Double Time Set Review & Playtesting Guide

Originally published at: Double Time Set Review & Playtesting Guide - StimHack

Discuss @Alexfrog’s latest card ratings here! Agree, disagree, think Caprice is totally insane?

Well, since nobody knows how I feel about Caprice…

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Great article. Nailed it in every respect, (but I’m calling it now, paintbrush sucks).

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Some quick comments:

Singularity: I do plan on running one copy and have a sneaking suspicion that whenever I’ll play it, it’ll actually be really awesome. Of course, I won’t always play it, but hey - such is the nature of Anarch events :slight_smile:

Savoir-Faire: This thing is really awesome for the Prof. If you run it, you won’t get screwed over by drawing that one program you actually needed to install mid-run. I’d even go as far as to use my first SMC to get it on the table.

Fall Guy: The best use here is probably keeping NACH alive (and possibly Source, if you’re feeling super-rich and want to pay $3 to steal an agenda multiple times).

Paintbrush: I feel like this card will end up being too fiddly to set up, simply because it’s 2 MU. It basically means I need to have like a CyberSolutions mem chip out if I actually want to run some programs with it. A crypsis for 3 MU probably wouldn’t be so good. Breaking Ichi (and Archer, with a little setup) with Morning Star is definitely going to be hilarious, though :smiley:

Lucky Find: I feel like this card really, really should have been red (man, that would have made Liberated Account so much better!)

Reclamation Order: This is positively insane in a Cerebral Imaging deck that also runs three Archiveds. You can basically replay your three Restructures and Biotics all day long. I wouldn’t play it instead of AM, though. As for other uses, I really really want to make a deck that uses three Neural EMPs, Reclamation Orders and extra clicks to kill someone unexpectedly :smiley:

Corporate Shuffle: Essentially, it breaks RnD lock way better, avoiding the effect of getting you closer to decking yourself that Jackson does. If someone played Executive Retreat, this feels like a better version of the same effect.

Hive: Its worst feature is that it makes Eli weaker, because everyone and their mother will now play Morningstar. Time to break out Heimy 2, I guess.

Caprice: A lot’s been said about her (and I agree with most of it), I feel she’s similar to a trap card though - brutal if she makes it into play, with the best counterplay being to dig her out of RnD. Seems to me like she makes Interns mandatory (or at least very desired) to get the most value out of her.
(I’m most looking forward to using her in Stronger Together, actually. Taxing brought to a new extreme!)

I think Fall guy + The Source will be very strong in keyhole decks

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Thanks for another delightful review!

PeekaySK said it already, but Fall Guy seems to make New Angles City Hall a lot better. Better enough to compete with Tag Me? Probably not, but it does preserve the most valuable runner clicks in the game (right after a siphon) in a similar, but more expensive, way.

Lukas has confirmed that Broadcast Tower and Profiteering do not combo.

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Does singularity destroy all Ice on the server too? I get the feeling that’s what it’s suppose to do even if that’s not how it reads.

If they did it would be … a bit much.

I don’t think Gyri Labyrinth is as terrible as you make it to be.

The “Yog” critique is fairly misplaced imo. Enigma gets beat by Yog. So what? Corroder beats Ice Wall too. This critique of code gates misses the point. The fact that Ice can beaten is, well, part of the point of the game.

The question is does or accomplish its job? I think it does, or at least can. Yes, it gets beaten by Yog, but guess what it doesn’t get beaten by? Killer-sentry breakers. Notablely, sentries are the predominant Ice for dealing damage. Oh, you got Yog? Cool, you still have to go get a Sentry breaker. Oh, instead you got a Sentry breaker. Cool, now go get Yog.

It gear checks and threatens kills. No, it doesn’t win the game when the runner has economy and a fully assembled rig. Even if they aren’t discarding cards, the fact that they are sitting at 3 cards is not bad in itself.

It would be better red or green, but I find Corps to be fairly flexible with their influence these days and think it’s a wholly reasonable play for Weyland or Jinteki to splash one or two in.

Re: Snare, I like Snare more, but I don’t think that one strictly precludes the other.

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Hey, that’s a pretty valid point - if you facecheck a labyrinth, a double-Scorch kills you reliably unless you have two Carapaces. Worth a try, at least!

(I feel like it’s anti-synergistic with snare, though)

Excellent review once again. Agree with everything except Paintbrush. If I need a fracter to deal with Wraparound anyway, I might as well bite the bullet and get a killer to round out my suite instead of spending 2MU and a bunch of clicks on this. For the limited times I’d want to use this, I’d play Tinkering instead.

