Originally published at: Buy / Sell / Hold – Post-MWL Slack Chat - StimHack
Discuss the latest article here.
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Love the commentary. Generally in agreement with a lot of the predictions.
As a Shaper player, I still am puzzling out my preferred economy engine and restricted card choice. And as an HB player, AoT is awesome and I’m a huge fan.
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If we’re going by ‘Will the top-cut meta be More/Less/Same percentage-wise?’, then…
HB - Sell
Jinteki - Hold
NBN - Buy slightly
Weyland - Buy
Mostly because HB was over-represented due to Moons, and Jinteki will probably be in about the same place, because NBN and Weyland were under-represented. The one I’m not sure of is NBN. They were under-represented, so should spring up, but they also lost some of their big threats. And then lost some of their counters. They’re the most in flux of the factions. (Compare: We know we lost Moons and Caprice from HB/Jinteki, but we also didn’t lose any predators of those decks on the Runner side, except for Whizzard/E-Strike/Film Critic/Parasite that all Factions benefit from. NBN lost its fast advance tools and Breaking News - BOOM shenaningans, but Runners lost access to Aaron, a key piece of keeping NBN tagstorm manageable. Still, Misdirection might be enough to pick up that slack.)
Anarchs - Sell
Criminals - Hold
Shapers - Buy
Anarchs are still good, but they were over-represented. Shapers were good, but only getting better. Criminals are in an odd place because their best decks are gone now and their primary prey (asset spam) also appears to be in short supply. Still, Turtle is strong so I’m not willing to Sell on them yet.
BONUS:
Mini-factions - Hold. Which is the same as Sell, if you had any.
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Agree with most.
HB: Technically Sell. Obviously can’t compare with Moonspam with Friends & CSM. I think CI will remain one of the strongest, though. They can still get Moon or Fairchild, plus unrestricted Architect, or go pure operation econ if they want. Runners lose Siphon, Vamp, Whizzard, Deja Vu, and have Employee Strike on Restricted list. Even ES can be dealt with using Scarcity or ELP (+ Archived Memories/Vitruvius counters) or a Biotic Vitruvius. Don’t forget Lakshimi Smartfabrics is still around, and FC is restricted. Clot lock is probably the biggest threat, but beatable. Other IDs have some play, but only CI is truly great. Simply due to CI, I’d rate them above average.
Jinteki: Hold. IG is worse, but not out. Losing Jackson, Sensie, and agendas is especially rough. At least Whizzard is gone. PE/PU are solid, especially with no Parasite for Komainu/Kokugo and with Levy restricted. Obokata is nuts with FC on restricted. Losing Caprice is quite bad, but Marcus is still around, and Rumor Mill is gone. AgInfusion is strong but beatable. One or two new key cards and Jinteki could come out on top. I’d put them at average.
NBN: Sell. The loss of Breaking News, Astro, SanSan, Sensie, etc. is very bad, especially with GFI and Moon both on Restricted lists, forcing CTM to make some serious adjustments. That being said, Aaron is gone. Whizzard is gone. Runner econ is gutted. I expect CTM and Sync to stick around in the background, down but not out. I’d put them at significantly below average.
Weyland: Buy. Blue Sun lost Oversight AI. Weyland also lost it’s biggest tag threat: Midseason Replacements. However, they got to keep most of their other important cards. Compared to the other factions, they lost the least. They hold onto good Fast Advance tools, and are capable of good rush strategies. Still, I don’t think they have anything that really puts them on top. I’d put them at average.
Anarch: Sell. They lost so much of what made them a powerhouse. They still have Maw. They’re about to get a good card to combo with Imp, which I think will open up possibilities for them, but losing Medium especially hurts badly.
Criminal: Light sell. Lost Siphon, Aaron, Temujin, Desperado, etc. Some people would argue Aumakua makes them strong, but it’s 1 influence, an easy splash. Geist is fantastic though.
Shaper: Buy, definitely. Hard to see how it’s going to shake out, but Shaper has everything, even if the best of it is restricted. They’re flexible, and can mold to whatever meta emerges. They have a variety of viable IDs, great possible breaker suites, SacCon, SMC, plus Lady off MWL. If Fast Advance becomes the meta, Shaper has the best Clot lock. Smoke will always be an option, particularly with the poorer economy available. Kit + Inversificator will always be an option. Hayley isn’t as universally good as Kate, but she’s still efficient if you just want an edge there. Shapers have the best multiaccess, with Equivocation, Indexing, and The Maker’s Eye, and can easily splash some HQ access. When building a corp deck, I will focus mostly on how to beat various flavors of Shaper.
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Don’t forget Deep Data Mining, plus there is always Turning Wheel for extra pressure. Lots of ways to score.
I think Leela with Maw, Gang Sign, Aeneas Informant, and Turtle is well-poised in the new meta. The only thing it loses is Aaron and econ (Temujin, Bloo Moose), but all runners are losing econ. Between that and Geist, losing Desperado doesn’t feel so bad for criminal. Turtle is really good and works well against one of the strongest corps imo.
