How do we make Weyland good?

Netrunner General
462

I wouldn’t go so heavily into expensive sentries. I think I’d go for either Assassin or Archer but not both (probably favoring Archer since you’ve got Public Support). Shifting off Assassin, if you’re worried about Crim I’d go into Code Gates, but of course you’ll be shifting the match more in Kate’s favor. Finding an inf for a Lotus Field or two can be solid against Crim and Anarch at the same time, but even barring that I think an Enigma wouldn’t be a bad shout.

Your current sentry heavy build is probably very solid against Kate, though, so it’s really a meta call. If you’re not worried about hitting Crim with Crescentus, high strength sentries are fine. But I know that I’d grin inside any time you rezzed any of those monsters against me because they’re cheap for Crim to break and backbreaking to rez (especially over and over again). Assassin costs you 7 to rez but costs me 3 to break with Faerie and I get to draw a card after I derez it.

I resemble that remark.

2 Likes
463

I haven’t run into too much of an issue yet? Putting it with a public support isn’t too terrible because i’m normally using that server to push public supports until i find EBT/Jackson/The Root/whatever. In a given game, I don’t expect to draw more than 2 or so and I can normally have more than that many assets out. My previous builds of gagarin had loads more assets, but it didn’t seem to work as well.

464

A couple of power shutdowns might be good here? I don’t really use the restructure too much and its possible for one patch to go away.

465

It’s good against the garden variety Criminal. I know against my deck I don’t mind you shutting things down because I’ve got 5 0 cost sentry breakers and 3 clone chips, but I don’t know how often you’ll see that outside of our games.

466

:frowning:

I don’t like that one bit. I guess tour guides would be possible but they always get parasited. I’ll have to play and see I guess. Another option might be nebula because at least it won’t cost anything if advanced…

467

Yeah, you could go into low-strength/high-sub barrier stacking since that taxes Criminal and Kate quite nicely, but on the flip side Anarch eats those for breakfast :wink:

I think the meta right now is quite neat because you can generally use ICE to solve two of the three factions at once, but I can’t think of anything that solves all three, especially since Eli is dealt with by Lady so well. I wouldn’t try and expect your ICE suite to be strong against all comers out of Gagarin, but the way you balance your strategy/asset play should help shore up the weaknesses of your ICE. If you’re going heavily into high strength sentries to counter Shaper and Anarch, running lots of open remotes will exacerbate your Criminal problem rather than help it. So if you want the open remotes, maybe gear your ICE suite to attack Criminal in order to balance your field, and lean on your asset spread as a strength against Shaper (Anarch being the tough card here, but maybe a Cyberdex or two could be a clutch murder card against them).

I thought of that too, and I think it’s worth trying. I worry that that might be tech too far against econ-denial Criminal, though, since Geist Denial is basically the only deck that fears Nebula. The space ICE, for instance, is terribly terribly weak against Leela, and Andysucker can deal with Nebula pretty reasonably with Mimic and sucker (though Cyberdex could be a nice surprise).

3 Likes
468

sorry, worth pointing out maybe that I was talking about a different build that the ones being discussed here (no patch or architect) so my experience may not apply to the more patchitect deck specific conversation - typically I have no trouble limiting my asset spam to a couple of lightly iced remotes, at least until I can get the 'town online. it doesn’t strictly stop bank job (though it does make it much more awkward to use), but without Kati or security testing most crims start to flounder.

That said, it’s also worth mentioning that all of this is in relative terms; Weyland is still the worst faction, and criminal is still the king-in-exile. Gagarin is one of the best W avenues right now, and it can be played against crim; that doesn’t mean I would bring it to a tournament I cared about…

4 Likes
469

So I suppose to answer the thread question: wait for more card support? A defensive upgrade, a good code gate, a good non-archer sentry, and maybe a kickass operation?

Tour guide is actually a sentry which i think would help to thin out shiv and faerie.

470

Oops, you’re right. Yeah, that would help tax the recursion. What’s it’s rez cost?

Edit: as to the question of whether to wait for cards or not I say: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

You’re having success with the deck. Not teching against Criminal denial is a reasonable meta call. You probably want to keep that matchup in the back of your mind in case you run into it, but it’s reasonable to rely on play skill to see you through if teching for it dilutes your deck’s other strengths.

