Yeah, I agree with both sentences here. I do think the thematic angle might be more of a reason than balance that you don’t see much tag-less meat damage though - it doesn’t make too much sense that the corp can attack the runner in meatspace without knowing who they are.
Even Punitive Counterstrike is hard to explain away: can the corp find out who the runner is when they steal an agenda, but they give that info to a hitman without bothering to keep a copy for themselves? Or do they just send someone to shoot every single runner in the city? It all goes a bit odd however you try to rationalise it.
I suppose thematically that’s why Punitive involves a trace.
Vulcan Coverup and Contract Killer work thematically to me and don’t involve tags or traces so I don’t think coming up with something world-consistent is beyond the design team whose many achievements include fantastic melding of theme and mechanics.
I get the feeling that we’re going to see a lot of games end with 24/7 + double-boom power shutdown/accelerated diagnostics kills when Boom comes out.
2x boom, 1x power shutdown, and 1x accelerated diagnostics (9 influence total) leaves you 6-8 influence, plenty to make this combo more likely to go off with MCH and Consulting Visit.
Note: Some cards do not have any influence value (this is different than a card that has an influence value of zero). These cards are identified by their lack of an influence box. A card without an influence value cannot be used with an identity card that has a different faction affiliation.
Anyway, the reason I came into this thread was because I played a Weyland yesterday who had the perfect storm of Money turns early, Product Line for Scorches, then Oaktown advance spam.
I was running a Magnum deck so I spent a lot of time drawing for Film Critic and getting money, thinking “if the HQ is 3 scorch and a consulting visit, then I can just wait for the corp to have to make some hard choices.” Meanwhile, the corp is on 50 credits and has scored naked Atlases that I knew I couldn’t run the risk of stealing.
It felt like one of those Weyland games that Weyland players dream of where the runner cannot act for fear of death, but I know the second I sleeve up Core Weyland and fill it with 3x Bean 3x Hedge etc, my hand will be Oaktown, 2x GFI and 2x Quandary.
It got me thinking about Magnum as an econ option and how even with unlimited money with no need to draw, I couldn’t keep pace. Kati can’t keep that kind of pace, but does let you draw as well.
Something I’ve been debating is if running a Localized Product Line or Reclamation Order is worth looking into. There’s been so much I’ve Had Worse or Sports Hopper running around that sometimes two nukes isn’t enough when the opportunity arises and you havn’t gotten access to a third. But if I’m able to recycle the nukes (who said they weren’t green? …pun unintentional…) back into my hand and hit them again while they’re still floating tags from a HHN, or if a Judge is rezzed and still able to spit out tags, it might be enough
Off topic, but seeing someone play localized production line at the Toronto regionals to grab 3 exchange of informations was pretty hilarious–that card may be underexplored in general.
Although, I guess there is the option of Subcontract if Sports Hopper continues to be a thing as well, since they won’t have the timing option to pop the Hoppers to refill their hands after the first nuke lands.
Does any one have any semi-tested to fully tested builder of nations brews? I just put something in the oven, curious to see what others have thought up.
Right now, mine basically looks like Supermodernism with advancable ICE, so I’m not exactly going deep down the rabbit hole. Nothing special, but here it is: