Imo, if you want to curb the bullshit that is fastrobiotics, ban Fast Track instead of restricting Astroscript. Or don’t allow Fast Track and Astro in the same deck, same thing really. Affects only that deck and keeps other Astro-based NBN builds viable.
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This is what I’ve been saying, Fluff. The real problem has always been fast track. Astro has a HUGE affect on the game, but being able to get it whenever you’re ready makes it super hard to deal with.
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I will third that, been saying it for months. Restricting APP and Fast Track is the way to curb the only problem with the deck - it’s astounding consistency.
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Fast track is the easiest way to win against R&D lock. Without it the winrate of NEH astrobiotic would decrease a lot. Astro is the best agenda in the game, we all agree here. Fast track is the real problem, tho.
So with <5% of the entries playing NBN, it seems that you very successfully managed to nuke them out of the meta. So congrats on that, I guess.
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Yeah, they were all but eliminated from the field. My question is now whether NBN can not be competitive without astro or if people just didn’t try because astro is so good.
You certainly can play a Midseasons/Psychographics deck without APP (3 Beale, 3 NAPD, 3 Market Research or Character Assassination/2 Breaking News for your agendas) but I still think it’s wrong.
This might be less true once Clot comes out, though Clot is going to make everyone reconsider how best to Fast Advance agendas - and slow the game down a bit. Which can only be a good thing.
I think changing the rules for a tournament makes it interesting, I’m not dead set against it. NBN are very sad about only having 4 3/2s though. The never-advance shell, where the runner has to run whatever is down because it might be an APP, and if it’s scored then you’ve basically got to throw caution to the wind as runner, is a big part of what makes NBN good. That you can add to that and play really fast by Fast Advancing your first Astro and then scoring the second for 2 credits and a turn is enormous. I understand why the TO kneecapped NBN FA like they did.
While the discussion on the Astrobiotics thread was interesting, I still think that an average player running NBN FA wins a good fraction (>55%) of their games by scoring out of hand within 10 turns, before the runner is set up. It takes a good runner player with a deck tuned to beating fast advance to have a >50% win rate against NBN astrobiotics while not sacrificing too much against the rest of the field.
Where can we see an overall breakdown? I’m actually very interested in another aspect of it – whether the Runner field was more diverse as a result of the absence of Astrobiotics.
I do think that if NBN in total was <5%, it suggests that limiting AstroScript to one per deck isn’t the best way to “fix” NEH. I think if I were to run a variant rules tournament where I was only applying my own specific balance fixes, I’d probably do something like this:
- AstroScript tokens cannot be spent on another copy of AstroScript.
- Datasucker is 2 influence.
- Desperado costs 4c.
- Lotus Field’s strength reduction protection only applies during runs. (A Parasite hosted on it before the run starts still counts. Possible wording: “The strength of Lotus Field cannot be further reduced during a run.”)
- NAPD costs 3c to steal. (This might not be needed after O&C comes out.)
As mentioned above, the best approach IMO is to restrict Astro and Fast Track. Winning in 10 turns or less will happen a lot less frequently when NBN players don’t have immediate/on demand access to the best card in their deck. It will still happen due to random luck, but it would be a best case scenario.
NAPD is definitely something else to consider.
I think if FFG does something, that’s definitely the best approach – no errata, and the same restricted list mechanism as their other LCGs. It’s simple and clean.
I just like theorycrafting errata.
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I have zero problems with astro-chaining—I think it is healthy for the game to have some lightning to it; to me the bigger issue is that NBN has another 3/2 that you can chain astros into: Beale. Beale was originally a 4/2, and should totes have remained a 4/2. It would still be great in Midseasons/Psycho decks, FA would still be viable but the Fast Track The Win From Deck would only work if you lucked into all three Astros.
Instead we’re going to get “silver bullets” that cause all kinds of collateral damage and then new competitive NBN archetypes that will leave people just as cranky will come out. 2 3/2 agendas in the Astro faction shouldn’t have happened.
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That’s an interesting take on it. I tend toward the opposite view (that Astro-chaining is bad whereas two 3/2s in NBN is okay to enable never advance shenanigans), but I’m intrigued by your line of reasoning and find it somewhat persuasive.
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Beale was originally a 3/1, like his counterpart in the Original Netrunner, Project Babylon.
I posted my “battle report” over at BGG.
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Are there pics of the Aesop playmat? I only saw the pic of all the prizes on FB, which didn’t show the whole mat.