Personally, and I can’t speak for the other guys, but I feel that Clot is at the right power level for an answer to a strategy. Fast advance was ubiquitous enough and enough of a weakness for a lot of runners that having an efficient silver bullet is welcome. Like Plascrete, this won’t be enough to push a powerful archetype out of the meta, it will just bring it back to the field. Clot also has ancillary usefulness against 2/1s, which is nice.
I am hopeful that clot will embolden the designers to push the power level of ice a little more. Breakers have become more efficient, and runner economies have developed faster than corp economies and ice resilience. Hopefully now that scoring out remotes is more viable as a strategy in comparison to FA, they will push ice and upgrades, particularly in Weyland, a little more.
It’s also worth noting the power of Shipment from SanSan against clot! If they pass to you after you’ve installed in your SanSan server you can shipment, Rez and score.
I was surprised to hear how happy you all seemed about what I think is FFG’s biggest mistake to date. Here is where I think you’re mistaken. On paper, SFSS and CVS can all “answer” clot, but in practise trying to go for these combos is a massive drop in power level. Prepaid kate can just keep clot on the board all the time if she doesn’t wanna play guessing games about SFSS. She’s happy if the corp spends every other turn to purge it, since she can make clot up to 16 times if need be.
@RotomAppliance and I did some playtesting to confirm this (videos highlighted on my twitch). But actually what I’d really like to see is for y’all to try the same and report back next episode – just take calimsha prepaid kate, swap the 2nd legwork for a clot, add a 3rd SMC, and play it against a gauntlet of whatever anti-clot tech you can dream up while still being a fast-advance deck. In particular I didn’t get to test midseason + psychographics or some sort of ash build and am willing to eat my words if either could defy clot. I don’t expect they can though.
Really? I’ve thought scorch strategies have been pretty awful since they printed Plascrete. In my opinion, Weyland hasn’t been a contender at the top levels of play since they printed Faerie and ruined OAI Archer with Corporate Troubleshooter. Blue Sun gave the faction a little bit of life back, but it’s not Tier 1. A lot of this is Plascrete’s Fault. I think Plascrete was too heavy handed and an inelegant answer to a strategy that already had reasonable counters, just like Clot is. I want more soft counters, like what Sweeps Week is to Andromeda, rather than these silver bullets. Neutering an archetype and calling the metagame fixed is lazy game design and unfortunately, something FFG seems all too willing to do.
I’ve tried some variation of the ash build lately against clot deck and it worked fine but not really from the point i expected to. Breaking news into Closed account did much much more works than the ash/targeted marketing.
I agree with you that Plascrete has made Scorched Earth strategies weaker, that’s what I was saying, but to say that they aren’t competitive just isn’t true. There were multiple decks in the top 8 of Worlds packing Scorched, and there were lots of Plascretes going around that weekend.
That tournament actually helps demonstrate why Weyland decks in particular struggle and why Scorched has been more powerful out of NBN. The threat of scoring, and Weyland’s ability to keep pace economically while threatening scores is too weak. A lack of economy in-faction, no defensive upgrades, subpar agendas and weak ice hurt Weyland decks as much as Plascrete.
What I dislike about Clot on paper is that it counters more decks than just NEH Astrobiotics, which IMO is the only problem deck. There are a lot of other decks – particularly midrange decks – that use FA tools either as a primary scoring mechanism (Tennin FA) or a fallback (HB hybrid decks), and Clot stops all of that. Not all of those decks have the economy or deck slots for CVS, and upgrades can’t be tutored, so you’re banking on drawing and recurring a 1-2 of to get around Clot.
Time will tell, obviously; I hope you end up being right and that it just teaches people to play with more awareness of paid ability windows and priority while toning down NEH Astrobiotics. But I’m concerned that the post-Clot meta will actually be narrower, not broader, because most midrange strategies will fall far enough in power level that they won’t be viable anymore.
It seems like it can’t be too bad to me. NEH Fastrobiotics basically only had a reasonable chance of losing if it was up against a deck optimized against it (to the detriment of its matchups against any long-game corp), and in that case NEH would still win around half the time. Now there is a reason to not choose Fastro. I think this will open up new deckbuilding areas (namely the more slow to develop ones) for the runners. Where it is going to limit deckbuilding is in the area of solitaire, no-remote Corp decks (CI, Tenin FA), but that is probably a plus in terms of fostering more interactive play.
Not every deck is going to be Prepaid Kate with 16 Clots (or maybe they will be). A lot of runners are going to have to think really hard about whether to “slot the Clot”. Criminals and Anarchs will have a hard time making effective use of it. NEH is likely still going to be strong against a lot of matchups, and will have to either just punt to 16-Clot Kate, or water down the fast advance with some counterplay elements.
It does seem like a new monster is created. One of the best runner archetypes now becomes a lock against NEH (and solitaire decks) with the loss of one Legwork (a non-trivial loss to be sure). Will PPVP Kate be the new Andy?
– Host Brian Holland presents a one-on-one interview with resident android and most venerable Panelist Wilfy Horig. The conversation begins with a discussion of how Wilfy has found the Order and Chaos meta, along with a delve into his Valencia Control list. This feeds into a much deeper discussion on Control decks in general, along with a very unique perspective on Netrunner that only Horig could articulate. The Panelists also touch on bluffing in regards to making the most optimal play: Is a bluff ever the best option, or is there always something better you can do? Find out this week on TWA!
