How do we make Weyland good?

prozz · November 27, 2015, 5:50pm

what exactly is A/C and A/S?

benjaminwald05 · November 27, 2015, 5:51pm

Anarch/Criminal and Anarch/Shaper, I presume

hannibalrex · November 27, 2015, 8:20pm

The biggest problem of Weyland Rush seems to be scoring the last two points. How viable is rushing without the threat of meat damage, once your opponent knows your list? Apart from Weyland’s agendas and Scorched, Archer and Power Shutdown are the most faction-defining cards to me.

So… We could try going all-in on the program trashing, either with Archer, Batty and Troubleshooter, or possibly by giving SEA/Bad Times a try again. Both of these will need to be backed up by Chronos Project, however.

The other avenue is including one or two copies of Trick of Light backed up by CVS. That would usually require you to have an unscored Atlas left by the time you reach 5 points.

Sabin76 · November 27, 2015, 9:23pm

I actually just built one the other day. In my solitaire runs for tweaking I played against my Sunny deck and she hurts it quite a bit (she is absolutely unstoppable when set up!). I was also playing Atlas wrong (Overadvance?! Nah!), but the 17 influence and leveraging tokens off of GTF/HRI creates some very interesting scenarios. You can play a few splashed one-ofs with atlas to adapt to the situation. Right now I have a limited cardpool, so I’m splashing all NBN for heavy tags and whatnot. It feels like I have too much going on, but I didn’t want to rely on just one or even two win conditions:

###[Titan Psychokiller 1.1][1] (49 cards)

[Titan Transnational: Investing In Your Future][2]

Agenda (8)

1 [Firmware Updates][3]
2 [Geothermal Fracking][4]
1 [Government Takeover][5]
1 [High-Risk Investment][6]
3 [Project Atlas][7]

Asset (10)

1 [Constellation Protocol][8]
1 [Ghost Branch][9] •
2 [Jackson Howard][10] ••
2 [Launch Campaign][11]
2 [Mark Yale][12]
2 [Space Camp][13]

Upgrade (1)

1 [Cyberdex Virus Suite][14]

Operation (15)

3 [Beanstalk Royalties][15]
3 [Hedge Fund][16]
2 [Housekeeping][17]
1 [Midseason Replacements][18] ••••
2 [Psychographics][19] ••••• •
2 [Scorched Earth][20]
1 [SEA Source][21] ••
1 [Traffic Accident][22]

Barrier (4)

1 [Hadrian’s Wall][23]
3 [Ice Wall][24]

Code Gate (5)

3 [Enigma][25]
2 [Wormhole][26]

Sentry (5)

1 [Archer][27]
2 [Caduceus][28]
1 [Data Raven][29] ••
1 [Shadow][30]

ICE (1)

1 [Orion][31]

I keep going back and forth on the agenda suite, but I’m sticking with this for now and we’ll see once I actually start using it on octgn.

Edit: grammar and clarity.

moistloaf · November 27, 2015, 9:30pm

The list doesn’t strike me as full Rush but I understand you don’t have all the cards. If you like to play Weyland you definitely need to get your hands on the data pack with Oaktown Renovation ASAP!

Another thing I haven’t tried is a rush build that goes all in with Midseasons. Weyland Rush can get by without splashing for too much ICE (if it has to). Maybe I’ll try that, likely out of BABW instead of Blue Sun.

Sabin76 · November 27, 2015, 9:55pm

Yeah, midseasons does work in my list. If you can get just 3 tags to stick, things start looking really good. And I use JHow to put cards I previously passed up back into R&D once I have atlas counters to pull them back out. I usually only need one JHow to flush the hand of GT if I see it too early, and I can use both if I don’t. Only problem for me is facing Sunny with 8 link and two plascretes . And I didn’t even tech against my own deck .

I’m probably going to head out to FLGS in a bit to see if I can pick up 1-2 more data packs. I’ll keep an eye out for Chrome City.