And ultimately, tuning a deck is a good exercise even if it doesn’t end up tier 1. Sometimes you learn things, sometimes you will still win things and sometimes your deck actually turns into something good. So long as you’re always having fun, I see no reason to wait for new cards to work on something.

In my case, Geist is looking to get some new and important tools in the Mumbad cycle, and some folks are waiting until then to work on him. Me, I find the deck fun now and feel he’s got promise as is, even if there are tough matchups that involve Crisium, Caprice and food. If the new cards help when they come out, awesome :slight_smile: but if you enjoy Weyland, you can still wreck face with it now. New cards will just hopefully increase the number of faces wrecked.

1 Like
471

Tour guide costs 2.

When I said wait for more card support, I meant in terms of making a weyland deck tier 1 again. I’m certainly having fun with Gagarin and its nice change of pace in a sea of yellow and purple.

472

This is what I’m currently testing. List first, analysis after…

Deep Space Servers

Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon (Order and Chaos)

Agenda (7)

Asset (19)

Upgrade (5)

Operation (2)

  • 2x Patch (Order and Chaos)

Barrier (6)

Code Gate (5)

Sentry (5)

  • 3x Architect (Up and Over) ••••• •
  • 2x Lycan (All That Remains)

15 influence spent (max 15)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to The Universe of Tomorrow

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

So I’ve only gotten a couple games in. I’ve learned that the deck is really poor against Whizzard… Turns out Whizzard is good against Asset economies, who knew?

ICE:
For the ICE, Lycan is … Surprisingly good? Code Gates that trash programs are not bad. Lotus Field and Architect are stars, and god help the runner if I Patch either of them. I’m not as enthused about Wendigo, though. I am likely to sub him out for some other ICE. I’ve noticed I have problems actually taxing the runner with the ICE, so I might look for something like Hadrian’s Wall, or some other multi-sub ICE? Any opinions on this? (Note that I’m out of influence…) Changeling is… Fine. He works out alright, swapping between Sentry if they’re on Mimic, and Barrier if they’re on some more efficient Sentry breaker? (Currently people have parasited this and Spiderweb, so I think this guy’s staying in.) Patch is awesome, but I’ve noticed it’s mostly another gear check, forcing them to have David this time instead of Mimic/Yog/Corroder, or else makes the barriers more expensive, but they’ll just parasite the Web if I try to patch it. Might be worth it anyway, and purging every so often. I’ve noticed that I tend to not keep many cards in hand… The only downside to Patch is that it’s never a surprise. It doesn’t keep the runner out, just makes it more difficult to get in, but it’s a Known Quantity…

Asset/Upgrades
Encryption Protocol is Hilarious, but I’m not yet sold on its slots. I’ve only drawn one so far, and it was… Useful. Annoyingly, it was against the Whizzard. Off the Crisium is still not good enough, requiring too many moving parts and too much money to actually get it to work. Which means I’ll be looking for influence I can use to put Ash in instead. Melange is doing a surprising amount of work, and PAD Campaign is pulling its weight and then some. I haven’t played against any Val yet, oddly, but that’s where the EBC and Mills are supposed to shine, so I’ll keep them in until I play her. I’ve considered cutting a Jackson, since I can find him relatively easily with the EBC.

Agendas:
I like the density so far. HRI is a bit of an odd duck, allowing me to passively keep the runner on low money for the worry that I’ll just get a ton when they try to stock up. Government Contracts performed adequately, causing me to lose when I forgot about it one turn and clicked for 2 credits instead of 4. :slight_smile: As a one-of, Utopia hasn’t shown up yet, but it’s perfect for IAA. And Oaktown is Oaktown. Between Oaktown and another 5/3, I’ll just take the Oaktown because it’s easier to score.

As always, feedback appreciated!

473

It seems like the ice suite is particularly vulnerable early on? None of the ice is particularly cheap except for Wendigo, but that doesn’t really do anything until you have another piece of ice rezzed? Do you put in on r&d to prevent early mediums? I’m a little surprised with Lycan. I had tested it, but I always found it fell flat to both Mimic and Yog.

Do you find that its hard to come back if they runner gets an early score? I have experienced the pain of having a HRI topdecked before.

Also how difficult is early game econ? There doesn’t seem to be any burst?

474

I think for the most part Code Gates are normally the least painful with the hardest breakers to get. Yog is still a 5 drop, and Zul is a 3 break. Being able to swap between the two at least means forcing two solutions for a single piece of ice. Though for this situation I wonder if Constellation Grid has its use.