– 2014 Australian National Champion Jesse Marshall takes discusses the interesting place that Corps are currently at, from what’s lack on their side of the table, to some of the interesting tools and opportunities at their disposal.
The Weyland Consortium: Revisited
– In a follow-up to his recent article, Jesse Marshall discusses his favourite faction in-depth. He touches on what Order and Chaos brought to the table, what is lacking in the faction, and shares some interesting ideas as to where the faction could go.
The Winning Agenda comes at you this week with a special Deckstravaganza!
On Our Agenda:
The Winning Agenda Presents: Deck-Strava-Ganza 2015
Deck Tech: IT Department Control
Panelist Wilfy Horig is back with his latest list; a glacial HB
control list that leverages the power of IT Department. Horig takes us
through the evolution of his list, and how it changed through testing,
most notably finding the perfect ICE suite for this unique strategy.
Deck Tech: Stealth Andromeda Control
Special Guest Hollis Eacho is reunited with us all the way from
Alabama via the power of the internet, and brings with him a list for
Stealth Andromeda. He explains the best pieces of the stealth archetype,
and the support cards he believes are best utilised to the full effect
of the strategy.
Deck Tech: Argus Security Aggro
Panelist Jesse Marshall finally opens up about his Argus list.
Designed in a similar style to that of Cambridge PE, this unique and
extremely aggressive take on Argus might just be the direction corps
need to go in the current meta.
As always, we love to hear your feedback, so feel free to get in touch
Spot-on episode this time. You had me worried for a minute when you were including NAPD contrax and profiteering in the same deck but you recovered.
Glad to see more IT dept without grails, which always struck me as the most win-more combo imaginable. Guard, likewise win-more. Being able to play glacier when you don’t have an IT dept (or have the option to sacrifice one to make a scoring window) is huge.
Rototurret is still good because of this ruling. I like either 2x or 3x; sure it’s weak to parasite, but the upside of the scare tactic is huge, and it’s at least a serviceable piece of rush ice besides. It also makes wormhole, “the bad tollbooth”, a much spicier include.
In my early builds I tried datapike but it turns out enigma is better. When you get into a situation where you’re trying to make the lock, what ends up happening is the runner ends up with a mountain of credits (50+), and trying to trade their clicks 1-for-1 to whittle down the ITD. Here the 2 credit facecheck is basically worthless, but knocking off a click goes a long way to not getting whittled. Similarly, eli can often let you trade a counter for 2 runner clicks (I always put all my elis on the same server).
Also – it grows quadratically, not exponentially.
Finally, on stealth andy: I tried daily casts for a while instead of dirty laundry, reasoning that it’s a good backup in situations where you’re too afraid of grail ice to make runs. Dunno if you cut your dirty laundries or something else; but the key card to think about is earthrise hotel, and I found daily casts aren’t good enough to be worth compromising on 6 burst event econs for a consistent turn 1 earthrise without going broke.
– Panelist Liam ‘Shielsy’ Prasad is back from his week off with a
Silhouette Control brew based off the ‘Au Revoir’ economy shell. This
deck tech feeds into a deeper discussion on Runner economies,
deck-choices for tournaments and the importance of match-ups.
Out In The Wilderness: The Remote
– The Panelists break ground on the analysis of the remote server.
The game has shifted off the centrals and back onto the remotes. What do
you look for when building your remote? What is the best way to
navigate a remote as the Runner? What are some of the more unique ways
Corps will have to utilize remotes in the future?
Thanks for those of you who’ve made the journey with us through the Lunar Cycle and Order and Chaos. As always, we love your feedback and input, and thanks for listening
On Our Agenda: Breaker Bay Card Highlight: Runner
The Panelists are geared up and ready to continue the SanSan road
trip with this pack that is so excellent, we just had to spread it out over two
episodes! In this section, we cover the Runner cards from Breaker Bay,
including discussion on potential Hayley lists, and the impact of cards
like Study Guide.
Lukas Litzsinger’s Game Design
After watching Litzsinger’s recent video presentation about the
design of Android: Netrunner, and it’s metamorphosis from the 1996 CCG,
Jesse Marshall shares with us his thoughts and hearty recommendations.
– This week we finish our discussion of Breaker Bay with the Corp
portion of the data pack. This includes discussion on potential new
archetypes, our thoughts on the new server-specific ICE, and the
power-level of new cards like Breaker Bay Grid.
Gauntlet Testing: A Primer
– Panelists Wilfy Horig and Liam Prasad give us a primer on this
all-important type of playtesting. As we’re well into regional’s season,
this is a segment you won’t want to miss!
This week we continue the discussion of “Gauntlet Testing”. Many
players around the world are in the midst of their regional season. As
such, with the help of playtesting expert Wilfy Horig, we go deeper on
the subject, covering such topics as:
Which decks belong in the Gauntlet? How are decks eliminated?
How many people should be in my Gauntlet?
What is the most efficient way to organise the testing session?
Can I still test in the Gauntlet as a newer player?
