That’s what I’ve done in my version. The Atman is a monster that more or less blanks a whole load of problem ICE. Utopia I am less convinced about. People have wised up to it now and good players invariably bait it or play around it.
Mediocre players run less efficiently, and the wrong servers, meaning they’re spending more money using zu.13 for less effect. Mediohxcore players make more quality runs, and probably can survive on zu. Until a player gets better at selecting runs, they should probably go with atman.
I chose legwork because I find often that newer players are more concerned with the cool things they’re going to do when they get into the server but don’t spend enough time getting the tools to do so efficiently and frequently. Also the original had lucky find and legwork, under that same principal, I didn’t want to remove an economy card from someone learning the deck. I wholeheartedly agree with replacing scavenge if you’re running it.
You’re not giving a service to mediocre players by handing them this kind of crutch.
They should learn how to select their run more efficiently and we should give them advices on that instead.
Tough love does not apply to education. If the player is already just trying to learn the deck and how it plays, affording them some familiar comforts and less complicated choices is a better way to learn. Its also not as if that is awful either. Not every player is as good as you and Dan.
Well the point is, the deck is pretty hard to play even for a good players: since it doesn’t really have any kind of focus the same way siphon or hard R&D lock deck does. So it’s probably not the best deck to handle to a player who don’t really understand how to make meaningful run. By cutting Legwork and Zu, you basically forces the player to focus on R&D and it defeat the purpose of having a toolbox deck who can target and hurt the corp from multiple angles. I can’t see how it really improve the deck, even for less good players.
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I would say by improving the flexibility of things that you can break, and just getting in. That said, I understand what you’re saying and don’t really disagree, I can concede the point.
I am coming to the conclusion that Legwork is to runner decks as Jackson is to Corp decks. With well-built Corp decks generally having the ICE (and econ) to pressure and/or tax a Runner out of the game, I do not want to be paying whatever the tax is in clicks/credits on HQ to access individual cards with replacement. I am sure that there are subsets of decks that don’t need or want it (Noise and ICE destruction can do OK with Nerve Agent, RND deep diggers and attempted Keyhole-lockers may ignore HQ for the most part), but I think any deck that just wants to have an econ/click efficiency war with the Corp needs its Legwork.
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I think Wanton is a reasonable substitute in Eater decks. I suspect there are times when HQI is better as well, (maybe with Sneakdoor), but I’m not actually sure about that.
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I am a little surprised to hear you say that, as the click efficiency of Wanton just seems way worse than Legwork. Is there a specific example you have in mind? I tried Wanton in my Eater decks and was underwhelmed. Spending (for example) four clicks and the cost of two runs to see two cards just felt worse than Legwork every time I did it.
Gotta love using legwork and seeing sea/scorch/scorch against blue sun when they have a credit lead.
Wanton, however…
I don’t have super high opinions of the card or anything, but you can’t Legwork with an Eater and it’s 0 influence for Anarch decks that have to spend an assload of it on Siphons.
That’s why you UShard before the Legwork… 
And then you see sea/scorch/scorch and o_O
Yawp sometimes you just die
Wanton for all 3 clicks saves you, though. 
There are cases where its a good card, though in practice I haven’t found a deck I particularly like spending a whole turn (quadruple!) on the equivalent of a legwork that trashes instead of accesses.
I’m up to 3 imps in my version. I think imp is really the major reason to play the deck – it makes short work of sansans and laughs at future perfects. Good basically in every matchup. I want to draw 2 copies of it before I levy. I’m also back on board with zu.13 instead of atman. No opinion on scav vs lucky.
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I’ve been thinking along these lines with regards to Keyhole, too. Not that Keyhole is a bad card, but in terms of agenda steals it’s pretty inefficient. This makes me feel like the Legwork/Wontan comparison is probably false; they’re doing different jobs in the same way that Keyhole does a different job than other flavors of RnD pressure. Throwing agendas into the trash to be fetched is awesome, but it’s the power of denying the corp what they want that makes Keyhole or Wontan strong. Subsequently, Wontan and Keyhole aren’t automatic includes because most decks don’t actually focus on denying corp strategies as much as they do stealing quickly and closing the game out. In a deck that prefers disruption, I think Wontan could be a good card over Legwork.
Both are fine, in my opinion. I think if you play Scavenge instead of LF, 2 Imp is probably fine since scavenge serve as an imp refresher for the matchup where imp is more needed than D4V1D.
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Scavenge is just so versatile here. Great 1 of.
Yeah, it’s like a new card that reads (Imp or D4v1d)/2 influence. LF vs more Legwork vs Scavenge seems like a straight up meta call (more Legwork would seem to be appropriate for FA-heavy metas, I think you could make an argument either way for LF or Scavenge as the better anti-Glacier card with prevalence of Blue Sun as the deciding factor).