On that note, I had a crazy idea to play all STR 4 ICE, and play Helium-3 Deposit to counter 4tman.
1 Like
Just wait until they get the most busted power counter card and then everyoneâs clamoring to fit x3 in every weyland deck.
Yes, but how do you REALLY feel?
I like the card. I feel every faction should have some sort of advanceable trap.
3 Likes
I donât think I would slot this. My Weyland decks are already full of âcards made irrelevant by Clone Chip and/or Iâve had Worseâ that donât trash off R&D.
Iâll wait.
Sadly, this sucker canât actually be advanced. I also strongly considered doing one of those (I am inordinately attached to Mushin no Shin in Weyland), but I guess I interpreted the âpublicâ agendas to be Weylandâs stubborn response to advanceable ambushes - âScrew you, guys - itâs an agenda. Come get it⌠if you dare.â And heck, one of them is super good, so I canât be too sad about that.
Hmm, I really donât see how this card is made irrelevant by Clone Chip or Iâve Had Worse. I assume regarding the former you mean that the âscrewed-withâ programs can be recurred (in which case, it makes them waste a Clone Chip - not phenomenal, but not nothing), and by the latter you mean that Iâve Had Worse is the more major impediment to Weyland kill decks (more meta-related than anything else, but I see your point)?
I completely agree about Blackout contributing to the leakiness of R&D, though. Such is the nature of 0 trash cost cards, sadly.
For reference, @Peuriiâs original design allowed the Corp to trash a piece of hardware by paying 4 credits, plus the cardâs install cost. He primarily designed it as a Plascrete counter, but obviously its effect extends to other hardware also. More expensive, but pretty strong anti-hardware (I worried it might be a little too strong). Would you play that card?
I get the reasoning behind not wanting Weyland to get one⌠but then they need âtrapsâ of the Thomas Haas variety, which can bait a run at almost no risk/cost. Haas isnât any better than clicking for credits, but you can retroactively click when the runner has finished breaking through all your ice.
GRNDL Refinery is much more efficient, but you canât pop it in response to a run. If the runner can get in easily (now more possible than ever with Multithreader), itâs just a waste of resources â which is frustrating as itâs also one of the better in-faction econ cards that doesnât have agenda points stapled to it.
Iâd be okay with them not getting ambushes if they had the instant-speed usable advance assets, or an ambush-that-isnât-advanceable other than Space Camp which is only sometimes of any value (and very often not at all).
I was just fantasizing about how amazing it would have been if Turing had been Weyland. That was the code gate we needed and deserved. The theme can be reworked; sometimes it seems theme and flavor are given too much priority in ANR, IMO.
5 Likes
Agreed 100%. To be honest, only the âunless the Runner spends 3 clicksâ part doesnât fit (which is a very HB mechanic). Out of all the Corps that really should have an effective anti-AI ice, I think itâs Weyland. Given that rushing (and thus, by extension, gear-checking) is supposed to be Weylandâs major strength, anti-AI tech is absolutely something that they should have access to, without having to go out of faction for it. And while Swordsman and Wraparound are 1 influence each, when you already have to splash for so much (or when youâre GRNDL and you inexplicably have only 10 influence), every influence pip counts.
While I absolutely adore the theme of Netrunner, I am inclined to agree with this statement also. I feel this way particularly regarding the design teamâs refusal to give Weyland any sort of ambush/trap card because, and I quote, âWeyland is not a tricky faction⌠the cards should speak for themselves.â Theyâre basically kneecapping Weylandâs ability to effectively bluff for the reason that âitâs just not the Weyland way.â Apparently, neither is getting good cards. (Okay, that was just salt - I donât really think that.)