JTG81 · November 27, 2015, 10:05pm

My Weyland Rush deck had no Tag punishment at all but was all in on Rush. I had a decent win Ratio with it (about 60%) and it helped me win a small GNK tournament. I think that Weyland is better without Scorch ATM.

moistloaf · November 27, 2015, 10:06pm

Oh wow , didn’t even notice the GT in there. That’s definitely ballsy.

Here is the BABW list I just cooked up. Power Grid Overload is probably being optimistic. Shattered Remains is probably a more viable way to get rid of Plas.

BABW Rush

Building a Better World (Core Set)

Agenda (11)
1x Geothermal Fracking (Opening Moves)
1x Global Food Initiative (Data and Destiny) ·
3x Hostile Takeover (Core Set)
3x Oaktown Renovation (Chrome City)
3x Project Atlas (What Lies Ahead)

Asset (3)
3x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) ···

Upgrade (3)
1x Crisium Grid (First Contact)
2x Cyberdex Virus Suite (Order and Chaos)

Operation (18)
3x Beanstalk Royalties (Core Set)
2x Green Level Clearance (A Study in Static) ··
3x Hedge Fund (Core Set)
2x Midseason Replacements (Future Proof) ····· ···
1x Power Grid Overload (Trace Amount)
2x Restructure (Second Thoughts)
3x Scorched Earth (Core Set)
2x Traffic Accident (Order and Chaos)

Barrier (6)
2x Ice Wall (Core Set)
1x Meru Mati (Breaker Bay)
3x Spiderweb (The Underway)

Code Gate (4)
3x Enigma (Core Set)
1x Lotus Field (Upstalk) ·

Sentry (4)
2x Archer (Core Set)
1x Assassin (Data and Destiny)
1x Taurus (Upstalk)

Cards in deck: 49 (min 45)
15/15 influence used
Agenda Points: 20
Cards up to Data and Destiny

Deck built with Net Deck Connecting to the iTunes Store.

List seems reasonable for Rush. Ice Walls could probably be Wall of Static. Would also like to find a slot for at least 1 Fast Track and maybe a Snatch and Grab

JTG81 · November 27, 2015, 10:12pm

No way powder grid overload is awesome. It can take out plascretes clone chips etc. I love that card for scorch Weyland and have even trashed a toolbox with it lol

GreedyGuts · November 27, 2015, 11:56pm

Doing that twice in a game, though, especially against Noise, huuurts. Getting them to waste a Clone Chip is nice, sure, but it accelerates the mill issue. If Jackson didn’t take influence, it’d be a much safer play, but as things stand losing 6-odd cards over the course of a game to enable rush often feels like it just means I have to try protecting yet another server.

If Weyland had a solid multi-sub Code Gate it might be a different story. Something like Spiderweb, perhaps. The big issue I see is that they don’t have many in-faction code gates, fewer still worth playing, and that means they’ve got to use Enigma and Quandary to cover that hole. Many Anarch lists are leaving out dedicated decoders, so it’d help them against AIs and D4V1D both if they had something solid to use in that space.

[quote=“JTG81, post:390, topic:5699, full:true”]
No way powder grid overload is awesome. It can take out plascretes clone chips etc. I love that card for scorch Weyland and have even trashed a toolbox with it lol
[/quote]The issue there being the low initial trace. I dunno, I’ve had trouble with expensive ice leaving me rather broke, even in Weyland, to the point that I could barely hit a Clone Chip without risking going broke.

moistloaf · November 28, 2015, 12:06am

I’ve never played the card, but this is what I worry about, along with the runner just needing to lose the trace by 2 to avoid trashing plascrete. I reckon you can hit clone chips with it which may help with D4vid recursion. I will report back after I try the list. I get very excited any time I have a new rush list to try. It’s just such a fun archetype to pilot and very interactive on both sides.

CrushU · November 28, 2015, 7:18am

The actual problem with Power Grid Overload and Power Shutdown is that neither of them actually protect your Agendas. (I still run Power Shutdown though, because there are certain decks that get destroyed by it.)

