Come Cube Draft Against Us: Daily Draft! (Now on deckbuilding, like the best decks or make your own)

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81

Pop up Window or Data Raven (leaning on the latter) and Atman or Crescentus

82

would definitely vote for the atman here, even without datasucker support, itā€™s very powerful both as a trick and as a way to make repeat runs on a central if they donā€™t expect it

83

FAO, Atman and Crescentus stand out here. FAO is good, since we likely arenā€™t going to be using any crazy mid-run acrobatics to circumvent surprises - so why not limit the surprises? Crescentus will help us slow down stopping power against our RDI, and tax the corp, which is good, but Atman can create sustained pressure and efficient runs to fuel R&D lock.

So it is Atman.

I could go through all the rest of the corp cards - pop-up is extremely tempting economy card - but I immediately know that I want Blue Level Clearance. BLC packs a lot of action into one card slot, and presuming we acquire something really solid at the top of Pack 2, BLC will help us draw into it and play it. BLC is effectively taking a lower rank pick and converting it into a placeholder for whatever higher level pick it ends up finding, along with the means to pay for it.

Blue Level Clearance 100%.

2 Likes
84

I hope we donā€™t pick BLC!

We run a pretty thin deck and our defenses are so far are low-str ICE, while I like economy I want cards that donā€™t force me to draw additional cards. Since we run 3-point agendas any additional agenda we draw will be a big liability. I think this is a good opportunity to take a tagging card, either SEA Source (high risk but higher reward) or Data Raven to open up for taking tag punishment later (and itā€™s not unthinkable to wheel the closed accounts from pack 3 since it had a lot of good ICE) or dealing with troublesome resources such as Kati Jones.

1 Like
85

On the runner side, Atman seams pretty great.

On the corp side, I donā€™t think we should be taking tagging before tag punishment. Tag punishment is less frequent - we didnā€™t see any right now. On the other hand, we saw quite a few tagging tools : 2 Dracos, Data Raven, SEA Sourceā€¦ If we see some good tag punishment, then it will be time to take something to complement it.

Without tag punishment, Data Raven seems weak. The runner will probably just start running through it after using his ressources. On the other hand, SEA Source might still be good as a surprise to destroy an important ressource (Pro Contact, loaded Katiā€¦).

Finally, I like Pop-Up here. Itā€™s a nice cheap taxing ice which will also give us some economy.

86

weā€™ve picked almost entirely ice so far, iā€™d much rather have economy than more defense

87

I think youā€™re placing too much emphasis on agendas being somehow safer in R&D than in HQ. I mean, they can be safer there, but not if youā€™re getting hit by RDI or Medium or simply the runner making one R&D access per turn.

The draw power of Blue Level Clearance isnā€™t a liability. Often you need to break an R&D Lock and Blue Level Clearance is a pretty damn good tool for pushing through while still improving your economy.

1 Like
88

To be fair, this is a draft, and there will probably be a lot less R&D attack / R&D locking cards here than in constructed Netrunner.

Popup or Blue Level seem like the options here. Picking after you guys, Iā€™m pretty much going to take whichever one you dont, and am fine with either.

89

Iā€™m thinking more about the scenario where the runner is accessing 1 card per turn off R&D, rather than RDI, but i do think the chances of seeing a lone RDI on the other side of the table are not insignificant.

Helping to break light R&D lock probably isnā€™t why you pick BLC, but it adds some flexibility in that regard.

90

BLC would be my pick-- I think Pop-Up Window is a little high risk with 5/3s such a key element in the format.

91

I really like BLC here. I donā€™t mind drawing cards at all when we want to rush agendas behind cheap ETR ice, we need to see our different ice types and our agendas. Playing a long slow game where you over defend R&D and never draw without fast advance cards spells doom for me personally, and seems like a losing strategy.

Itā€™s a great strategy when you can advance the agendas from your hand or can build a super agenda scoring server for late game but that isnā€™t really our plan imo.

Data Raven and Sea Source seem like poor picks here, we might possibly pick up a sea source later anyways. Data Raven is going to be run through over and over and over. Especially since the other drafters are strong players that know itā€™s unlikely we picked up worthy tag punishment and will punish us hard for playing it. One closed accounts probably wonā€™t cut it. I feel like BLC is just all consistency, adds $ and lets us draw cards and it makes our picks so far really solid(imo).

BLC is clear winner for me :slight_smile:

Iā€™m torn on runner pick though.

Can someone make a strong argument for voting Atman? I understand itā€™s a strong card, but it takes a memory slot, and there are likely to be more varied ice strengths than constructed where players are packing 3x of each ice. Atman has huge upside by drafting it, since if you get other tools to make it work it can be wonderful. If I want to get past a 4 strength ice, Iā€™m paying 7. It almost seems like Torch is a better pick as a breaker here. Atman can get there if your lucky, and it also can be vital in helping you get into a server if you know the ice already. Itā€™s expensive though, and if you want all 3 breaker types + Magnum Opus we will have memory issues.