That being said, I think sometimes itâs more a case of the team just screwing up the âwheelhouseâ in the first place. Full Immersion RecStudio versus Worldâs Plaza is a great recent example (apparently, both NBN and Weyland have asset-hosting as a major part of their design, only NBN is much better at it?), but I think it extends pretty far back. For instance, the decision to make âon encounterâ effects on ice NBNâs âthingâ for no real reason other than a general âNBN is always watching youâ idea gives NBN a huge advantage (not to mention flexibility) with respect to their ice. And now, with Archangel, the team may well have decided that âon accessâ ice should also be NBNâs thing. As opposed to Weyland who have the misfortune of having âadvanceable iceâ as their ice specialty. I secretly hope that Bailiff is an indicator that âeffect on broken subroutineâ is going to be Weylandâs new âice thingâ and that they get some really high-impact and cleverly-designed ice that make use of it.
8 Likes
âWeyland is not a tricky factionâ sounds fine on paper- weâre Weyland, we donât care if you know thats an agenda because you canât get in and if you could weâd find you and murder you. Except they can get in reliably and Weyland canât murder them. If you automatically exposed everything Foodcoats put in its scoring server youâd still have trouble with it.
4 Likes
I think itâs fine if Weyland doesnât have any ambushes or crazy traps as long as they have something to make up for it, like really hard to break into servers⌠but Weylandâs cards are all generally terrible compared to what other factions get. In particular advanceable ice which is supposed to be a big theme has fallen flat since theyâve been so scared of making it strong (apparently in playtesting it was really strong and they keep dialing it back).
Asset: 1 cost, 4 trash: When the runner approaches a piece of ice that can be advanced, you may advance it (paying 1 credit).
Since itâs on approach, you can use this with space ice to lower the cost before rezzing them. It makes all advanceable ice sort of like Quicksand, except you need to pay for it each time.
Could it be too strong? Maybe. But I donât care, print it anyway. Heck, maybe make it âplace an advancement token on that iceâ instead so it works with any ice, not just advanceable ice. I feel like all the advanceable ice cards are handled so delicately for the fear of making something strong that theyâve just been sitting dead for ages. Just a few legitimately strong cards could revive a huge dead part of the Weyland card pool.
4 Likes
You know, Iâm 100% fine with Weyland getting a Barrier for their Important Figures in History ICE, I just wish they had not completely failed in the design process by making it yet another single sub ETR ICE. I know like 99% of barriers just have 1 or more ETR subs, but Markus 1.0 at least shows that this doesnât have to be the case 100% of the time. It just needed something interesting as a first sub. Anything.
7 Likes
I think its a little weak as is for the reasons you mentioned. Its fairly situational if it will be effective on firing and you donât get to control when it fires either. So I think it should be empowered somewhat. Maybe you could give the corporation a choice such as you may pay 3 credits to place 3 advancement tokens on a piece of ice that can be advanced? Or tie the two effects together? âFor each power counter removed, place an advancement token on a piece of iceâ? This would help make advanceable ice not as terrible as well.
Yeah, this is exactly what I mean by Weyland just not getting good cards. Weyland is supposed to be good at barriers, but Eli is in HB which is way better at taxing than any Weyland barrier, and Wraparound is in NBN which is imported far more frequently than Ice Wall. With these existing and at 1-influence, thereâs pretty much no reason to import a Weyland barrier.
5 Likes
The pre-Oaktown version of Black Knight ran it for exactly that reason (and the lack of a much better 4/2 option). Never once pulled it off.
1 Like
Played a bit more, took Wendigo out and put in three Quandary, taking out an Architect to put in an Ash. Took out the OtG because itâs too cute, and requires me to rigorously defend HQ, which I really just want to defend R&D and one Scoring Remote, any agendas should just immediately go into that remote when I find themâŚ
Ash really really likes Gagarin. Heâs basically Trace 5, Trash 4 in Gagarin, since theyâd have to pay 1 to access the other card even if they beat the trace. I also still like Encryption Protocolâs interactions with the deck⌠It means I get to have naked Corporate Town, PAD Campaign, Jackson, and even Melange. (Melange lasted a whole game rezzed; granted it was against a Medium Hivemind Noise, soâŚ)
3 Likes
This is why I think every faction needs at least one. I mean, I guess there are neutral traps like Shattered Remains that can fill that role, but Iâd like to see at least one in each faction. My original idea for one was to put double the amount of advancements on any number of ice (IAA, they hit it, put 4 advancement counters on however many ice. Perhaps make it so the ice has to be advanceable if this will make woodcutter OP⌠hahahahahaha!!) if hit. Backchannels in faction also makes using advanceable traps at least a little less painful in W.