If you install Mother Goddess and IA Oaktown turn one, and they Faust through it… You still lost two points. Doesn’t matter so much that you can Shutdown for 3 and kill the Faust, you’re still behind. And God help you if that was Valencia and she just Blackmail’d in instead. Or any Criminal with an Inside Job. Corp Rush has always been a subpar strategy because of these things, only made playable by Fast Advance from NBN/HB.

All of the Corps tend to have a pattern behind their Agendas. NBN is Fast Advance, sometimes Never Advance. Jinteki is IAA, IA, or Never Advance. HB is one of the most flexible, able to pursue FA, NA, and IAA just as easily. NA has been their preferred strategy, though. Weyland can’t FA, so is forced to Jinteki’s options, but their facedown cards don’t bite the Runner. And, with Caprice and Batty, Jinteki has better options for protecting their agendas in-faction than Weyland does. The only thing Weyland is (supposed to be) better at than the other factions is killing the Runner. Jinteki is supposed to be second-best at it, which is why those two corps have limited options for Scoring to Win. However, by tying Tags into Weyland’s Runner kill, NBN ends up being better at it because they are the Tag faction. It’s easier to import the 3 Scorch cards than it is Data Raven, Gutenberg, and any other Tag cards, including Agendas that can’t be imported like Breaking News or TGTBT.

So, Weyland’s left in limbo. NBN and HB do Rush better because they have the FA tools to close the game. Jinteki does bluffing, traps, and NA/IAA better because they have a real probability of killing the Runner. NBN is better at Killing the runner because it’s tied to Tags.

Fixing Weyland? Figure out some way for them to win that isn’t done better by another faction. Right now, I suspect you could make Weyland the IAA king because of their Construction background, but that would mean you’d have to give them meaningful Traps, and not Econ-differential traps like GRNDL Refinery. And currently, that’s Jinteki’s wheelhouse. I suspect, moving forward, that Gagarin will end up being the best Weyland ID, because Multiple Fortified Remotes isn’t something any Corp does right now. Asset-Spam NEH, Shell-Game Jinteki, and Scoring+Econ Remotes HB seem similar, but Gagarin has a unique ability to penalize All runs on Remotes. It has shades of Replicating Perfection, honestly.

moistloaf · November 28, 2015, 8:08am

Not necessarily contesting that the near-future may show Gagarin to be strongest green; however there is still a problem with Gagarin. Having all the remotes and money in the world doesn’t matter when the Runner can camp your scoring server. NBN overcomes this with SSCG and the Astro token. Jinteki overcomes it with Caprice; HB with Ash. These tools are so crucial to scoring agendas in a remote that all 3 of these factions play their own tool -and- import one of the others. NBN plays Ash; HB plays Caprice; Jinteki plays Ash.

Weyland doesn’t have a similar tool. The closest thing green has is the threat of Scorch. The issues there are two-fold. First is Plascrete, a card that passively stymies most meat damage lines for 3c. Second issue: Scorch requires further cards to leverage, and the only viable ones are out-of-faction.

I maintain that Weyland’s largest problem is their lack of an upgrade that helps to score agendas. Their lack of one in the current pool results in them being starved for influence. Outside of that, the Weyland pool is actually pretty strong, but they are stretched too thin for influence. That is the single biggest problem IMO. Please don’t claim The Twins is an answer. It is incredibly narrow and looks silly next to the other factions’ flagship upgrades.

Weyland also needs a punishing, advanceable ambush. It is ridiculous that they do not have a single in-faction ambush. No, Space Camp doesn’t count. I wish AggSec was green; that is the ambush Weyland deserves. It would fit perfectly into Weyland mechanics and theme. Even though it is underplayed, NBN has Ghost Branch, and Jinteki has Junebug.

