Fifty-four?

Hmm I don’t necessarily agree with that logic as much any more. Due to the expansion of the card pool, influence is a lot of the time spent for surprises (at least in runner), so it’s more about win-tricks than ‘finding good cards’ This applies partially to the corp side, but there are strong counter examples like BL in NBN and stuff like ELP in RP.

If 54 cards puts into your deck things you need/can use, you ever so slightly decrease your agenda density (arguably a good thing), and the cost is pretty minimal as long as the extra 5 cards are as good or better than the other 49. And even if they aren’t quite, there is upside. For instance adding 4 ice and 1 agenda to a deck that typically has issues having ice in the opening, but plays a fine long game.

Unless you’re worried about running out of cards, there isn’t more econ in your 54 card deck than there is in a 49 card deck where you removed an even ratio of ICE, econ, other, agenda. You reduce the consistency of your deck and gain nothing. If you run fewer cards, the chances of a bad draw (no ICE/no Econ/neither ICE nor econ) are reduced. The hands you draw are more similar.

I don’t think there’s a reason to go above 49.

@x3r0h0ur - if you’re putting in 5 cards that are better than the other 49, you had the wrong 49 to start with.

4 Likes

I agree that it’s not a choice between influence and bad cards anymore. But, unless I’ve misinterpreted what you are saying, I don’t think the idea of influence = surprises really holds except for HB glacier decks (who have the economy, ICE and support cards to have pretty much free reign on how they use their influence). RP (for example) still wants to see Ash in good time to get a scoring window and would rather see an Eli than Hitsumu-Baku. NBN generally ties into either Scorch or Biotic. Cambridge PE relies heavily on Overwriter etc. I really don’t see how it applies to runner decks where a fair chunk of influence often goes on breakers or parasites (unless you are Anarch, in which case it goes on economy) that you want to be playing as soon as possible.

I don’t think there is place for a 54 cards deck. But I think that once we have Hades Fragment (getting to 8 decent 5/3s available), a HB deck with 8 3-pointers, 3 Domestic Sleepers and 59 cards can be a really decent one (out of EtF or Foundry). Compared to 49 cards you need to add just one agenda but 9 non-agenda cards.

Some ramblings for this topic. I agree with you bayushi_david

To expand on your point, Astroscript and Nisei are extremely different than every other agenda in their respective decks. Nothing comes close to comparison, and there is no filler 2 point agenda or 1 point agenda that you could add to a deck to make up for diluting your deck.

It’s not just about influence, there is a clear power level between cards in each deck and the cards in your deck should be more powerful/useful than the cards that would become 46 etc. There is a clear amazing jump between #1 card in your deck and #45, and I really doubt that will ever change. Synergy will also tie in eventually I’m sure. Look at NEXT, adding more ice means you have less Next Ice density, so sure your ice density in deck remains the same, but the synergy amongst your ice will be weaker. We will have more and more of these interactions as time goes on.

I don’t think anyone is super wrong for playing 46 though, If you don’t have time to test your deck a ton and learn the ins and outs and find that weakest card, I’ve done it myself. .

@bluebird503, are you suggesting all corps run 45 cards?

Apart from draw consistency, the other problem with playing 54 so you can “have more econ/ice” is that any extra econ/ice that you add will simply be worse than hedge fund and eli 1.0. You would always rather see those cards in your opening hand instead of, say, successful demonstration or viktor 2.0 or whatever. Same argument as maximizing your influence density.

I would not play 45 cards except maaaaaybe in an astroscript deck (probably not even then, given the existence of fast track). Draw consistency and influence density are very marginal concerns compared to agenda density.

The only reason I can think it would be worth going up to 54 is in an accelerated diagnostics combo deck. I haven’t played the combo since before upstalk (the deck hasn’t gotten any stronger, while all other decks have), but the package of 1-ofs is so big that it really hurts your ice and economy. There I would consider adding 1 agenda, 2 econ, and 2 ice. But the deck is just weaker than NBN or Blue Sun at the moment. :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like

Agreed that 54 card decks minimize the chance of encountering influence cards.

But that isn’t the end of the story, either.

Deck size changes the macro value of some cards. So yes, diesel draws less (as a percent) of your deck.

For corps, exposure to indexing is also minimized reveals a smaller percentage of the deck. Jackon recycles a smaller percentage of the cards.

Value of cards like levy which recycles your deck also changes. I used to run a noise deck at 45 cards and always run out of cards. Bumping it up to 49 and I usually don’t run out of cards…

Having more cards also changes the relative impact of net damage, and whether protection is necessary. Running PE with 45 cards is very different than running PE with 54.

1 Like

I hadn’t thought of running over 49 in AD combo decks, but that does make sense somewhat. I’m just glad they finally get a new toy next pack to play with, as I love me some combo decks.

1 Like

What card?

Reuse most likely. Gets combo cards into the heap

1 Like

In a tournament, is the size of your deck public knowledge?

Ah, of course. I also think that card could be pretty scary in cerebral scorching.

Yeah, size of R&D/Stack is open knowledge.

Fast track? Increasing the deck size and adding Fast Tracks (assuming you had none before) will increase the corp chance of getting Nisei or Astro while decreasing the chance of the runner getting them from random R&D accesses. With respect to Nisei (or any 4 score agenda) there is often not any advantage of having Nisei vs.Fast Track in hand. Same is true for Astro (or any 3 to score agenda) if you have two fast advance tools ready to go.

1 Like

Some good discussion here!

I think it’s pretty clear that increasing the number of cards in a deck will not get you more econ, ICE, whatever. That is a function of the percentages of these card types in your deck.

With respect to agendas, the percentage of agendas in your deck is legislated to be in a certain range. Because of the discrete nature of the rule increasing the deck size by certain amounts can used to decrease your agenda density. That was not the motivation for my original post, but it is an interesting idea that came out of the discussion.

The main thing that adding more cards to your deck does for you is that you get a deck with more cards. This may be useful when playing against a mill deck (Noise) as corp, or a kill deck (PE) as runner, and there is utility in having a lot of hit points. This is where the initial query is coming from. Can I add more cards (so as to have more cards) and not hurt my deck too much?

Yea, I was referring to Reuse. What’s especially scary about it is that it can easily be thrown into your first AD and let you pitch every card in your hand you don’t need for the money to fuel enough biotic labors for extra clicks to do whatever you need to do.

I think the only reason (for now) you would want to go above 49 cards, is if it improves your agenda layout. This is a fine example. Otherwise you just add worse cards and make your deck less consistent.

Corps are special, I run 49. Someone could convince me 45 would be right for a specific deck. I’ve never tried it.

I run minimum cards for mostly janky casual combo decks. I think otherwise, there is just no reason for it, since short of nothing else you could just put in fast tracks which add dilution and redundancy at the same time.

1 Like