475

All of the ICE is 5 or less. (Except the 2 Lycan) I generally get some facecheck bonuses from Architect. I usually ice R&D and start icing my scoring remote, leaving HQ open. It’s not exactly vulnerable, but I definitely want to change out some of the ICE… Just not sure exactly which ones, except that Lotus and Architect are staying, and Wendigo’s been the worst performer. I definitely don’t want to go to three Lycan, as he’s expensive and situational at best.

Since we both need three agendas, and there’s seven in the deck… Not really having a hard time bouncing back. Except I can cheat with Public Support and win off two agenda scores.

The Early Game econ is indeed rather awkward, but the PAD helps, and usually I got nothing better to do than ‘Install ICE, 2 creds’… Technically Melange counts as Burst. I either get Melange or Government Contracts or HRI, and then my econ troubles are pretty much over.

1 Like
476

It just occurred to me that an in-faction ice (also high-inf) that trashed a program and a hardware would be a godsend for rushing. Call it “Moan Ship”. :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes
477

An idea for an in faction Weyland alternative to Tollbooth. Boosts other factions without helping BS.

Hydra
Weyland - 3 influence
ICE - Code Gate
7 rez - 5 str
–> End the run
Whenever the Runner breaks at least one sub-routine on Hydra, place a power counter on it at the end of that run.
Hydra gains “–> End the run” for each power counter on it.

That’s a mouthful. Wanted it at 5 str so that Yog needs a fair amount of support to get through. The trade off is that it can broken by D4vid, but it has built in resilience to it.

5 Likes
478

Too stronk with Helium 3 Deposit :stuck_out_tongue:

Seriously though I think this would be femme target number one or would be spooned/parasited instantly. No runner could afford to go through this server more than 2/3 times. I do like that it stuffs faust though. Maybe it would be a little more balanced if you could spend a power counter to add an end the run subroutine for just this run/turn?

479

Dammit I meant to put that in the Imaginary Cards thread. My bad

480

Which takes us back to copying a mechanic from the original game (that I think is very Weyland) of having ICE that you can pay to add subroutines to for the encounter/run.

481

So, I’ve been keeping most of the proposed card ideas from my article under wraps, but I thought it would be nice to get some wider feedback on this one. After admiring @Peurii’s ‘Electrical Burst’ ambush idea, and contemplating @bblum’s apt suggestion early on in this thread about Weyland needing cards to interact with power counters, in light of my objection to such an ability as a ‘when rezzed’ effect on a piece of ice, I came up with this:

!Blackout.png664×944 618 KB

Now, Lukas has strongly implied that he’s opposed to the idea of ambushes in Weyland, but Damon hasn’t yet! (Naive optimism FTW!) In coming up with Weyland’s Snare, I liked the design space it opened up, as it can potentially be useful as both scoring support (by messing with Lady, D4v1d, Earthrise Hotel, Atman, etc) and kill support (targeting Plascrete Carapace). As such, it seems pretty well suited to a classic rush deck (particularly out of Argus), giving Weyland a nice new tool to manipulate the Runner’s board state. To me, this seems like the type of card that could give Weyland (at least its rush archetype) an appreciable boost, pushing it ever closer to parity with the other Corps.

That being said, I lowered the activation cost to 3 because, despite the fact that the aforementioned ‘power counter’ cards are all frequently played in the current meta, it’s actually a reasonably niche effect when considering the Runner card pool as a whole (only 15 Runner cards currently make use of power counters). Furthermore, unlike Snare!, whose 3 net damage and tag are always impactful, Blackout is only usable once the Runner has a ‘power counter’ card installed.

Anyhow, as stated above, I’m still toying with some of the numbers and could be swayed by persuasive and/or effective reasoning, but I’m pretty set on the design. It could also be argued that, given all the caveats to Blackout’s use, it should remove all power counters from a card, but that felt a little mean against Plascrete (blowing up a whole Carapace), Atman (with 6 counters to deal with Archer, for instance) and Study Guide (heck, I don’t want to screw that card any more than it tends to do itself).

Also, in response to the potential qualm of “hey, but isn’t that effect way better than the likes of Helium-3 Deposit power counter effect, without the restriction of having to score an agenda?!”

Why, yes. Yes, it is. Because fuck Helium-3 Deposit.

All thoughts, suggestions and criticisms welcomed, nay, encouraged.

4 Likes