Fire up the Grill! - Weyland meat lovers thread

I agree about Mausolus/BoN, but I think Mausolus could bolster Argus a bit. It’s better than Enigma, right? You can rush behind Mausolus. Instead of bouncing and losing a click, they’ll take a damage and a tag, then decide between another 2 meat or another tag. That means if they need at least 3 cards in hand to face check scoring remote or 2 clicks to clear tags. (Or 1 card in hand and 1 click to clear tag, obviously). It’s also way better for centrals since it doesn’t blank to Yog. Argus does give out BP but Mausolus may be. A good way to eat up some of the Hostile BP during runs.

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Mausolus alone certainly will not save BoN - you’d need, at bare minimum, 2 new playable advanceable ice for the ID to be worth jack. And even then, I just don’t think it beats Argus. Frankly, it upsets me that right after NBN gets the ridiculous CTM, Weyland was saddled with this thing.

That being said, I definitely think Mausolus is still a very playable piece of ice, even if I think it will very rarely be advanced (outside of Dedication Ceremony). Like @moistloaf, I think it looks strong in an Argus variant (though I’d potentially be more inclined to use it as central defence). The numbers on it are just solid, and for a very reasonable cost of 4 credits, I think it more than earns its keep. That being said, in order for the card to actually serve its taxation role, Weyland would need to limit its BP intake (more Weyland problems), so a fair amount of rejiggering would be required. Personally, I’m hoping Mausolus is a sign of things to come and a new power level baseline for advanceable ice, i.e. playable ice unadvanced, but bolstered by advancements.

Mausolus is great, marginally expensive but very taxing code gate, perfect for the Weyland glacier deck that doesn’t exist. It will see play as a 1-2, maybe even a staple in Blue Sun, because the alternatives are dire - not because it fits into any sort of plan.

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So, this is tricky.

I don’t think Mausolus works for the kind of rush I’ve been playing. You make a fair point about it being a punishing face-check on an early score but Inside Job and SMC still exist so it’s not even a guaranteed damage/tag tax. In situations where the runner is actually hitting it without a breaker we’re talking about an (admittedly very large tax) from Mausolus versus a successful score in the case of Enigma.

I completely don’t buy it as a tax. Weyland economy is terrible so runners are unlikely to even need the Bad Pub to keep up with your ICE. You can argue that maybe it works in a non-bad-pub deck the tax is more relevant but if you’re not taking bad pub what does your agenda suite look like?

I did believe, and I think I mentioned this up thread, that where it fits seems to be a more mid-game focused taxing deck but that that would only be viable if we got another good piece of ICE for that style of play or other support card in the cycle. So far, we have seen no hint that Weyland are going to get another playable card this cycle.

Even then, I’m moving towards revising that hypothetical view. Advancing ICE is just such a terrible use of clicks.

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Mausolus is a cost real-cost 3, strenght 5 Code Gate that deals damage and gives tags. Simply stick it into R&D nad it will be good. If they want to take pain to the face or break it for 5-6 credits, they are free to do it. :slight_smile:

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This is something I’ve been thinking about recently. There are kind of two kinds of “good” cards that get released:

1 - Meta defining cards that change existing archetypes significantly and create new “decks to beat”. Examples of these are Exchange of Information and Hard Hitting News (or Bioethics Association to give a token non-NBN example).

2 - Strong but unspectacular cards that improve existing archetypes. Examples of this would be Vikram 1.0, Aiki, or the upcoming DNA Tracker.

Mausolus is, at the very best, the second kind. Given that Weyland has not received a card at even this level since Oaktown Renovation (which was two cycles ago now) and were in a sorry state then, this is a drop in the ocean.

Now, it’s very unlikely that FFG are going to heavy-handedly try to fix this with an entire cycle of game-changing Weyland cards so there’s an argument to be made that this is a step in the right direction. However, having been reminded of how advancing ICE feels in experimenting with BoN, I’m convinced that the only part of this card we should be examining at the moment is the unadvanced state and in those terms it’s really not spectacular. Additionally, it’s really worrying that the strengthening of Weyland (which this was clearly intended to be) is going down the track of advanceable ICE rather than something that hasn’t been thoroughly discredited as “not good enough”.

On that topic, we’re apparently back to money for trashing your cards too…

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To be fair Reuse/Liquidation/Back Channels make perfect sense: after all who hasn’t looked a hand/board of Weyland cards and gone “this is bunch of shit I wish I didn’t have”

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In Blue Sun (or Gagarin Museum, but I’m not sure how well that’s doing post-MWL2) this is fine - but all of the good rushy decks take bad pub, so taxing ice isn’t really what they’re shooting for. It doesn’t really help the parts of the faction that are already undersupported, even if it might slightly improve the IDs mentioned.

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I feel you regarding the “good” card models. That being said, I typically dislike cards of type 1 because they often change existing archetypes by merit of being way above the power curve, not because of any interesting new exploration of design space (which I would not take issue with). Exchange of Information (here I go again) is not a design decision that should be seen as positive - the card is ludicrously overpowered as a 0 cost, single-tag requirement, non-double operation - even outside of the truly broken Breaking News interaction, it’s absurdly strong. I love Lukas, but EoI probably stands out as one of the most blatant examples of his glaring NBN bias warping the game’s comparative balance. I’m not remotely biased, by the way.

