I like the interaction this card has with Chopbot.
It does seem like Apex would be faster, but would still not be able to install enough stuff to get much use out of its ability.
There are a few major benefits the card has to offer. I think Endless Hunger is next to unplayable though because of this card.
I do kinda like that both Adamâs and Apexâs new cards cause some divergence in deck building. It would have been easy to make cards that were just generically good, but this forces some more thought and diversity in deck building. One could argue that theyre not strong enough to consider that yet, but the thought is nice.
This is the problem with Apex. Without Endless Hunger, his ID ability begins to border on worthless. At that point, youâre just playing Apex for the artwork (tbf, itâs really sick art, though). Sure, you can use Chopbot or something to axe the card you put down and draw a couple cards from both it and the new program, and thatâs some kind of value, but at that point you need to draw and play 2 specific cards for 1 card of value each turn (since one card you use on Apex), which seems kinda slow.
Maybe itâs way better than it seems in my head, but it seems like without Endless Hunger, Apex is bad⌠and Endless Hunger is generally really bad.
Imagine how much better Endless Hunger would have been at 3 MU!
Ah well.
At least Reaver is something for Apex, which is already the redheaded stepchild. A Faust build powered by Reaver is probably just as good, if not better than most of the previous Apex builds.
Clearly, the answer is Apex enslaving importing Leprechauns!
Endless Hunger is a great concept, but itâs killed by all the âetr but not reallyâ subs out there. I wonder why that wasnât caught in playtesting.
Endless hunger is not to play automatically.
You install this the turn before apoc.
(same turn with the clickless run).
I really wish Endless Hungerâs ability was âprevent the run from being ended,â although Iâm sure that would bring up other issues.
See, even if thatâs the optimal pay I think thatâs a design flaw. Endless Hunger and Apoc are both interesting cards, but playing it your way reduces EH to a simplistic support card for apoc.
If EH could actually get you through ice, something like @Thikeâs suggestion, you could have the synergy that looks to be the intended design - EH enables apoc and Apoc fuels EH, but they are good cards individually as well.
I agree, prior to it being released one of my friends had theorised a breaker with the text âbreak subroutine that ends the runâ. Maybe there would be rules uncertainty, but I wish Hunger had been this.
i think it would also be much more thematic if he just ate away at the âend the runâ part of a subroutine and still let the rest of it fire, so the trace still goes off if that matters for certain cards, things that do damage and end the run would still do damage, but thematically, heâs just glitching through the part of the code thatâs stopping APEX from spreading everwhere
balance issues be damned. just could have given it more influence or something. APEX definitely needs the help, and iâm not entirely sure Reaver is enough 
Reaver isnât enough to move the needle for Apex much. It will make it a faster ID to play, but I am really, really struggling to see how Endless Hunger fits in to builds, since you probably want two reavers out ASAP.
Which is funny because when Endless Hunger first dropped it seemed powerful.
But now the game is moving away from ETR ice and to tracer/multi faceted ice like DNA Tracker and Fairchild 3.0.
If the damn card was 3 MU instead of 4, it would all be good!
âPrevent the run from being endedâ is pretty much the exact wording Iâd look for on it⌠Because youâd still need to use it twice on ICE that have double ETR subs, and for ICE that have Something Bad + ETR subs, youâd still suffer the Something Bad.
But then it wouldnât be an Icebreaker, which has a bunch of other connotations. (Although I do think it probably shouldnât be an Icebreaker, anyway. Comparing Strength on EH is one of those things that shouldnât ever actually happen, though it theoretically can currently.)
Apexâs fundamental problem is that heâs continually pulled in two directions: Building a board, and wrecking the board. Anarch does this much better than Apex, because Anarch doesnât reset their own board when they wreck the Corpâs.
or if Heartbeat had more MU (which is another odd development imo)
Yep! Between the MaxX apocalypse builds and the Dumbleforks builds, Apex has struggled to do half of what Anarch can do with ease.
Prey is fine, but it isnât Cutlery.
Cutlery isnât efficient given that Apex doesnât have access to cards that break ice, rather Apex punches through ice and takes the other stuff to the face. Might be okay if comboed with E3, but it is still going to set you back a lot in terms of influence and I have no idea how you could possibly cover the other weaknesses of the ID while leveraging/recurring cutlery.
Parasucker is impossible.
And Cyber Threat or En Passant/DDoS costs way, way too much influence to import. You would be better off with Cutlery at that point.
FFG marketing copy is hysterically naff. Itâs as if theyâre marketing the game to a whole different group of people than ones that actually buy the cards. âIn a world gone wrong⌠APEX has been tearing up corporations since DATA & DESTINY with cards like ENDLESS HUNGER and HEARTBEAT.â I feel like FFG marketing is somewhere between Mario Kart and Halo fanfic.
Itâs been understood that they hire copywriters with little to no experience with the game. Some are likely not even FFG/Asmodee employees.
This article picked up on the Ashes/Party synergy. I donât think the writer is entirely clueless (or maybe somebody handed him the decklist)
Actually, the Netrunner knowledge on display is a lot better than what Iâd expect from some random dude. They know something about the game.
i would hazard a guess as to say they were coached on some things to write (and like you said, given the decklist) and likely know many things about the game but donât play it at all or not very much
âŚhuh, Reaver is âfirst time each turnâ. Get a reliable trigger on the corps turn, and thatâs up to six cards per runner turn. Faust Apex looks better and better. (I guess you run Aesop over Chop Bot at that point, with the insane card draw you already have.)
What ways are there to trigger on the corp turn? Any card with a trash cost (like, say, Sports Hopper for even more draw), but the only card that trashes face down cards I can remember is Heartbeat.