I guess it’s a good time to start.
The basics of it seem like what one would do for any taxing corp deck (concentrate on multi-access, keep large piles of credits on hand for tactical runs, running expose to avoid draining your resources on nothing, etc.) but would like to hear from smarter folks than myself.
compromised employee makes you infinitely rich against them from personal experience, they also seem somewhat weak to datasucker rigs just because they rarely get to stack a server. they’re usually rich, but they rarely have much rezzed ice.
I love the ID, Weyland is my jam and I look forward to a new ID (BWBI no withstanding, GRNDL decks dont operate dramatically different from BABW). I think people are getting combo blinders, the same way some people try to play every single transaction card in BABW. Curtain Wall, Oversight, 2 installs, and at minimum 1 turn before you’re seeing returns on that play for +14 credtits (9-13 adjusted depending on draws) does really not outshine Melange by much, and is so much more conditional.
To me, the ID is all about being able to aggressively rez ICE, then immediately get their money back, allowing you to be agile, adjust to pressure, or simply bully from a position of power. Let alone be able to recycle Adonis or Eve campaigns, thats bonkers. Cards like Server Diagnostics will make great placeholders between agendas.
Also it pretty much removes any chance of the runner avoiding SEA Scorch through straight economy since the Corp can just pick up their most expensive ICE and bang that’s 5 credits or whatever.
See, I’d have thought Blue Sun’d actually be pretty solid to run a glacier deckstyle with. Archer and Grim are about the only immovable cards – the advantage of bouncing Curtain Wall repeatedly seems to me to be the ability to keep it always as the outermost layer of Ice protecting a server. All positional Ice is similarly improved.
Not sure if Eliza’s Toybox’ll be worth it, but the chance to, every other turn, have a Melange go off? Seems like a neat thing to work with, at least.
The dynamic you describe is actually pretty interesting to me - it’s a neat way to give more bite to Weyland’s trademark ICE (huge barriers with hard ETR and nothing else). The problem with them was usually that the “ETR and nothing else” you got when the runner faceplanted into it wasn’t worth the credit investment.
With this ID, they essentially become a Nisei counter that’s recurrable for a click. Definitely more interesting than “here, I have more credits and less influence”.
This isn’t a bad thing. That Anarch deluxe box better be the best thing since ever, though
(also, Scavenge x3 says “Femme is cool with this”)
I think it’s a rush style deck with glacier style ice, like Supermodernism but it’s weakest Ice is Hive or something ridiculous like that. Recovery and efficiency has always been Weyland’ strength (i.e. operation economy and cheap end the runs), this just puts that focus on crack since you can now install expensive end the runs that also allow you to recover economically.
Ok, so how about creating a server with The Root and Amazon Industrial Zone (plus Akitaro Watanabe for extra lolz). Install a beastly ICE in front of it and rez it for -6 (-8). Then you have two options:
Return it to hand each turn for a full refund - i.e. a click becomes worth $6 or even $8.
Swap the ICE elsewhere using Tenma Line.
It’s a bit combo-ey, but deck search is in-faction for Weyland. Thoughts?
You’ll want to have at least two solid pieces of Ice there, to avoid Femme/Inside Job shenanigans. Might do well to put Caprice there in the hypothetical if you want to be even more secure. That said, seems like it could be a fun enough way to go about things.
EDIT: I still think there might be more benefit in other methods, but a one-click for 8 credits/ turn system sure isn’t bad if you can get it set up and keep it running. I’m just more inclined to the recurring Adonis/Eve route, myself, but with Security Testing and Whizzard both becoming more popular that might not be so great a plan either.
Yeah, you could have one “permanent” hard ETR in the inside spot, the second spot would be the ICE that jumps in and out each turn - it will always be there and rezzed in the runner’s turn. Heimdall 1.0 would play for free each turn
EDIT: Less $1 for installing an ICE in position 2.
Yeah it wasn’t really that serious a suggestion. Quite a lot of moving parts in getting it working.
The suggestion of using Adonis Campaign as a re-usable Beanstalk is interesting - although it seems wasteful for Weyland to be spending influence on an economy option when it has so much in-faction. I think the secret is probably to play The Root, which is more versatile economy and effectively does the same thing as Adonis i.e. you rez something (anything) for a $3 rebate and then sell it at full price.
