UK Nats was 157, Birmingham Regional 121. I know this doesn’t add much to the discussion, but as an FYI.
Also, Katman with Temujin, CC, SIFR, Suckers and Parasite seems to be the general good deck once SIFR comes out.
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I’ve actually always been on Asset Spam since NEH release. Technically I tried doing it from the days of C&C, using Jinteki PE, but it sorta didn’t work there back then. I’ve always thought it an interesting alternative, building a Horizontal deck instead of a Vertical one. (Heck, I remember when it was called ‘Horizontal Jinteki’.)
ICE has always been relatively meaningless; they only potentially do something the first time they’re rezzed, and then usually never after that. Assets do something at least every turn. This is why you can just pay credits to trash Assets, but you have to do something more convoluted to trash ICE. (And ICE destruction has similarly been around ever since someone realized that Clone Chip recurs Parasite on the Corp’s turn for 1 credit with Kate’s discount.)
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This ain’t really true; it provides a constant barrier to entry on the server it’s installed (whether that’s a hard barrier in the form of an ETR, or a soft barrier in the form of a nasty sentry, taxing bioroid, etc.). Yeah, people usually won’t intentionally run on an ETR if they can’t get around it, but they do still need to pay whatever form of tax to get around it.
I mean, glacier was a strong archetype, and won 2015 world’s even, so I’d be hard-pressed to agree that it’s always been (even relatively) meaningless.
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This does lead to some interesting considerations though. Rezzed ICE is very predictable in Netrunner, and predictability is sort of boring. Once I know that Eli 1.0 is on a server, I know exactly how much tax that Eli is going to cost me.
Compare that to running unrezzed (and unknown) ICE; man it could be anything. Is it a harmless Vanilla, or a Brainstorm? DNA to clear the hand and bank? This is exciting, and I think more interesting. I think it’s part of why (I find, at least) early game Netrunner is more fun than late game. Late game is very much just an efficiency problem; the board state is (more or less) known, and the answers are on the table to deal with any would-be surprises anyway.
I think it would be interesting to see more hidden ICE replacement shenanigans. Blue Sun is along the lines of what I’m thinking, but Weyland ICE is also boring as fuck, or at least has been until recently.
You just say that because you aren’t interested in learning which barrier is about to end the run!
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The problem with promoting asset spam (at the expense of ice) is that one faction and in that faction, one ID, will dominate the competitive metagame until rotation. Until the other factions get more reasonable options to deal with asset spam, the faction diversity will be very monochrome.
I was sort of meaning more from a position of ‘for advancing your win condition, ICE doesn’t do anything, compared to Assets which do.’ They are a drain on both Corp and Runner, the Corp just hopes it’s in their favor. To look at it another way, ICE is a Credit Sink. to rein in Runner/Corp economy generation.
There was an article about the cost to get in that explained why Glacier was a good and viable archetype. ICE adds credit costs to access a server. But, it’s linear at best; each ICE added gives +X to the cost to break the server. Glacier was good when Defensive Upgrades like Ash and Caprice were unchecked, because an Ash made it cost twice the cost of the ICE, plus 3 credits, or up to the Corp’s credit pool +4 credits more to break the server. And Caprice was similar, adding 2/3 the cost of breaking the ICE to the server. (Taking the middle road and just claiming that it’s 66% chance that you win Caprice’s game as the Corp. In reality I’m inclined to believe that number is closer to 50%, but that’s another discussion.)
This is why I said ICE was ‘relatively’ meaningless. When compared to the multiplicative effects of the Upgrades, ICE is a minor footnote. The Best ICE could not beat just one Upgrade, and the more ICE you put, the better the Upgrade became.
To look at it another way, no Glacier deck runs zero upgrades. (Except recently because Ash/Caprice are easily countered…) Every deck runs ICE (except PE.) but not every deck runs Upgrades. Glacier specifically always runs Upgrades, or else some way to score that doesn’t depend on hoping the Runner can’t break an entirely faceup stack of ICE. (Biotic, Jeeves, Trick of Light) In fact, this is one of the main delineations between Glacier and Rush. Rush doesn’t run Upgrades and instead relies on just ICE to do the job. And in fact, has to do it fast, because ICE on its own doesn’t stop Runners… forever.
(I also feel it necessary that when I said that ICE ‘does something’ only the first time it gets rezzed, I meant besides making the Runner pay some number of credits to break it. It’s exceedingly rare that Runners let ICE subroutines fire more than once a game, unless it does something that the Runner doesn’t care about, in which case the ICE is still not doing anything meaningful.)
People score agendas behind gear check ICE all the time, or any ICE even for a never advance agenda or trap deck. I realize that you elude to this when you bring up rush decks vs. glacier decks, but an important part of glacier’s game plan (or, certainly, any deck’s) is playing rush when the situation calls for it.