Ah, yeah â but Iâm okay with it not being an Ambush (in the style of Junebug) if the use can be the same (hence the Thomas Haas comparison).
Itâs fine if they want to focus on flavor, but there are ways around that kind of thing. Frame it as being a secret meeting of the Board or something, it looks like an agenda but isnât and their security is good enough that once the meeting isunderway even if you get in they can cut the connection and call the meeting there.
Boom, flavor done. Make it not give money to not overlap with Haas and Refinery and it even provides a reason to consider Back Channels sometimes.
[quote=âSaan, post:492, topic:5699â]
It just needed something interesting as a first sub. Anything.
[/quote]Yeah. Itâs the ONLY one of the Inspiration Ice to have a sub weâd really seen before. Weâve seen trace for tags, but nothing like Gutenberg.
I think FFG overvalues hard ETR subs in balancing â theyâre definitely useful, but itâs not usually hard enough for most decks to pull off breaking them.
If Meru Mati was 3 to rez and said âwhenever the runner pays a cost to break Meru Mati with an icebreaker, they must pay that cost again or take a tagâ Iâd play it as a Lady counter â even if it was restricted to successful runs. Makes it more taxing and in ways not done by multi-sub stuff, even!
But no. Yet it still sees a bunch of play here and there because theyâre desperate for something. Itâs the same thing with Bailiff â itâs a 0 str Ice Wall that costs twice as much⌠but itâll see play because Weyland is desperate enough and it does more than Meru Mati off of HQ (barring Parasite, in which case it still does only slightly less).
1 Like
Yeah. Remember when Anarch was struggling before they printed D4v1d, Inject, Iâve Had Worse, etc.? I think Weyland is actually in a worse position than that, because they donât even have any of those powerful cards Anarch had. Itâs like Anarch had the power but not the glue cards (a bit how Criminal feels in some ways right now, actually). Weyland just lacks it all.
4 Likes
Yeaaap. Itâs especially painful on Hollywood Renovation - like I ever want to show you that my agenda is one of those, given that 1) I know you can probably get into my server and 2) if Iâm playing that agenda, Iâm probably not trying to kill you. And to make matters worse, itâs supposed to combo with advanceable ice, which as we all know are super strong and well-worth risking the loss of a 5/3 to advance a few times. Yeah.
As vanilla as the suggestion is, I think @llama66613âs advanceable ambush idea is still likely my favourite. Itâs very simple in design and, yes, I would prefer to trash programs instead of gain money, but hey, still seems like a reasonable influence-free substitute to me.
Yeah, the situational nature of it definitely hurts it. The advancement idea kinda makes sense given how this card is sort of meant as the Snare to Weylandâs Shock (Space Camp). I just feel, from a flavour standpoint, thereâs no way such a card would make sense. Also, I have a card with a similar effect for advanceable ice already planned for the article.
Aight, so perhaps it might be fair for it to just remove all power counters from a card. Still remains quite niche, but is very effective in its particular niche. Still feels really mean with respect to Study Guide, but heck, Will-o-Wisp was much worse to it.
I agree that flavor is a somewhat stretched with both effects. I think when I wrote my response, I was envisioning renaming Blackout to Power Surge, which makes a little more sense why Ice could be stronger. I do believe the idea of draining a runnerâs power to fuel your own ice is very Weyland though. They are the faction most likely to screw directly with the runner. This is also why Iâm a little surprised (and sad) that shattered remains wasnât a Weyland card aside from Lukasâs dislike of traps for Weyland.
Iâm definitely looking forward to reading that article.