I don’t think anyone is suggesting that you don’t play Eater just because someone might play Crisium Grid.
There are more reasons than just that.
Eater is “merely” an efficient breaker. It isn’t so efficient as to be mind blowing in the late game. Datasucker + “Standard” Rig + Parasite is much, much more efficient. Eater lets you apply combo pressure early but if you don’t hit your combo pieces you’re in real trouble in the late game.
When we look at games where MaxX/Eater misses with Siphon, it isn’t just about Crisium Grid or the Corp playing around your strategy. Sometimes the corp will stifle you but sometimes you simply won’t see your combo pieces early due to variance. Then what? At that point you’re entering the mid and late game with inferior efficiency and the inability to easily play for accesses.
Competitive decks in games with RNG factor are all about consistency. I think that’s an accepted fact. The raw power of the Eater + Keyhole (or potential power if you will) route might be higher, but it’s more prone to variance, both on Runner and Corp side. for this reason, a build that simply plays good cards and sees more of them might have lower potential power, but is going to have a better baseline power. for competitive decks, you want this consistency. even the best players can’t do much RNG steps in and their deck feeds them garbage, which is why the most competitive decks in the long run will eschew the tricks and play strong utilitarian cards. Criminal is so strong because many of their good cards are also trick cards: Siphon, Inside Job, Shutdown, for example. Shaper does one trick and does it so well that it basically dictactes how the faction is played: tutoring. With MaxX, Anarch now has a way to play more of their good cards than ever before, and the faction has a fair number of good cards. That is why this MaxX build is more stable and likely ‘better’ given a large enough sample size, moving forward.
A copy of eater could easily mean no need for zu. Spooned for lotus instead. That could mean a second legwork or lucky find. In fact, clone chips and parasites for silverware are probably a viable option, which gets you another six influence. Internally, retrieval run could protect your rig. And rather than Kati, voice pad and day job could full the economy gap. All of these changes play into making inject stronger and make the mu less stressed. I’m a firm believer in testing so I’ll try and put numbers and a list up, but I’m not sold that parasite spam is the best way to play this deck.
Things I see as hard to overcome is that parasite-deja is very efficient, but I’d expect blue sun to be an easier match up when I don’t have to worry about maintaining data sucker tokens to execute a melt.
I’ll also have to watch econ. There’s something to be said for a single piece like kati that you can easily lean on, but she also weaker since snatch and grab and more of a liability for it. Retrieval run opus on the other hand seems like something worth checking out and would be far less vulnerable. Though memory in that case and competition with day job and voice pad imply it’s probably for a different deck, maybe something closer to what Dan took.
Then there are the shards which I think any deja vu deck wants. And also Escher, which I think plays well with silverware and the anarch suite in general.
Like I said I want to actually get some reps, but I think merely repeating what we’ve seen is the easy thing to do. This might be a starting point, but it shouldn’t be considered the final stop.
As a man of letters, I do sort of agree that “Reg-Ass MaxX” is a little stilted and could be better. Can you sponsor a contest where we name the deck? Top prize is 36 hours of OCTGN coaching.
Ok, but then you’re pushed to play Knight and Femme as supports to get spot accesses … so …
In the article we’re looking at Reg-Ass actually spending fewer card slots [8 vs. 6] and less inf [2 vs. 1] on the breaker suite compared to Keyhole/Eater.
The corp can recur or replay ice better than the runner can recur Spooneds. You can play Zu against Lotus which will handle all subsequent Lotuses or Spooned, which is one shot and requires being drawn or recurred in combination with Eater.
This is even more so throwing yourself to the fates of variance. You need to hit Lotus+Spooned instead of just Zu, use extra clicks to force the rez, and you’d better hope that on top of that the corp doesn’t have/find their second Lotus and play it or use something like interns to recur it.
I agree re: Eater. The two-card combo just isn’t reliable. The best option might actually prove to be Zu + Spooned, because Lotus can suck to break for 4 repeatedly. Works on Tollbooth too. Deckslots are the eternal problem.
As far as names go, I’ve been using “Same Old MaxX.”
