ok, lets look at the other archetypes that are “viable” in NBN, which I happened to have played over time.
Grail (TWIY, NEH). This is a powerful place for grail, Grail forces the runner to build up a little more before they run, still create taxing servers. You simply need your breakers. This tempo loss for the runner is dangerous against NBN, this helps scoring that astro that perhaps lets them take off. This archetype works because of the time grail creates to get that astro out to win the game.
Scorched NBN (mostly MN, maybe NEH?). Ok, you want to compare this to the other scorched decks, because that illustrates what’s going on here. The issue with scorched-combo is that you cannot afford to be poorer than the runner (after they have ran), then the whole strategy falls apart. Scoring agendas costs money. You are investing clicks (that you could use to make money) and creds into gaining points. Supermodernism “works” because scoring agendas makes money. You don’t skip a beat in the credit war by scoring points. What does NBN have? It has that the first or the second agenda can already make the game really really hard for the runner. Scoring an astro makes the game really a lot easier.
Tagstorm (MN). This is the first that can win without scoring astro, but even there it’s seriously more scary than psycho beale, which in fairness you don’t get to pull off that often. Scoring just one astro makes a beale win already a lot more likely. Clot ruins this combo as well.
Of all the archetypes this is the one that is least focussed on early pressure, brings the most tax (closed accounts, data raven), and idk if you played it, but Raven is one awkward card to play. It looks way better than how it plays. And even then, it dies if clot would hit the meta like this.
So you aren’t looking at NBN FA getting taken a notch down, you are looking at NBN as a whole (amongst some other ID’s) to be taken down. Those decks are already not comfortably strong enough to run all kinds of cards and use their precious deckspace for cyberdex cards.
The hate for astro that’s everywhere comes off the way it wins, it makes people feel powerless to act against it when it wins. You remember the way how NBN found the final beale on top of r&d and just scored it without you being able to do anything about it. What counted though was the first or the second agenda, that happened to be astroscript pilot program. That’s what ice like wraparound and economy like sweeps week is good at. That’s the plan for a corp with the best card draw in faction.
I posted it before, but I believe that the card would be fair in the way it plays should it have a sentence that forces it to be rezzed at the start of the corps turn, but should clot hit like this, I’m not going to be happy with the “increased diversity” which would happen to cut entire NBN, CI, Tennin, and maybe even ETF.FA from the game.
Having tried it out, I agree. You have to keep it protected for a turn which isn’t always possible, you have to draw a 3 card combo rather than a 2 card one, and you’re forced to devote deckslots to a mediocre card that is easily trashed. Power shutdown is something I’ve been messing around with for a little while, but it was no better against clot shaper despite trashing a couple of SMCs. I’ve just been playing a standard NEH list with 3 power shutdowns jammed in, sacrificing one ice and 2 assets to include them. Its actually kind of decent now, sometimes trashing large parts of a crims rig, but I don’t think it’s a great answer to clot either.
Did you play those NEH hate decks against the field? How much are you giving up vs glacier/blue sun etc? I’d like to think I could build a pretty strong anti NEH with the current card pool if that’s all I’m targeting.
All Kate lost was a second Legwork, which is only crucial for the NEH match-up, which you now have Clot for. the thing Clot does best is make Shaper better, especially PP Dog
Not against the field, I’m only really talking about shapers with clot who have the ability to instantly tutor it and recur it what feels like a hundred times. I think NEH decks built as they are now would have more game against anarchs, and a largely unchanged criminal matchup, but with the shaper matchup being so bad I don’t think building in the same way is viable.
Here’s my question, if you’re going to a tournament after clot drops do you put Clot in all your (non criminal) decks assuming to still see a lot of NEH? Or do you think no one will bring NEH to a tournament anymore because they fear clot and then you have a dead card in your deck? While it seems to annihilate NEH FA, is that maybe still a good thing for the meta overall?
Kate definitely brings 1 for the foreseeable future, I think. Not sure about Anarchs. Noise might want it, but who is even playing Noise right now. IDK if MaxX wants Clot.
No it isn’t. Because NEH Fastrobiotic is just the big thing everyone is focusing on. It will also fuck up every CI deck available right now (scorched imaging, 7 pts combo with or without shutdown, EC FA with Hive/Giraffe), Tennin ToL, Titan ToL and dedicated HBFA (the one who doesn’t play Ash and any kind of glacier elements).
Seriously, the way FFG handled the Astrobiotic issue was just terrible and dumb.
This is purely theoretical but if astroscript had instead been what medical breakthrough is but yellow would that have been a balanced card? One problem of astroscript (besides effectively being a 2/2 agenda) is that whether the first gets scored or stolen is huge and leads to runaway games. But I like how with medical breakthrough having the first stolen still makes the next 2 easier to score.
I don’t think astroscript was broken at first. It’s freaking strong but the entire balance of NBN was done by taking Astroscript into account. Remove the menace of Astrochain and everything fall apart. HB got the same issue : every econ options HB got was printed with ETF in mind and that’s why their econ engine outside of ETF usually sucks.
Balanced enough but we’d be in a completely different reality since it’s so much weaker than astro. To get any effect out of it, all 3 have to be scored/stolen, and it has to be the corp scoring the last one. With astro, you only have to score one to get what is effectively a 3/4 agenda.
What if clot had the same text but was a current? Couldn’t be clone chip/SMC, but also couldn’t be purged. It would force the corp to score out 1 agenda but then would need SOT or deja vu to recur it and it couldn’t be played on the corps turn. It would also make corp currents better, especially in NBN.
I don’t think anyone is saying that NBN as a faction are dead, I just thinking that people are saying that Astrobiotic as it stands is more or less dead.
You’ve just made me realise how rich NBN can become using Targetted marketing against a clot shaper. Unfortunately no amount of money will help them score agendas out of hand =(
Targeting marketing for Clot, midseasons in hand bait them with the astroscript. They take the bait you midseasons they don’t take the bait you score the astro, MUAHAHAHAHAHA