What you could then do is have a remote with The Root and an unrezzed Off The Grid. If it looks like the runner is going threaten The Root you rez OTG to prevent the run (of course, you have to have a good read on the runner in order to rez OTG in advance); if he doesn’t, you wait until the end of turn to rez OTG and then return it to hand for a $3 gain. This is the same net effect as the Adonis option, but means you have a permanent economy source in play with protection. The positive is that you don’t have to spend influence on Adonis and you still have $3 re-usable economy for turns where you can’t spare the click to play OTG, the negative is that it’s a two card combo and needs a dedicated remote.
It’s still probably a bit combo-ey though. Blue Sun probably doesn’t need to be that tricksy, The Root on its own is probably enough good economy. It’s also a soft counter to Account Siphon.
Yeah, the Root by itself seems like a generally solid idea.
The notion with Adonis/Eve isn’t to bounce and replay them immediately, so much as to prevent their ever being trashed by anythiing other than the runner. Don’t think it’ll work super well in the current meta, and the plan was made before the Root was revealed, but I’m still tempted to try it out in a small way and see what comes of it. Then again, Weyland’s Agendas might well be the initial boost I’d need.
For no-influence alternatives, PAD Campaign and Private Contracts aren’t bad as well.
I actually think Private Contracts might be a really solid alternative, it’s terrible to trash, and is quite flexible in terms of what you want it to do. If you go six clicks and then Blue Sun it, it’s two credits better than two Melange activations, but more flexible and harder to trash.
That would actually be a really tough call on the Runner’s side. Normally, you wouldn’t care to trash it with 2 credits on it, but if they are just going to pop it back into their hand and do it again, it might make sense situationally to get rid of it. I can definitely see running 1-2 Root and 1-2 Private Contracts.
[quote=“GreedyGuts, post:6, topic:1320, full:true”]
See, I’d have thought Blue Sun’d actually be pretty solid to run a glacier deckstyle with. Archer and Grim are about the only immovable cards[/quote]The problem of hypothetic Weyland glacier is bad publicity. Glaciers hate BP. And while I feel you could do without main sources of it (Grim, Hostile Takeover, Geothermal Fracking) and 3 NAPD, 3 Atlas, 2 Govt Contracts, 1 Corp War would be a decent agenda suite, getting rid of Hostile Takeover makes playing Archer way harder and this is a real problem. That’s why I feel Weyland glacier needs to wait for an Archer enabler that doesn’t give BP or better BP removal.
Superior Cyberwalls is a decent agenda, but a bad Archer enabler. It is a 3/1 so harder to score than a 2/1, and, more importantly, it provides an ongoing bonus instead of on-score effect.
Currently I feel Weyland has no agenda available that is good to feed the Archer and works in a glacier deck. Hostile Takeover, Profiteering and Vulcan Coverup lead to BP problems. Gila Hands Arcology and Superior Cyberwalls provide an ongoing bonus. False Lead and Posted Bounty want to be forfeited for their own abilities and not for Archer. Finally, Veterans’ Program is blank very often if you have a deck which doesn’t take BP and everything else is worth 2+ points.
Since we’re likely talking about just a couple of bad publicity in this situation, you could include a copy or two of Elizabeth Mills. Install, then rez at the end of the runner’s turn (or just after you give them bad publicity but before they have a chance to use it), then recur it at the start of your turn. Repeat until bad publicity is no longer an issue.
Not saying this is a tourney-level idea, but it’s a simple, flexible, in-faction way of scrubbing the damage of 2 Hostile Takeovers from your mean, green glacier deck.
While certainly I like Hostile Takeover (What self-respecting Weyland player doesn’t?), I don’t find your arguments compelling. Yes, it provides an on-going effect in addition to an on-score effect (you inaccurately state instead of), but so what? All agendas have an on-going effect of being worth 1 point anyways, so this is true of all agendas.
Additionally, I think you are thinking too narrowly. Yes, Hostile Takeover into Archer synergizes well, but let’s not ignore the fact that Hostile Takeover into not-Archer has no synergy. So while Hostile Takeover is great with one Ice, Superior Cyberwalls is good with one type of Ice.
And while you would lose the Superior Cyberwalls’ on-going effect, it actually had one to lose unlike Hostile Takeover. I don’t see how having something to lose is worse than having nothing to lose. Just because it makes decisions easy, doesn’t mean that it makes it better. Besides if you actually want to rez the Archer, you’ll be trashing their Fracter, so Superior Cyberwalls’ on-going effect is irrelevant.
The main issue is that, yes, it’s a 3/1 and not a 2/1, which is why I’m still not entirely sold on it yet.