A contributing factor to my theory behind competitive Running is that most of the good Corp cards are good in-and-of themselves. (Most) Corps cannot spare the time trying to assemble multiple cards**; they need to defend their servers and then they need to score their agendas before the Runner has all the answers. This leads to nearly every Corp deck being a “Junk” deck, the variety lying in IDs and their faction’s card pool. Running with cards that aren’t independently strong is risky; you may not be able to match the Corp’s power fast enough, whether that be economically or ICE vs. breakers/tricks. It is an unfortunate symptom of the game, and competitive ANR will always be a field of Junk versus Junk when it boils down to it. You have your outliers like CI and PE, but I would argue that Runners will never have comparable outliers that can reliably perform. Maybe I’m wrong and this MaxX Keyhole is one. This outlook may seem reductive (RP is nothing like BS Glacier!), but there are already a large number of cards that Runners can’t really afford not to play. Anarchs, Criminals, and Shapers are all splashing for Lucky Find right now, just to be able to compete with Corp economy. Nearly everyone splashes for Legwork because you have to. IMO a large reason for Corp/Runner disparity in win percentage is that I believe Corp cards are influenced lightly compared to Runner, generally. This leads to Corps being able to play better cards than Runner. Obviously this doesn’t hold true for everything. I think Runner cards have been influenced relatively well for awhile, but Corps are still being influenced a bit too low. Maybe this is all in my head, but I suppose my point is:
tl;dr Competitive Runners have to play good stand-alone cards because competitive Corps are and always will, because they have to.
** An obvious exception being SEA + Scorch, but even this combo IMO is becoming sub-optimal, largely due to IHW, a good stand-alone card that can single-handedly stymie a 2 or 3 card combo.
If everyone hates my name so bad, just call it Clone Chip MaxX or Clone MaxX. Since you have to spend 3 on Levy and the Keyholers are splashing for Siphon, you might as well differentiate it based on that.
At [quote=“gumOnShoe, post:43, topic:3046, full:true”]
A copy of eater could easily mean no need for zu. Spooned for lotus instead. That could mean a second legwork or lucky find. In fact, clone chips and parasites for silverware are probably a viable option, which gets you another six influence. Internally, retrieval run could protect your rig. And rather than Kati, voice pad and day job could full the economy gap. All of these changes play into making inject stronger and make the mu less stressed. I’m a firm believer in testing so I’ll try and put numbers and a list up, but I’m not sold that parasite spam is the best way to play this deck.
Things I see as hard to overcome is that parasite-deja is very efficient, but I’d expect blue sun to be an easier match up when I don’t have to worry about maintaining data sucker tokens to execute a melt.
I’ll also have to watch econ. There’s something to be said for a single piece like kati that you can easily lean on, but she also weaker since snatch and grab and more of a liability for it. Retrieval run opus on the other hand seems like something worth checking out and would be far less vulnerable. Though memory in that case and competition with day job and voice pad imply it’s probably for a different deck, maybe something closer to what Dan took.
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At this point, you’re just playing the Keyhole/Eater/Siphon/Silverware deck everyone play for like 2-3 weeks because everything you proposed are already in those decks (Retrieval run instead of Clone Chip, Eater/Silverware to take out problematic ICEs, Day Job econ engine, Inject … )
And we already know what’s wrong with the siphon spamming build.
To be fair, the PPVP version of Eater/replacement effects is a slightly different beast than the Siphon decks. You give up that explosive opening for a real econ engine to fuel your Keyholes and Wantons. But it definitely is not one of these MaxX Whatever We’re Calling It decks, as it’s built on a bunch of synergies as opposed to just good stuff. It’s a fun deck of a million combos, but tier 2 on a good day.
It’s interesting Medio Max (sorry Calimsha, he got there first!) is really only using I’ve Had Worse and Knifed (which is hardly key) from O&C. Everything else is pretty old.
A lot of good players I talked to came up with pretty much the same stuff to exploit Maxx at his best and the thought of process was almost everytime the same (playing inject / spinal at first then find out that parasite did more job than the breakers and that inject taxed too much the recursion, trying out the different set of cutlery until setting to only knifed or try to play wontons instead of legwork).
Props to him for writing the article tho. It was really needed and should help a lot of players
RetRun are the most expensive piece of “clic’n go” heap tutor. In this category, you’ve got Clone Chip / Scavenge only, something that cost 2 inf out of Anarch. Most of the time you can run in archive but for the time there’s an Ice wall in front and you’d need that Coroder.
