I feel like this new ID is very strong in the late-game, when criminals typically do run out of steam, but I feel like we are giving up powerful criminal IDs in the early game to get there.
I think the tempo that Andy, Leela, or Gabe give are much stronger, but as a rebirth target, this new ID is top-notch.
I agree he’s a good box ID. I like the way that he isn’t necessarily a crazy build around ID and can just play a decent good stuff game with recursion for econ and / powerful effects like Emergency Shutdown or Pol OP.
I don’t think an HQ focused effect is going to be any good. Corps already over defend HQ vs Crim, and the recursion in the early game seems weak compared to Gabe, and hard to leverage into something useful late due to taxing ice.
If it ever becomes good, Crisium Grid seems to wreck it even harder.
Rebirth seems the best case, and even then I am unsure.
Interdiction is going to help a lot with heavy iced / defended HQ. Denying the corp the possibility to defend his credits by rezzing assets or reacting with Crisium is a huge problem for many builds.
Yeah, but if we’re talking about Rebirth we’re using a card slot and an influence to get 5 siphons, when you could use 2 slots and no influence to get 5 siphons by including 2 Same Old Things. Rebirth to Steve for the purpose of siphon is not getting you anything you couldn’t get pretty easily elsewhere. Rebirth to Leela, on the other hand, gets you a very unique ability.
Steve sounds like a lot of fun, and there may well be a really cool Steve deck waiting to be built. But he’s hardly going to be a no brainer Rebirth option, nor is he the no brainer ID for siphon spam decks (Gabe and Ken both synergize nicely with siphon).
Meanwhile over here in the Johnny corner, I’m just dreaming about adding in SoT anyways and running 8-siphon Steve with the derez birds and Cortez.
EDIT: WAIT you can recur SoT too! TEN SIPHON STEVE HERE I COME.
I’m not enthused about Rebirth into Steve as an option. It strikes me to being similar as Rebirth to/from Geist.
I could maybe see a Rebirth into Steve for lategame recursion after your breakers are killed, but again, Steve seems to like playing with things that go to Heap by themselves, so not any of the ‘traditional’ Crim things like SecTest/Desperado.
Also, for the HQ difficulty, there’s always Sneakdoor.
Keep in mind that when the corp and runner both have 6 agenda points, Rebirth starts to seem less like a Wyldside or Beth Chang variant and starts to feel more like a Deuces Wild. If Rebirth is drawn in the lategame instead of in an opening hand, Steve is a 0 credit De Ja Vu if you have the right two cards in heap, and since De Ja Vu is a very maindeckable card at 2 credits it’s pretty reasonable that it could outclass stuff like Gabe as the bad half of Infiltration.
Admittedly Criminal is one of the most likely factions to stop drawing cards altogether in endgame scenarios, but it happens; John Masanori or whatever.
It’s not an investment rebirth option but it’s a tactical rebirth option. Even an ID that said “Whenever you encounter Enigma, bypass Enigma and trash your stack” would have a big impact on what a certain faction could do with lategame rebirth tactics.
What kind of corp lets crim into HQ in the late game for less than 2 creds? It’s a LOT more expensive than deja vu.
First stab at integrating Marrone into Strike Andy:
Event (20)
3 Account Siphon
3 Career Fair
3 Dirty Laundry
2 Employee Strike ●●
1 Hostage
2 Legwork
3 Special Order
3 Sure Gamble
Hardware (4)
3 Desperado ●●●
1 Plascrete Carapace
Resource (15)
3 Daily Casts
3 Earthrise Hotel
1 Aaron Marrone
1 John Masanori
1 Kati Jones
2 Security Testing
3 Temüjin Contract
1 The Turning Wheel ●
Icebreaker (5)
1 Femme Fatale
1 Gordian Blade ●●●
1 Mongoose
1 Paperclip ●●●
1 Passport
Program (1)
1 Medium ●●●
With less CTM/NBN in the meta powertaps become less useful and the free slots allow us to get the full set of casts in the deck. Hostage allows us to fetch the right card for the matchup (Kati vs HB, Marrone vs NBN, John Mas vs IG).
I think with the Kati you can cut a Daily Casts for the SOT you want in. Is medium still the right card or should consideration be made to 2 R&DI? Just a suggestion for testing, I know you love Medium.
with more ETF, RDi is probably the right choice. I just realized there is no need for plascrete with marrone on the board too - the corp landing a tag will be virtually impossible now
I do want to point out that Marrone doesn’t block SEA-Scorch unless he was already out when something was scored/stolen.
(I’ve also been confused… Why is Marrone supposed to stop BN shenanigans? BN gives two tags, and one counter to Marrone. So they can still EOI, or, you know, trash Marrone… My guess has been that people assume he’s out for more than just the BN score/steal?)
he gives 2 counters on a score steal, so you can use those counters to remove the tags (and draw cards)
Oh.
I somehow thought it was 1 per agenda point. Hm. Wonder why? Oh well, yeah, now it’s obvious why it stops BN.
Just watch for Midseasons/SEA and you’re good.
(Sortof want to run Aaron + Crash Space)
Aaron + hostage you find him quick with Andy
Me too, medium and siphon are such good mates. Also synergises better with temujin and sec testing.
Just thought of something awesome… Josh B + Marron.
I’ve considered the possibility, but I’m not sure it’s worth it. In pretty much every case, Josh B is a dead card until the rest of your combo is assembled. Once you have the combo live, you can fire it a finite number of times before you exhaust your Aaron counters to remove the tags, then Josh B is dead again.
It’s a neat idea to get the Josh B click without necessarily ‘paying’ the cost of going tag-me, but I think Beth is probably a better option to get an extra click sometimes if you want to splash. And beth gives some other value the rest of the time when her full combo isn’t online.
edit: but I like the way you think! there is a Johnny in there somewhere…
Playing my first ever Criminal deck and I’m loving Aaron. However, I am having some difficulty getting the hang of playing vs glacier. Architects of Tomorrow is particularly tough when every run translates into discounted bioroids.
How do you play vs glacier when you can’t destroy ice or build a shaper rig that breezes through towers of ice?