On the corp side, I think Skorpios is underestimated in how powerful it is. It loses the chance to play both GFI and Hunter Seeker, but that’s not a huge hit. I think it’s weak against turtle in criminal and sac con in shaper, but can overcome those weaknesses well with Hatchet Job + Hospitality.
tl;dr: I think the strongest decks in the new meta will be Maw Gang Leela and Rigshooter Skorpios, that’s what I would bring to worlds.
Re: “Every Jinteki deck will take Obokata Protocol”
Is there no place for traditional Jinteki micro-agenda suites? For the damage-oriented identities (Personal Evolution, Potential Unleashed, Chronos Protocol) House of Knives is still a card, Chronos Protocol is still a card, Philotic Entanglement, still exists and you can now fast advance vicious little agendas with Shipment from Tennin (and Braintrust is saved if you go that route too). I think there is a very good argument for Hunter Seeker in that type of agenda make-up, especially as it can trade relatively few agenda points to blow up a severe problem to you entire plan (Feedback Filter, Caldera, or what have you) and is rarely a waste, there is generally always some particularly annoying card the Runner has installed in any deck! Combos with Chronos Protocol nicely too.
Whether those type of Jinteki agenda suites are “sick tournament tech” is probably the real question for someone better at tournaments than me, but I feel that the space might have opened up somewhat with the refreshing of the card pool: no Yog, no Keyhole, no Medium, no Account Siphon, no Parasite. Some vicious, little, cheap Jinteki ICE probably just got a big boost.
This was a lot of fun! Thanks for putting it together.
Outside of geist and maxx recursion is very much down. Hitting bin breakers is always nice but the impact of chronos is down from pre rotation. Plus with people teaching for kakugo and obokata, the impact of 1k cuts is down. I do think there’s a jinteki trap deck out there, its just not in PE imo
While technically true, I’ve been having a difficult time finding an economy engine for Inversificator Kit with all the good options on the Restricted list. The best appears to be Tapwrm-derived, which isn’t a good sign for Kit’s low influence. Still, I do think someone will figure out a way to make it work, so I do think Shaper, in general, is going up.
There is, but Obokata slots right in with them, too. Obokata is just bonkers, over the curve, fast-track-to-ban right now because of how insanely difficult and disruptive it is to steal. Why not have all of those other agendas, plus Obokata? They all help each other and Obokata takes up deck slots by being worth 3 points. Hunter Seeker can help vs. Film Critic, but you’re going to see Film Critic much less often given the rest of the restricted list.
I’m strait up shocked no one is talking about Gagarin. I think they’re one of the best poised to continue the asset spam archetype, and without Whizz, things are fairly hard to trash. Jackson and Friends are gone, but Museum and Preemptive are still kicking for that recursion goodness, and Hive and Tour Guide are as good as ever. I think both Tubs as well as the super old-school builds with Team Sponsorship and Ash are probably fairly good right now.
Hunter Seeker almost never helps against Film Critic since Film Critic can undermine Hunter Seeker’s agenda stolen condition.
Tour guide is sad against Switchblade, which Smoke is running.
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Derp, you’re right. I even meant to go back and write about how Voter Intimidation was better vs. Film Critic. Obokata is just bonkers (broken, imo) right now, I’m not sure it is worth running any of the other restricteds!
I actually put in Dagger (the two-stealth requirement for Switchblade makes me the saddest 
) and am using Dai V for Tour Guide/Mythic tech! Switchblade is still fine, I just really like to be able to run on one stealth credit early. Smoke has options, is all I’m saying.
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It’s because of the loss of Mumbad City Hall. The Gag lists I was looking at used MCH to great effect. Without, they have to naturally draw the Consulting Visit if they’re on HHN/BOOM.
It’s not bad, certainly, it just lost power. I do agree that it looks the most likely to retain Asset-Spam-ness, though CtM and NEH still exist, too. I’d found Gagarin was able to make even Whizzard stop trashing just because he had to pay real money to get into servers, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a good Gagarin deck go pretty high at Worlds.
I did say ‘Buy’ Weyland, right? Yeah okay, I did… 
Basically, Weyland lost Oversight AI, Scorch, and Midseason Replacements. So if you were Blue Sun, you’re sad. Otherwise, nothing really changes for you. (I guess you can’t Hunter-Seeker + GFI now?) So the other decklists, Skorpios, Titan Rush, Gagarin Prison, function almost as well as before. So, on balance: Buy.
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One Corp deck I was having fun with a while ago was Spark. Once Temujin came out it was just impossible to win the econ race. Now that Temujin is gone and runner’s econ is shot, surely this is the time for Spark to shine. But I have not heard any talk about it one way or the other.
With Popups, PADs, Product Placements, Launch Campaign, Special Offer and Marilyn you should be able to win the economy. Then use Ash and maybe Red Herrings to stop them stealing your agendas. You can have a backup win condition of either HHN/exchange/Closed Accounts or maybe Sandburg. I have not thought about the specifics too much but I think there should be something there. Probably not tier 1 but something worth talking about at least.
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