I mean, the mentioned upgrades were definitely a huge part of glaciers success back in the day, and their printed counters are definitely a reason for the archetype’s fall from grace. But they went hand in hand together; while the upgrades were the strongest portion late game, a multiplicative effect on zero is zero. Empty Ash isn’t effective, and, while empty Caprice could be (I once spent 4 clicks running an empty game winning Caprice and lost each), it’s not a good plan. Ash behind something like Eli/Bastion is looking better, but it’s still not enough to stop a runner in the late game. Just as those decks wouldn’t work without Caprice/Ash, they wouldn’t work without their ICE.
I don’t want to nitpick here, but I’d say that, in my experience, I do let routines fire sometimes that I definitely care about because I need to access the server. Not to say I slam my face into komainu repeatedly, but, I mean, sometimes you gotta take that turnpike tag right? It isn’t extremely common, but it isn’t extremely rare either, if people are pressuring you into it.
I think we see eye to eye on the broad strokes here, and maybe just debating verbiage. I agree the upgrades were integral to the late game of those old glacier decks. But ICE has always served a very vital role, in almost any deck.
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I too fear the rise of Gagarin.
Well at any rate, the value of Apoc will rise proportionally to asset spam, for whatever that’s worth.
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True, but you’ll need to have a plan to deal with Hostile Infrastructure.
Edit: And Apoc doesn’t really help runner diversity much. It’ll be Whizzard or Anarch, and a runner that can afford 6-9 influence and has a disposable boardstate or Apex.
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Maybe Interdiction?
Apoc Sifr Ankusa Exile is the new meta, calling it now.
Sifr won’t help against rush decks because those ices are allready low str.
It “would” help against the 2x / 3x high str ice a game you see in remote / centrals in some decks.
Sifr is not auto include by far.
It seems to me than people are, again, running in circle, shaking their hand and screaming the world’s over.
We saw that for so many cards, people never learn.
I mean, people were right about some? I don’t think anyone looked at cards like Caprice and EoI, and thought “these cards will create a positive player experience”.
I guess none of those cards managed to singlehandedly make everyone stop playing Netrunner, though. Nor have they literally made the sky fall, so we’ve got that going for us at least.
My local Group dont play anymore, and i only play in jinteki and usually not have fun anymore when i play against anarch. Is not lose or Win, is simply the game dont allow me have any chance With the glaciers decks i like and use the básic mecánichs That made me fall in love of the game. Is not wrong there are more styles of plays but the sky is already fall when this styles are so unbalanced.
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Yes, running around screaming about the end of the world - or even the end of Netrunner - is always hyperbolic and not particularly useful.
But how often has the general Netrunner or, just to get elitist, Stimhack community really struck out on the impact of a card by overvaluing it? Undervaluing, sure, that seems to happen fairly regularly and likely is explained predominantly by meta changes (sup Powertap and Networking). But I can’t really think of a card that the Royal Everyone freaked out about that resulted in a total fizzle. And I’m pretty sure I can think of many, many significant cards that were accurately predicted. I feel like the community is pretty damn good at evaluating card value now - we’ve seen around a thousand, after all.
And the reflexive condemnation of people who are valuing this card highly, or really dislike it from a design perspective, with a sort of snooty, “New child, we’ve seen this before and the sun still rises,” attitude is, at best, condescending. Some people have particular builds that they find enjoyable, saw them as what attracted them to the game, and do not like seeing their preferred style of play obliterated by new cards that radically shift the landscape. For example, I find horizontal asset games miserable - the vertical glacier game is what I loved about Netrunner. My dear Blue Sun bootcampish builds in particular. Then Mumbad Cycle, then Rumor Mill, then this card - which strikes me as a death sentence to most Blue Sun builds if it becomes popular.
SIFR is yet another card that pushes Netrunner in a direction I do not want to see the game go in and, in my humble opinion, another design error. No, it won’t be an autoinclude in every deck, but if it sees a high enough percentage of inclusion then - I predict! - that it will further hammer glacier into the ground. Which I think is terrible for the game.
JANUS lolz hand temp down one pay 2 mongoose next
But who knows, haven’t seen the corp cards yet, maybe they’ll just have a giant batshittery contest this pack.
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Yeah, where are the corp spoilers?? I need my spoiler fix!
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The overblown complaint threads do seem to happen relatively regularly. The last one I could think of was for Sandburg. Seems like it happens once or twice a cycle. That said, I have no comment on whether that is the case with SIFR.
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Fair enough, and without Rumor Mill - another card accurately freaked out about - it may have been a big deal. That facecrushing silver bullet showed up so quickly Sandburg died just as it was starting to flex. So I guess I should amend my post with, “… unless that fizzle is the result of another freakout card printed.” 
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Peace in our time ended up costing 1 influence so it won’t get played
IT Department?
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