Pair paintbrush with morning star- wraparound is no problem! Given how hard morning star shuts down hive, and gives good value against Eli, I think this is worth testing.

I just wanted to say about the PSI game, one scenario that can happen is that you can spend credits on your ice with traces maybe to make them loose money and corner them into a situation where they only have 1 credit to spend, when you have 2 credits, and the corp auto wins, by spending 2. Where on the flip side if you have 1 credit (corp) you still have a 50/50% chance of winning. But regardless, if they have no money it turns the agenda or asset into a Fetal AI… that they can’t pay for but you have to pay the 2 credits…and how many of us have ran where we ended up broke at the end? great read btw

@Alexfrog “On average, due to the Psi mechanic being weighted in the corp’s favor, Caprice Nisei will end the run an average of TWO times, before she goes away.  (Out of three runs we expect an average of one ‘goes away’ result and two ‘end the run’ results.”

This is incorrect. The average number of runs before she goes away is only one!
If you sampled three runs, the runner could win the psi-game on the first, second or third try; resulting in Caprice ending 0, 1 or 2 runs before she is trashed - each with equal probability (assuming all other factors to be equal so the one-third probabilities hold). The average of this is 1, not 2!

I’m not saying this changes much of the analysis, but it does mean she is only half as strong as you’re claiming (unless the Corp is otherwise able to maniplulate the Runner’s credits in order to stack the odds further in its favour).

With regard to Paintbrush. I just don’t see it being as strong as it first appears. The Crypsis analogy is decent (and not something I had previously considered) but Crypsis always has an option to load up and run - irrespective of the status of the ICE. Moreover, Crypsis has a single last-ditch use for tight situations (when you have no counter and have to trash him), and if you end the run early for whatever reason, the counters stay on Crypsis so the clicks aren’t wasted.
I think the inability to facecheck unrezzed ICE is hugely significant. Sure Sharpshooter / Clone Chip saves you against destroyers, but now Neural Katanas and Shinobis are potentially lethal, and cards like Fenris are a concern. If you’re not playing a decoder as your super-breaker then Inazuma is potentially devastating too. This will only become worse as the card pool grows and we get more ICE that hurts the first time you hit it if you’re unprepared.

Maybe the solution is to play Knights? Even then, you can only have one in play so you can’t pressure multiple servers. But then you have no MU left so you can’t also run Sharpshooter and are left with the dilemma of which super-breaker to run? Do you make any ICE accessible by running Gordian or Torch, or do you go for maximum efficiency with Yog? If you play Yog you can’t also play Datasucker (unless we also pack a console / Omni-drives) so the bigger ICE then become a huge problem.

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To be honest, I’d consider taking Morningstar as “going for Maximum efficiency”. As experiments with Kit have shown, having all ICE be str 3 might not make a huge difference - it does for Code Gates, because most good ones until recently were within Yog range (or Yog-Carver), but the other ICE types have a lot more relevant stuff in the 5+ range (especially Sentries).

Great post otherwise, though.

Your analysis of the average number of runs Caprice stops isn’t right. The correct number is 2 runs stopped on average like Alexfrog said. In your analysis you don’t take into account the probabilities of the runner losing the game 3 times, 4 times, 5 times… in a row. The probability distribution for this kind of thing is a geometric distribution (Geometric distribution - Wikipedia) and the formula for the mean number of runs we need for one “success” (in this case this means the runner wins the psi-game) is:

Mean runs for 1 success = 1/p,

where p is the probability of success (1/3 for the runner). So on average it takes 3 runs for a success, so 2 runs stopped.

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Quite right @captainarf, had a bit of a moment there!

Well I guess it depends what you’re planning to do with your breaker.
If you’re playing it naked you don’t have any MU left with Paintbrush + Morningstar (not to mention wasting Kit’s ability if you’re playing her). You’re then stuffed against anything with Strength 5+ unless you can make more MU for Datasuckers or play Personal Touch.
If you play Yogasuarus then you’re in the same position as raw Morningstar, except it’s cheaper to play, cheaper to use and costs less influence. You then have room in the rig for a Datasucker and Sharpshooter.

Of course, you could do the same with Mornigstar, but that’s pretty expensive and you’re still paying for every routine you want to break. The thing with Paintbrush is that you’re spending clicks on modding the ICE, so you aren’t generating pots of cash like other runners might be. Having a free walk-in with Yog is way more cost-effective than Dinostar.

A three ICE server will cost you $4 and 3 clicks with Morningstar. meaning you have to start prepping your cash the turn in advance of when you want to run and that might cost a couple of clicks (or even a full turn if your economy is low). With Yog at least you know you’re into any server whenever you want.