I agree it’s a great card though, being clic’n go make it fast and special vs heap tutors like Deja Vu / Sot, which either cost you 3 clics, or 2 clics / 2cr.
Kati, or Opus is mandatory in all MaxX deck, because they deck out in some game and she saved so much my ass that I can’t figure a MaxX deck without a real late game credit solution. Once you’re decking out with MaxX, SoT into Day Job is impossible. Late game SoT into Lucky Find (+6 - 4 clics) is dumb and cost you 2 inf on top of it.
Voice Pad is probably not a great card to put in this deck when you can choose with no inf CyberFeeders instead, especially in a Parasite spam deck. Poor inf’s Sahasrara, or virtual Kate / Desperado.
You have to know that you will never have all 3 PPvP before larla-ing, those you can put before larla cost 2-1 cr / 1 clic allready, this is slow vs Cyberfeeder once you install a second or third parasite, or run and break something 2x / 3x.
If you think you will play more event than running in a turn, play PPvP. In Anarch, if not, play Cyberfeeder instead tbh.
Switching for Silverware over Parasite would cause a slot problem. And those cards have really not the same tempo : Silverware is middle / late game, not parasites. Parasite are slow without DS, DS is an “economy” card that can hurt the deck removing it to put all silverware x2. Silverware can’t trigger nicelly before you Larla aswell, and can be teched against through only rezing innermost ice.
Zu could be removed for Force of Nature (really) at those conditions :
a/ you play with RetRuns. We all agree that install cost is the most stupid ever printed so you have to go around this.
b/ your deck have a strong focus toward melting so you break it once and it’s done. FoN vs Zu’s breaking price is 0.5cr higher only (+0 on 2x or 4x subs, +1 vs 1x, 3x or 5x subs). If you can insure that those ice will melt once breaked, there is no real problem. Who cares +0.5cr if the ice is not there, the corp is still loosing money.
c/ you play with reccursive credit and / or play with a lot of DS/Desperado/something that win something for a succesfull run.
I don’t think all those conditions are realised there, so Zu’s still a good card there, at the expense of inf.
I’m not an Eater beleiver. What it can do is help facechecking ice, at cost of credits, high instal cost, tempo and running without any other real purpose than hitting with Keyhole, Syphon or Silverware which are almost absent of this deck. You’d better run Darwin esp. if you run Cyberfeeders and / or scavenge if you really ever need an AI.
But, really first thing I would want to do, esp with the Larla coming and putting stack together back again is make a room for Djinn in that deck. Say you wanna draw, 1cr, draw the virus you need “now” is great. Those +2 mu helps a lot, too.
Djinn may help lowering any virus quantity by 1 and still have a virtual odds of drawing that virus the same.
And would be a great asset to have before Larla, and just after it.
I’d remove LF, put Scavenge x1 (or x2 with a CS removal, would test this, it work great), and play 47 with 2 Djinns maybe.
How much have you considered or tested a second Medium? You’ve mentioned it as one of the most important cards against Blue Sun, RP and NEH as well as one of the big reasons to play Anarch. Early Medium can be great and even playing a second one lategame is a pretty legit move. I would think those were the criteria for upping the count but I’ll need more games with MaXx to get a feel for just how fast you blow through the deck.
I’ve been thinking about how difficult it is to evaluate Medium by feeling alone. Sometimes It can just straight up steal games so quickly I don’t give it enough credit. Or when you access 6 cards (2 fresh) and miss, stupid Medium! Other times you’re staring at it in your hand when you need econ and breakers, just thinking about how you probably don’t need two copies. A reasonable cost/benefit evaluation should recognize that the upside of stealing a game is much bigger than the downside of a dead draw, like a Plascrete really.
I’ve found two Medium is the perfect number for non-MaxX decks. Given how quickly she draws, and that it’s a Virus (making Deja Vu a lot better), one is probably fine.
My first build packed 2 medium and a single D4v1d. I found out that most of the time having medium early on was just a dead draw because either you didn’t have the right breaker/parasite/economy to run often. And then it clogged the mu until I found my grimoire.
I think Dan probably came to the same conclusion.
(playing inject / spinal at first then find out that parasite did more job than the breakers and that inject taxed too much the recursion, trying out the different set of cutlery until setting to only knifed or try to play wontons instead of legwork).