Crescentus can be crushing in draft, since people are more likely to play 2+ expensive ice instead of all small ice.
I personally lean towards crescentus and torch here. Maybe Xanadu or FAO even. I donā€™t think there is a clear pick for atman atleast.

1 Like
92

For the runner side I like Atman. Itā€™s obviously a lot worse without datasucker support but it can still be a useful tool if you play it sort of like a femme. The downside is you have to facecheck the ice first but, usually you donā€™t have to pay as much for the install (can even use spinal modem credits on the strength boost part if the cards come up in the right order). It can be an emergency fill in for any type of breaker we canā€™t draw.

For the corp pack Iā€™m liking Blue Level Clearance. People have already stated why itā€™s good so I wonā€™t repeat everything.

93

Results of Day Five

The results are in. With maybe our most contentious corp pick yet, Pop Up Window was victorious at 47% of the vote, coming ahead of Blue Level Clearance to be the draft pick.

Atman was the dominating runner pick with 72% of the vote and no clear second place contender.

On to the next picks.

Corporation Pack 1 Pick 6 (5 cards)

Vote For The Next Corp Pick Here:
http://www.instant.ly/s/rV5y2

Current Corp Cards

  • 1x Pop Up Window
  • 1x Green Level Clearance
  • 1x Himitsu-Bako
  • 1x Eli 1.0
  • 1x Enigma
  • 2x Private Contracts
  • 5x Priority Requisition

Runner Pack 1 Pick 5 (6 cards)

Vote For The Next Runner Pick Here:
http://www.instant.ly/s/4GCb4

Current Runner Cards

  • 1x Atman
  • 1x Spinal Modem
  • 1x Magnum Opus
  • 1x R&D Interface
  • 2x Armitage Codebusting
  • *1x Aurora *
  • 1x Pipeline
  • 1x Force of Nature
94

i think we windmill slam test run for the runner pick, tutoring + recursion + a possible trick makes it really strong and iā€™m not sure why this is still in the pack

for corp Iā€™d really rather get something other than ice, since that has been almost all of what weā€™ve grabbed, but there isnā€™t much to pick from. ichi 2.0 is probably the pick, as i donā€™t think they can afford to break it, and arenā€™t likely to have an emergency shutdown

2 Likes
95

I would pick Red Herrings for the Corp, to have some space for bluffing with remote server content.

The choice for the Runner is Test Run, as we need only 6 points to win, instant icebreaker may save the day.

96

Test Run with Opus seems really good for the runner. For corp I think both RSVP and Ichi 2.0 are reasonable picks, but with our economy very limited so far I would go with the cheaper option.

97

I agree that Test Run is the pick of what is left. (Although if we didnā€™t have MO, Ice Analyzer would be worthy of some consideration.)

I am not convinced runners are going to be able to run more than once a turn or that we are going to be so much richer than the runner. Both of these factors weaken Ichi. RSVP is a nice piece of taxing ICE, but I am leaning towards Red Herrings as I think it will essentially be an etr upgrade. Not certain which way to go here. Will listen to what others have to say before voting.

98

Red herrings are pretty cool in 6 points format and synergise well with Eli and Enigma. And it is pretty good by itself. Rest of cards pretty situational, depending on both corp and runners sides.

Test Run is great tutor and recovery. One of the best cards for draft format. I wonder what was in this pack over this.

99

I assume that the cards that have been taken before this are the efficient ice breakers; so far weā€™ve only really seen a Mimic come round, and Iā€™d guess the logic that others are using is that itā€™s better to take the good breaker before you pick a way to search for it.

I agree that Test Run and Red Herrings are probably the picks here.

100

Still stinging over the controversial and ill fated rejection of Blue Level Clearance, Iā€™m taking RSVP over Red Herrings because i think it is just about the cheapest, most taxing ETR out there when combined with nearly any other ETR Ice and weā€™ve already got 3 very good candidates for it to tag team with. Iā€™m not so worried about HQ defence with Gabe and Account Siphon out of the picture, but I am still worried about R&D defence and making sure the runner is adequately taxed/shut out on that server without spending a lot of credits ourselves. Red Herrings doesnā€™t help with that, but RSVP teamed with Pop Up Window or Himitsu-Bako might provide all the R&D defence we need. RSVP can also be solid outer Ice on a scoring server, so it can also fill a similar role to Red Herrings since RSVP is 5 to break through with Force of Nature. Red Herrings can easily get trashed off R&D or HQ, and RSVP cannot short of Imp or Demo Run.

Test Run will help us find the breaker we need and speed up the rig assembly. It also means that if we arenā€™t afforded the opportunity to draft many quality breakers, we can still find what we need. Test Run for Magnum Opus isnā€™t a terrible play in this format either. That it can help save us from Program Trashing is icing on the cake.

3 Likes