Breaker Bay Set Review

StimHack.com
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On Meru-mati, one thing you have to remember is that 2 vs. 1 strength are basically indistinguishable for barriers (only corroder and Lady matter really). So off HQ its a 2 cost gear check. Baku is playable. The upside is that its 4 Strength on HQ, where it is Eli levels of good (2 rez, 3 to break for corroder, and hard ETR, same vs. lady).

HQ is probably the second most important server to benefit from (behind R&D) also. 2x Mati’s is basically all the HQ protection you’re going to need 95% of the time.

I think 2x copies are going to be played in 95% of Weyland decks for a long period of time. Its really good.

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After reading several of the replies and thinking about games I’ve played both against and with some of the positional ice, I’ve actually turned the corner on Meru to thinking it’s pretty good. It’s super annoying to see a couple Meru on HQ, knowing that it’s a 6 credit investment for Corroder, and it’s just as bad as seeing 2 Elis for Lady. I play 2 Gutenberg in my NBN deck atm, and I never mind seeing it, despite the fact that I only ever throw it on R&D. I guess my real disappointment was that Meru is just another 1-sub barrier in Weyland with a boring ETR sub. But it’s still pretty good despite that, as others have said.

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That follows my feelings about these ICE as well. I don’t think you’d every get the whole set of them, but they’re designed really well for the faction, I think. NBN needs cheap taxing ice to throw over RnD; the first pop-up often plays this role. Having a couple of pieces of RnD only ICE in the deck that do a good job adding a tax to the runner doesn’t hurt the flow of an NBN deck at all and feels really easy to play. Likewise, HB is always making remotes it wants to defend, but defend lightly. Throwing one Turing over an Eve/Adonis turns that into a really taxing trash; I don’t think HB players are going to find Turing sitting in hand a lot.

Meru Mati and Crick are the weaker ones, I think, but if you put 1x or 2x in your deck I think you’ll usually find a way to play them without having to hold it in hand too much. It’s not like Chum where it needs to be in a specific position, just over a server that your faction is going to want to put some kind of defense over anyway.

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I think they’re both stronger than Turing because the alternatives aren’t as good, (Ice Wall and Yagura are fine but the high upsides of the science ICE makes them worth including at least 1 for positioning on the relevant central). Gutenburg, I think, is generally a good deal stronger than Data Raven on R&D. The tempo hit from rezzing DR and having the runner bounce really sucks, so half rez cost and forcing a tag on the facecheck is positively insane).

Crick, in RP is completely bonkers, and you don’t even need to draw it. Running facedown ICE on archives against RP when they have anything relevant in the bin is a fools errand these days. You could put Susano on Archives and 80% of the time they’re going to never run it just because it MIGHT be Crick. It’s also probably the single best piece to install somewhere besides “where it goes”.

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What? I’m pretty sure Crick is easily the strongest one.

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Turing is the weakest by a mile

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Well, that’s me schooled. I only have play experience with Gutenberg, so i hadn’t seen first hand what they could do, but I’ll take your words for it. Just reinforces the strength of the set in faction, which is neat :slight_smile:

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The biggest issue Turing has is that it’s really expensive for what you get off-location. Crick may be Yoggable, but it’s only one credit to rez, no big deal, and it’s 2 for Gordian and 3 for Zuul so that’s not terrible for how much it costs you. Meru Mati remains a gear check like Ice Wall even if it’s not a tax, so you can try rushing something or buying time at the very least. Gutenberg is pretty easily taken down off-target by most sentry breakers (and who doesn’t run Mimic) but R&D lock is one of NBN’s biggest weaknesses so there’s rarely a need to consider installing it elsewhere anyway.

Turing as a 4 for 5 on remote with that subroutine makes sense more or less, but it’s only 2-strength on a central, so if you draw it as one of two bits of ice in an opener it’s pretty painful unless you know they’re only running AI breakers. Even then, they can get through, albeit at stupidly high costs.

Turing is also harder to stack on remotes because of the increased cost. A wonderful thing about Gutenberg, Crick, and Meru Mati is that if you draw a second or even a third it’s never awful to just build that server up some. Maaaybe for Crick, if they’re not running Yog, because Archives rarely needs the same amount of defense as R&D/HQ do. But it can go on any other central and stay more taxing to them to run through than you to play.

But I’m happy to pay 3 credits to install and 2 to rez a Gutenberg as a fourth piece of ice on R&D. Likewise Meru Mati, if the need is great. Crick is wonderful most anywhere.

The other thing Meru Mati does is provide hard ETR. It’s probably a mistake for the runner to spend 3 clicks getting through Turing on a remote server, but they can, so it’s not safe enough for me to want to rush an agenda behind alone. If it was unbypassable as well, maybe, because it’d at least replace Guard in some respects, and they couldn’t try to do the Criminal trick of Inside Job to check, then run through because “lol, Guard, I have Mimic”.

If Turing had the rez/strength of Meru Mati it’d be much better. Only a datasucker away from Yogging, but much cheaper, not D4V1Dable, only barely more parasitable on a central, and immune to 4tman anyway making it not a terrible strength for inclusion. Make it cost 3 at that point and it’d still probably be good enough to see real play. At 4 for something that can be easily handled by either D4V1D or Yog, not so much, especially in comparison to the other Ice HB has access to.

