I would mull any hand not holding an oracle or hostage, unless it has test run, lucky find, legwork, indexing and diesel…then maybe not, but possibly still so. Oracle is definitely the key.
As much as I was a proponent of WitRD, There have been a few times where oracling missed 2 times in a row, and I lost tempo, lost the game against RP…very painful. I might have to concede the slot to something else, like another indexing or something. This is the only reason I’d swap it though, the “free draw” means little to me, since I learn so much about the opponent’s deck, where the agendas are/aren’t…she’s very very good for that.
Would the idea be to hold both Power Naps through all my draws until 4+ doubles are in the trash? Also, how would your proceed if your first Oracle May misfires on an icebreaker?
Looks like Johnny has a fairly good line of play. Personally, I would drop oracle, use her, and proceed off draw. I’m not holding levy here unless I know my opponent has tons of damage…even PE might still see me discard it. I’m reckless as hell though.
Every time I miss with Oracle May it hurts my tempo so bad in terms of getting my breakers out I’ve been wondering if it might be better to scrap OM all together and go with some other options for getting the breakers out more reliably. The game where I got my 1of Motivation out tonight went exponentially better in terms of getting my rig out efficiently.
Actually, because the Power Naps work so well I wonder if something like Professional Contacts might work better here, plus you’ll get back 4 influence…
Here’s what I want to try. I’m sure you guys know much better than me why this won’t work, but here’s my justification: you can only Oracle once per turn, plus a miss costs you a click, plus you lose an icebreaker until you can find a test run. On the other hand, ProCon costs you a bit more to bring out, but you can save 4 influence, use it multiple times per turn, and never miss. It seems to me like it could come out fairly close (2 clicks on ProCon is the same as Oracle+Draw clicks, but without any misses).
Additionally, the Morningstar will get you through barriers like Eli (the most common Barrier I see) for 1 instead of 3, helping to offset the cost of the ProCon (and the fewer credits per click). An additional tinkering and Scavenge will help with the bigger Barriers (w/ Femme).
The infiltration is really just there to save you from making a run on a trap or through deep ice into a non-agenda. I feel like maybe a Rachel Beckman could work here instead (and also helps with those big bioroids)
– Event (34 cards)
3 Diesel
3 Eureka!
2 Indexing
1 Infiltration
2 Legwork
2 Levy AR Lab Access
3 Lucky Find
3 Power Nap
2 Quality Time
2 Scavenge
3 Sure Gamble
3 Test Run
3 The Maker’s Eye
2 Tinkering
– Program (3 cards)
1 Femme Fatale
1 Morning Star
1 Torch
– Resource (3 cards)
3 Professional Contacts
Whilst I’m not saying it won’t work at all, I don’t think it will be anything like as powerful. Oracle gets you three clicks for one click. Professional Contacts gets you two clicks for one click. If you installed them both one the first turn of the game and did nothing else but use them (Oracle once a turn and Pro Contacts as many times as possible) it would take 11 clicks before Professional Contacts caught up with Oracle in terms of efficiency. And that’s assuming a completely unrealistic scenario that strongly favours Pro Contacts. With all the doubles you aren’t going to want to 2x Pro Contacts in a turn that often and every time you do not do that, you would be better with Oracle. I like Morning Star, but I think you’d be significantly slowing the deck to run it.
EDIT: On another note, I think WitRD is coming out. I often get into a situation where I want it (close to match point with a legwork in hand), but it generates too many “misses” with May and Hostage doesn’t fetch from the Heap as well as the stack meaning I often can’t fetch it. Infiltration instead for now, but may become Atman if Archer does really become a menace.
BTW, I’m going to be trying out 2x code siphon when it comes out, a second event based tutor seems like a really good idea, and with femme bypassing ice on R&D from a previous turn of indexing, you can save 3 credits per ice to install your breakers, seems good, even if you have to smoke the tag afterwards. Definitely viable to replace 2x tinkering or 1x tinkering and 1x scavenge or something.
Oracle May is also relatively easy to install, as well. Install for 1 is a much lower tempo hit than install for 5 like ProCon. Install and Use for May even gains you a credit, while ProCon is still 4 credits down.
The initial advantages of Oracle May are obvious. But when it misses a few times per game I have a hunch that the initial tempo gain is all but erased. My opening hand usually consists of a money event anyway, so playing a Sure Gamble or a Lucky Find into a ProCon doesn’t seem like a huge tempo loss to me.
I’d say the effect will be comparable, so it’s probably going to work. I’d say most games Oracle May misses 1 time or 0. It is seldom that May misses for me more often. Also, once you clear out 1 may and your rig the chances you’ll misfire are very slim.
See, I was probably averaging 3 misfires per game and it was really cramping my style. Maybe I just have really bad luck, but I like the idea of something more reliable. The inefficiencies of ProCon may mean it’s not very good, but we’ll see. Any thoughts about using Morningstar here?
It’s going to be a high value choice, if you are able to afford the influence. MS breaks almost all current meta-ICE for 1. The problem will be with glacier decks, which aren’t completely unpopular at this point. A heimdal 1 or 2 ends your day, hadrians to a much larger degree. That’s a decision you’ll have to make on your own.
I played a Foundry deck today that had all the NEXT Silver’s out as well as Galahad’s backed up by grails in HQ. Morning Star would have been awfully sweet.
I feel like I’m not getting my rig out quickly enough, and also don’t have redundancy for Will of the Wisp’s or AggSec’s. So the Test Runs are getting pretty stretched.
Maybe should drop in a 3rd Quality Time, just to get more Test Runs involved? Code Siphon might help in the future. Retrieval Run? Or maybe another cheap program (Datasucker? Chakana?, Deep Thought?) , that could be used for Scavenge fodder?
Code will be really good for it when it comes out I think. I agree with the rig problem, although I’m winning a surprising number of games never playing any breakers but Femme (mostly against Jinteki obviously). A 3rd QT seems indicated. I know I keep banging on about Atman, but if your problem is not getting a rig up and running quickly, Atman will fill a gap for you - although it isn’t wonderful with Test Run.The other thing I was thinking was Overmind, again it fills a gap for your whilst pulling the rig together, gives you some Archer defence and it does work well with Scavenge and Test Run (assuming it’s your first or second breaker).