They’ll be advertisements everywhere; I’m pretty sure. FAQ will clarify. But, I’m pretty sure you can’t install anything that you can’t rez because it uses the word “and”. If you can’t do the full effect, I’m not sure you’re allowed to choose half. Again, FAQ needed. That’s just my bet as to where things will fall out.
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Oh and ad blitz is a double on top of that, so unless you’re playing The Root and Mumba Temple you’re going to be sinking a lot of time and money into the card, without a lot left to use. Then again, the turtlebacks plan seemed solid, but I don’t think marked accounts is an advertisement but I’ll check right now with my magic internet powers. Nope, it’s a transaction. So maybe rebrand those accounts and you got a stew? Or even the current would help that plan.
I wonder if spark agency is the nbn version of Gagarin
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I’ve had turns as my NEH deck where I would install 3 assets (then take 9 credits from Turtlebacks and a card…), so a card, even a double, that lets me install, basically, X cards from HQ/Archives would be awesome. If it works with the advert agenda, it’s a total no-brainer for me to bring back those Turtlebacks the runner has already trashed. Interns is a good card in that deck, this one is more specific, but potentially huge in scope.
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Spark Agency can rez some cards on its own turn and some cards on the runner’s turn if they really need more triggers
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Hedge, install advertisement asset, install advertisement asset and then rez 1 at the end of your turn and the other at the beginning of the runner turn. They start the game with 3 credits and can’t sure gamble any more.
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If they hadn’t just FAQ’d that Rebranding Team doesn’t hit things in Archives (because it’s non-specific and they aren’t installed) I could see it being relatively useful. Until/unless they fix that, the team seems unlikely to see much play until Beale is no longer an option.
But I think Ad Blitz is more for Special Offers and recursion of the Campaigns, not so much for initial placement… maaaybe to let you toss out a pair of Eves when the runner’s too broke to deal with her, with a Special Offer and Pop-Up Window in front of each? Note that these don’t have to be new servers, either. Nothing stopping you from popping an Eve onto a Breaker Bay Grid and rezzing her for free.
Ad Blitz is to get stuff out in a hurry and set up before the runner can do much, or to bring things back (even at cost) and try to keep a powerful economy running/save on influence needed for Eves and Adonises. Like a more expensive Interns that gives you
Pretty sure that Spark triggering at “each time” would be too powerful, but 17 influence might’ve been nice since so many ads are out-of-faction. The once/turn is kinda… eh, I agree. But, hey, will help people learn timing windows! (“Last paid ability window on your turn I rez Adonis. First paid ability window on my turn I rez Launch Campaign. My turn begins, I take 5c.”)
Turtlebacks + Blitz seems like a reasonable play. Outside of Whizzard, keeping everything trashed would be pretty hard, and the Turtleback math there is actually pretty nice. First one takes away the cost of Blitz, second and third are just ridiculous.
[quote=“linuxmaier, post:837, topic:3984”]
Hedge, install advertisement asset, install advertisement asset and then rez 1 at the end of your turn and the other at the beginning of the runner turn. They start the game with 3 credits and can’t sure gamble any more.
[/quote]Criminal w/ Siphon becomes good again, I like this plan.
But yeah. Spark is the first ID that can fuck up the runner’s very first turn other than CD (from the lowered handsize, usually only relevant for Andy), and does it in a much more meaningful way.
The other nasty thing about that first turn play is that unless you rezzed an Adonis they can’t hurt you by trashing anything you just rezzed. Launch and Pad are more expensive for them, Eve is out of their reach unless they work up to it.
So it’s not without risks, but if they try to recover cash they can’t run in on your open centrals w/o a Siphon or something… and even if they do they’ll have a harder time interacting with a bunch of stuff, like NAPDs. Lovely.
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Spark is indeed like a better Gagarin. Imagine a game with Gagarin where the Runner ran your remotes about 12-15 times. Was that a good, close game? Did you win? Answer is most likely yes, else you were playing against Valencia or Desperado and I’m sorry. Spark bypasses both of those powerful effects quite well, with the exception of Valencia during a run. But that’s a real credit they’ll lose to Popup at least though.