Mausolus definitely falls within the latter category, again like DNA Tracker (another card I am excited/worried about), but I’m not unhappy about that… as long as this is the establishment of a new power level precedent, not a happy outlier. I wish we could retcon all of Weyland’s terrible ice to not be terrible, but we can’t. However, if Mausolus is an indicator that the designers are actually willing to start giving Weyland playable ice, I’m pleased as punch. Yes, I’m pissed that Weyland has been shat on for pack after pack, but ever onward and upward. Also…

Please don’t remind me of Liquidation - it really is too soon. Card makes me want to take a volley of jet-propelled cheese graters to the face.

I’d forgotten about Back Channels. Christ.

I disagree. Mumbad Construction Company changed Weyland in an existential way. It brought the rush back to life, which brings the kill combo back online.

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I don’t think I understand. How does Mumbad Construction Co help rush? It’s a slow FA tool if anything.

Other than Hot-Tubs (which, let’s face it, is a museum deck, not a Mumbad Construction Co deck), have there been any successful decks using that card?

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I’m a bit late to this party, but I love your Argus deck. I do wish it had room for one HHN, but you can’t have everything. :smiley:

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Time for a non-snarky rant. I’ve been playing around with kill decks since the dawn of time, I’m trying to make one work recently, and I think they’ve gotten worse this cycle against decent players / real decks.

The obvious requirements for non-runner-f-up-kills are (1) More Money with SEA or MS / runner broke with HHN, (2) your Scorches, (3) no silver bullets active.

First, the money rolling around with runners now is absurd. Temujin Contact is everywhere, a card that I really love as a Crim player but one that I think is borderline broken. Further, any competitive deck needs to have a CtM plan, which revolved around stupid money / link / tag shedding. All of which are terrible for Weyland kill. I’ve had some luck taxing, giving up an agenda into HHN, but the better players just go “cool story, go up 2-4.” It is simply difficult to effectively rush / tax and not let the runner go up to 97 credits because OH LOOK one damn server isn’t very taxing + TC + dirty laundry / etc.

Second, since everyone needs a CtM plan, I’m now running into silver bullets more often as well. NACH / FC obliterates SEA/MS. The ubiquity of Sports Hopper is also annoying - it seems to be god damn everywhere. You used to be able to rely on some non-anarch decks going no-plascrete, but it SH seems very common now.

I can go on, but I have a feeling that this is a common experience. And I don’t think the upcoming cards will do much. Boom needing two tags, and trashable, makes it nigh unplayable for Weyland. Door to Door is baffling and expensive. BoN… well, that’s been said. My excitement for Weyland murder coming back has been tempered. I’ll keep trying, mostly with Blue Sun / Argus, but Bah. My BS deck keeps telling me, “Wouldn’t those 4 cards and two inf be better as more money and horrible huge ice?” Yes deck, yes.

SAD FACE. /rant

Also, I too want to hear about this construction co wizardry. Expensive, face up only, not sure how it’ll work.

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Bad Publicity is just so oppressive, and being the poster child faction for BP makes many non Supermodernism archetypes in Weyland simply untenable. It’s meant to be a balancing mechanic for really powerful cards, but giving the Runner up to 4 free creds per BP per turn is just insanely lopsided. Why BP wasn’t once per turn totally floors me.

When you don’t have agendas, it sits in a server. Then if you draw a public, you can FA, if you draw hostile, you can score from hand, only ATLAS has to sneak out.

They can’t let it build up, so they have to run Fort Weyland. They can’t let it sit unrezzed thanks to dedication ceremony, so they have to run face downs in the fort, which can be jacksons, Snares, whatever.

It’s the core of my deck, I think my corp went 6/3 at gencon, won some kits. I’m comfortable saying BABW does better with mcc than without.

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What agendas are you running? Assuming the runner lets it sit there, I’m guessing this needs more than Oaktown. I’ve found the expense to be ruinous, assuming you can get it to not be trashed on site (w/ a 4/3 expense swing).

For those asking about my MCC deck, I used it a few times in Dodgepong’s most recent stream. (Twitch) Red sleeves, played by the fat guy with long hair.

Deck is something like:

2 Hostile
3 Oaktown
2 Hollywood
3 Atlas

12 pieces of ice, 9 barriers 2 enigma 1 cobra

3 MCC
2 JH

Transactions for days (Restructures, hedge funds, beanstalks, green level, that new purple 1 that earns 3 and installs something)

Kill combo (2 sea source, 3 scorch)

A few silver bullets (I think 1 dedication ceremony, 1 Snare!, 1 Junebug)

3 oaktown, 2 Hollywood are the only ones that work with the MCC’s. Atlas has to score by trickery or early, Hostiles are what they are.

How does it do against ice destruction? Every time I run with low ice like that I smack into Null/Wiz cutlery / parasite and it gets ugly fast.

I’ve also found that low ice means servers open. And TC means that you’ve lost the money game against many decks.