Valencia saves money on runs so the impact is not as great
MaxX continues to auto-mill, helping to preserve some tempo and opportunity.
Kim is hurt the most by a purge as an aggressive runner with no benefit for NOT running. As a runner who wants to hit centrals constantly you need clicks free, and that means not wasting recursion on Imp. Your recursion is used on parasite to keep punching a hole through centrals. With scrubber you can kill every card they have as Kim except ice, and an aggressive runner would much more prefer the Corp to install and rez that ice before you kill it, denying those credits while pressuring the econ in R&D. Combine that with scrubber taking zero memory and infinitely replenishing itself and the choice is clear.
I don’t doubt that you can push this further (the gang sign decks, for example) but you don’t HAVE to. I’ve found that you can just run, use your ability + scrubber credits to thin HQ, use Medium and your ability on R&D, and have a good result.
Oh, this does sound fun. It’s just in the complete opposite direction to how I’ve been playing Kim - I should give it a go. Got a list?
I think we should just both step back from each other and come back to this subject after we browse over politics or religion for a hot tick. I’ll even buy the first splash.
I dunno, I’d prefer to force the corp to waste clicks digging for relevant ice and then parasite it down. Imp is really good with Kim and it’s a shame that CVS is everywhere right now.
I would argue that Kim is very poorly positioned in the current meta and what I perceive to be the D&D meta. IMO HB, Jinteki, and Weyland are all going to largely be playing asset economy. You won’t get much value out of Kim against the majority of HB and Jinteki lists. You may hit a Scorch/piece against Weyland, but again, as Gagarin becomes more popular, I don’t think you’ll get much value out of Kim against Weyland either. Sure, NBN is getting some new operations, but I don’t think Kim will give you enough extra value versus those decks than Valencia or Noise. I just still cannot see myself sleeving up Kim any time soon. IMO he’s the least viable Anarch right now, and D&D won’t change that.
Did I miss the meeting where wyldcakes is always better than ErH and inject? I’d think with CF and clone chip that ErH could be just as good, and more flexible. Maybe someone a lot smarter than me could math out how many clicks you lose to wyldside on average before finding AC, compare with costs associated to ErH and taking slightly fewer cards over the avg game. Inject is amazing is why I mention it. -3 WS -2 AC +3 ErH +2 Inject is my usual hot swap
I don’t know for sure, but I know that if a card said ‘Click: Draw 2 cards’ I’d more likely than not play it. Wyldside is passable, even without Pancakes, as it’s close to a forced Diesel every turn… Then Pancakes makes it a free Diesel every turn.
The benefit I see to ErH+Inject is that it’s a little less expensive, and it’s 5 cards instead of 3 that are ACTUALLY ‘Draw cards’ instead of only 3 ‘Draw cards’ and 2 ‘Support’. The problem with Inject is that it doesn’t do what you want it to in a Program-heavy deck, and also requires you to play some form of Recursion, usually Clone Chip.
Ultimately, it’s a pros vs cons decision. I usually come down on the Wyldcakes side of things if I’m in Anarch, and using ErH in Criminal, and Diesel in Shaper.
I dunno, he kind of goes to direct war with butchershop. Any access where he trashes Scorched, Midseasons, Traffic, Econ or 24/7 News is probably worth the hit.
He also hits astrobiotics in the knees, trashing econ, biotics and other tricks.
Astrobiotics and Butchershop will be tier 1 and will be everywhere. RP will still be making some appearances as well.
Weyland and HB are probably the only bad match ups where his ID ability won’t be getting as much play, especially in a post team turtle power world. But I am not convinced Weylands flavor of Turtlepower is tier 1 compared to NEH.
So… I guess it depends on what you want to call tier 1 post big box. I would rather bank on the sure bet that NBN and HB will be the factions to beat, with Butchershop getting perhaps even more competitive.
From my experience, the biggest problem for Edward Kim is HB glacier decks. Frequently, they run only 5 operations (3 Hedge Fund, 2 Biotic Labor), with some even opting to forego Biotic (leaving a mere 3 targets). Furthermore, given that Edward is very likely unable to contest HB glacier’s relentless campaign economy (bolstered by Breaker Bay Grid), trashing a Hedge Fund, outside of the early game, is often barely relevant when the Corp is already swimming in sexbot cash. And with Global Food Initiative, HB glacier is all the more potent.
I still feel that the majority of Corps are largely fueled by assets/upgrades and Edward does nothing to combat our present paradigm.