Depending how structured Spark can be, I might even want to go a tagging suite designed to hit a Closed Accounts or two and keep the runner permanently poor by chaining advertisement assets, and punishing desperation runs with ad ICE.
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Holy shit, someone else reads Peter Watts! Blindsight is quite possibly my favourite novel.
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I think Ad Blitz has some decent synergy with Alix. Click 1 install Alix, click 2 Blitz 4-5 ads, click 3 trash Alix for 8-10 is a pretty huge credit swing. You still have to be able to afford to rez all of your ads, but it doesn’t leave you broke if the runner goes and trashes them all.
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Peter Watts is very popular in Poland, I’ve read all the novels.
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I like the idea, but Ad Blitz is a Double, so you need to spread it over two tuns. Still has potential to be fun – and if Rebranding works like we’d hope and hits things in Archives, could you use Ad Blitz to bring Alix and a bunch of stuff back for more? I don’t remember. Ah, well.
It doesn’t apparently, FAQed.
Alix is probably the reason ad blitz is a double when you think of it like that.
Everyone in this thread since my last post greatly increased my interest in spark agency. Since it is indeed each turn, making the runner lose 2 credits by his/her turn is pretty sweet if you could do it constantly. Rebranding team and reversed accounts anyone? Test ground for super jank
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The corp player in me: “That’s what I like to hear!”
The runner player in me: “Oh, God, no, I need to buy food for my family!”
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Has anyone actually confirmed that Rebranding Team doesn’t work like that?
I talked it over with a few people on r/netrunner previously, and while the FAQ did certainly seem to lean that way, it was our combined conclusion that Rebranding Team could very well have been designed before the FAQ ruling.
I know what the FAQ indicates, but has anyone gotten a ruling on Rebranding Team specifically? Because I would argue that the ‘all’ could very well be implying that it means all assets, no matter where they are (that would make the card a lot more playable and have it make a lot more sense, to me at least). Rebranding Team doesn’t make nearly as much sense to me otherwise as a 4/2.
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Rebranding seems really weird from a deck building perspective to me. If I’m making a spark deck I’m planning in having most of my assets be ads anyway. So why do I need this? And if my plan is to score this early and include a lot of regular assets, it seems like it’s just not gonna get scored in over 50% of my games early enough to matter and my id is useless.
Seems like a cool is that’s really awkward in practice.
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Designers always seem to forget you need to add ice and econ to decks. I mean, turning Jackson Howard into an advert could make the runner lose a credit or two in a game, but you probably want to be running other agendas.
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I think this is the crux of it. The agenda would be neat for turning things like Turtlebacks into advertisements so that you can turn Ad Blitz into a money making play, but Spark is probably more going to go for the regular trickle of actual advertisements, hopefully ones that the runner already would be the loser to trash on (PADs, Launch Campaigns, Pop-up and Special Offer, that new RnD trap where they lose money) to wage economic attrition war.
[quote=“linuxmaier, post:849, topic:3984, full:true”]that new RnD trap where they lose money
[/quote]
Are you talking about Product Placement or something else? Because Product Placement just gives the Corp 2 creds when the Runner accesses.
Yup. Nothing to stop you from installing that somewhere, though, and using it to ding the runner a credit out of Spark. It is an advertisement, after all. After you draw it out of RnD, you can still hit them with it.
EDIT: Oh, I see what you mean. Traditionally it’s the corp gains money; I misremembered it. In Spark, though, it can do both jobs.
Yeah I’ve been testing it. If it had made the Runner lose 2 credits on access as well, essentially giving it a 4 trash cost, it would’ve been insane. It functions as a large Pop-Up or can help cover your San San/PAD w/e. It’s especially nice in Spark because it’s 0 to rez. I’ve also been testing with Spark and been really disappointed. I’m going to keep playing around with it though just because of the troll factor the ID presents.
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