I think an upgrade is priority one, and an advanceable ambush priority two. A distant third in my mind would be something to increase the viability of advance ICE.

popsofctown · November 28, 2015, 11:30pm

I think ambushes are not really in the Weyland flavor or the Weyland spirit. Oaktown Renovation and Public Support paint a different picture of Weyland. Punitive Counterstrike and Scorched Earth “ambush” out of the hand instead of using facedown traps like Jinteki.

Even if mechanically you thought that was the easiest way to get Weyland up to viable, it’s not the fastest way, since an archetype that uses an advanceable ambush loses or weakens Oaktown Renovation. A facedown advanced card is automatically not Oak Town Renovation, helping out calculations for the runner. Weyland’s good hard ETR ice also doesn’t synergize with that gameplan.

I agree strongly with a defensive upgrade on par or approaching the strength of the other factions though. An upgrade that forces the runner to encounter an ice protecting the server, even if it was skipped, would be very Weyland. Or just any upgrade that let Weyland use their credits to kill a run would feel Weyland.

As for advanceable ice, I think everyone feels on the same page that it would be nice for advanceable ice to do something besides sit in binders, but it seems tricky for it to be made viable, particularly for it to be made viable in a way that’s not super swingy (Oh crap, I didn’t draw the Subliminal Ice Advancement that FFG printed to make advanceable ice not horrible and I drew all space ice, guess you get infinite free accesses)

popeye09 · November 29, 2015, 12:21am

[quote=“popsofctown, post:395, topic:5699, full:true”]An upgrade that forces the runner to encounter an ice protecting the server, even if it was skipped, would be very Weyland.
[/quote]

Underway Grid as a neutral card already does the “no bypassing” bit of this. It ought to be a good tool in rushing out of Weyland remotes.

moistloaf · November 29, 2015, 12:39am

There is no ideological difference between Scorched Earth and a theoretical advanceable ambush. All of the Corps are forthcoming about certain aspects of their operations, while keeping others under wraps. Honestly, from what we have seen so far, NBN is less nefarious than Weyland, but they still have Ghost Branch. NBN may take a deep interest in your behavior, but they aren’t sending kill squads after you. I think it’s safe to say despite their ability to put their best foot forward to the public, Weyland isn’t fooling Runners, who have seen the other side of the Big Green.

That’s a really long winded way of me disagreeing with you. Ambushes do/would not contrast with Weyland on a thematic level. None of the Corps are entirely malevolent or entirely harmless.

Only 6 of our points can be Oaktown. The others are going to need to be scored at some point. It’s not like other Weyland agendas are anti-synergy just because Oaktown is a thing. We just received Back Channels in faction, but we don’t actually have a way to use it. That’s just another reason why Weyland could use an ambush.

GreedyGuts · November 29, 2015, 2:52am

Except that it’s another card you need to install, which makes it a rush deck that wants to be scoring on turn three or so most likely, with specific cards for safety. Ideally Rush can get an agenda down turn two at the latest on a decent open.

hhooo · November 29, 2015, 3:27am

BWBI should have been Tennin and subliminal messaging put together.

/drinking

CJFM · November 29, 2015, 5:28am

I’ve been surprised at how good Patch is. Maybe Weyland needs to be importing more Architects. I’m less convinced of Weyland’s need for scorched earth and more convinced of their need for an ice + server solution. If you dedicate some of your deck to scorch, you have to include the package (SEA or Midseasons, possibly some horrible hardware trashing shit, because its likely your kill plan will go south), and by then you’re drawing cards that could be dead draws, you’re changing your gameplan and putting out fires. Boot camp Glacier was so good because it only had the one plan, and it was the best plan: score out. My question is: what imports make each Weyland id stronger at scoring while letting natural Weyland cards fill the gaps - crisium, corp town, etc. Let’s not forget that Atlas and Oaktown are some of the best agendas in the game. Oaktown might be the best rush agenda hands down.

oconnor0 · November 29, 2015, 6:03am

Rather than going the SEA + Scorched, is Punitive a better/more consistent flatline choice for Weyland - since it works off just their economic advantage?