Butchershop is one of the few matchups where I don’t feel like I am actively handicapping by picking Kim. And even there, I’m frequently relying on lucky accesses. That being said, if one’s meta was abnormally homicidal and primarily consisted of Butchershop (and everyone just seemed to hate HB for some reason), I think Edward Kim might just earn his keep.
Any attempt I’ve made to build a Kim deck will run Earthrise and Inject as opposed to Wyldcakes. For a Runner who absolutely needs to be aggressive and needs to maintain tempo, Earthrise and Inject just seem to work far better with Kim. Plus, the proposed list is already running 2 Deja Vu and 3 Clone Chips - thus solving the program-trashing ‘Inject problem’.
Regarding your submitted list, @CodeMarvelous, I wish you all the best with it, despite all that has been said (by myself and others) thus far. Test away and do provide feedback as results come in. As mentioned above, I prefer Earthrise and Inject to Wyldcakes, although Faust definitely prefers the latter.
I found that HB had a terrible Anarch matchup. Most of their ICE has a needs a critical mass problem that Anarch can keep them from achieving. If anarchs can get in, Medium starts growing and things start to unravel for the corp. If your reason for not playing and Kim is your ID doesn’t do anything against HB, try it. You might find that’s not as big a problem as you thought.
Obviously in a metagame where the only matchup was HB glacier, you wouldn’t choose Ed Kim. But we don’t live in that world.
I strongly Disagree with HB having a terrible Anarch match up.
In our meta, we play HB with team sponsorship and Turings fro Noise, IQs and Victors for the NRE Yogs, Heimdal 1.0 and Ellis for the tax and 3x Ash and 2x Caprice.
I have yet to find an anarch build that can cope with all these. And Biotic labouring an ABT with a team sponsorship down never felt better :).
Maxx cannot keep up with the Rush if the agendas show up and Noise is really at his worst with 3x architects and Team sponsorship. Kim can find almost nothing. Only Whizzard with 3xSiphons can be a challeng IMHO.
To a certain extent I agree, in that a single Eli or Ichi won’t stop an Anarch intent on multiaccessing to do just that, but it sounds like you’re mostly referring to NEXT ice variants. Faust certainly does help, but again, experientially, I feel that HB:ETF tends to fare pretty favourably against Ed. I feel you’re more just making the point that Anarch is really strong right now at getting accesses when they really need them, which is a point I certainly won’t contest.
I know it’s the internet and thus I could just be some random tool who has never played more than a couple of games with Kim, but please do not make these kinds of assumptions. To clarify (hard to convey tone online), I am not remotely upset - just want to make a point. I consider myself fairly experienced with Kim, having done testing with janky Gang Sign shenanigans and various SMC builds, all the way through to aggressive Desperado builds and dedicated Faust variants. My comments had an empirical basis, not a speculative one.
Sorry. My post was poorly worded. My experience was different. When I was playing Kim in tournaments, HB felt fine. I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything. Tone is hard.
Edit: Team Sponsorship might make it worse. I haven’t played Anarch much since UoT
Bizarrely i was tinkering with a Kim list this morning as a mental exercise, and thought to pop onto stimhack and review the old Kim thread for some ideas, and then saw @CodeMarvelous list with the exact same breaker suite. Small world.
I don’t think Medium is as great as it was anymore, against NEH i hit CVS so often it drags out what would otherwise be a 2-3 turn epic dig into something considerably more piecemeal. I dont know if this list is better without it or much much worse, but i’m keen to give it a go and see what happens when anarchs abandon known good red cards
This list is built with NEH very much in mind, both TS-FA and Butcher shop. Hammer centrals (get it?). Use imp to snipe ice and the 2nd op you hit, should you hit 2. Scrubber away assets as much as possible, try and stay in the magic 5c zone of the corp so they cant suddenly money up and kill you for running. Turntable away astro’s and also breaking news, as 24/7 is a thing now.
Kim loses value against HB so hopefully hacktivist helps there. In a world with lots of HB and NEH asset spam, Queens gambit i think is very safe as a 3x include.
I think 3 queen’s is too much, while great, it can be exploited, 2 is probably fine. Without a good tutor you’re going to be hurting for the right breaker at the right time, especially with 1 of the 2 ETR breakers, even with Faust I can see it being an issue.
Gang sign is okay, but corps can handle whats in HQ these days, you’re unlikely to hit an agenda IMO. I would dump them for SMCs, and squeeze in stimhack.
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