EDIT: The stacking thing seems important. Turing is meant to be good on remotes, while the others are early centrals defense, but adding Turing to a remote that’s already got ice there is a huge extra cost. I’d rather put Crick on most remotes than Turing, because it’ll be a nuisance tax and potentially hilarious even as a 1-deep protection if they can’t break it because you can install an ice from archives over it and make them encounter that next if they keep going, or put something else in to protect the server, or build it up for future turns, or whatever. Put a snare in there at the last minute to protect your upgrade, whatever you want.

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Pretty sure that doesn’t actually work.

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Thought it did. Know it does if you do it and there’s at least one Ice behind Crick, but am pretty sure the new ice that hasn’t been approached yet counts as there being unapproached ice still protecting the server.

Am 99% certain it works if Crick is the second ice and you trash both, am only 70% certain it works if Crick is in the last spot on the server, but I’d assume it would due to how The Twins let you fire Caprice multiple times in a run.

Don’t see anything in the FAQ or on ANCUR, don’t have twitter or I’d go ask Lukas about it. Feel like I read a ruling somewhere but if it’s not in either of those I could be wrong.

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The FAQ has a section that covers the case where you don’t trash Crick (search for Architect). When you trash Crick it is not clear what happens.

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I misremembered, but the results seem clear enough, if not necessarily the reasoning. I was right on one and wrong on the other. If you trash Crick and other things to install an ice closer to the server than Crick is/was, it’ll still be approached/encountered. if the run continues because it’s closer. If you trash Crick and put something in the same spot, the runner is already past that “spot”. If you trash something behind Crick to put something in front, the runner proceeds from Crick itself rather than encountering Crick already.

Lukas’ explanation is muddy, as usual, but the overall ruling seems at least able to be consistently and clearly applied, even if it doesn’t make the most sense.

Now to find out what happens if an Orion mimics Crick to trash itself mid-resolution of subroutines. You have to do them all, but it’s not there anymore to do them. I’m guessing it means the ETR is ignored, but would be nice to have it clarified.

Thanks for the link, as noted I tried looking for it on ANCUR but didn’t see it, but was pretty sure I’d seen something on the topic. Good to have it cleared up.

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With all of the Eater decks out right now, Turing plays a little stronger than you might think. If they are running Eater/Cutlery then it can all but shutdown HQ/R&D access. And you are never sad to see ABT pop it out mid game to go at the top of your scoring server. That being said, it is susceptible to parasite on centrals though.

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Turing is a bit annoying in Gagarin decks but still not as strong as crick in general.

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Criminal is a bit weaker than normal at the moment, but I can’t help wondering whether one downside with Meru that people haven’t mentioned is that it’s going to make your HQ ice more predictable.

Andy/Leela/Gabe may well be tempted to just throw down an early Corroder and blind Siphon against Weyland, given that it’s significantly more likely to connect (next-level mind games here aside).

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While a potentially decent play, there’s a strong chance they might not have seen a Meru Mati in their opener and put a Quandary or Enigma there instead. If they happen to have a Destroyer there that isn’t horribly convoluted to rez (requiring an agenda forfeit or giving Bad Pub in some Blue Sun lists), it could reaaally hurt to lose that same Corroder so early, particularly if you’re low on backups.

Also requires the runner to have the Corroder in hand, because you can’t Special Order it and Siphon the same turn without risking a horrible death, at which point the standard “facecheck, if rez Special Order to Siphon next turn, if no rez get Faerie and another breaker maybe down and try anyway” procedure seems to remain the best.

[quote=“Slakker, post:44, topic:3817”]
With all of the Eater decks out right now, Turing plays a little stronger than you might think.
[/quote]Eh. I get that this is true in a general sense, but I also feel like if a deck relies on hitting only one server then either doing it just once each turn will still be okay or the deck wasn’t great anyway. The Eater decks I’m more worried about tend to run backups, though admittedly it’s rare they run an extra Yog or other Decoder, which feels like a mistake to me for basically this reason. If they don’t even run Mimic, then also for Swordsman.

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You see eater without mimic often? I hardly see any non mimic breakers anymore online.

I think Turing is way underrated here, it’s more than a one of. It’s best in hb because of the influence, and there’s a great number of ways to punish spending those 3 clicks, or making it impossible to surpass. A str 5 code gate is gear check, tax, and this particular one is bluff bait. Think about it, do you really want to spend 3 clicks on Turing? I’m adding 3 of Turing to a lot of hb decks because of ais, it really hurts without d4v1d, it’s not overly expensive to protect upgrades and assets, and if you have more than one, it lets you keep an Adonis or Eve in that server a long time, and you simply need an answer to all that code gate.

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Maybe it’s that half the local folks play Anarch with 2+ D4V1Ds that it doesn’t seem super worth it. I suppose I can see how stacking them can be useful, but the price still seems rough in comparison to the others. Be happy to be proven wrong.

Infrequently see Eater without any Mimics, but often Eater with limited Mimics. Not usually a major issue, as I said the complete lack of decoders tends to be a potential problem, yeah. Same with lists (again, infrequent as they might be) that don’t run a Corroder to deal with Wraparound.

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I play Turing with awakening center and Bioroids, so it’s less of an issue there. Caprice also helps haha

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Does Turing make weaker assets (ones without high trash cost) worth playing because of how well it protects them? Like Haas Arcology AI as biotic 4-6