How FFG (hopefully) saved Netrunner

  1. I didn’t ever really think of it as a “problematic card”, it just seems to be an issue these days in combo with stuff like Hayley with Laguna and zero cost resources (loses Faust), Professor/Exile Reaver decks (lose Scheherazade and now can’t play it with Clone Chips), or Bloo Moose (gone). As you mention, runner econ has been gutted, no reason to make it worse unless you have a need to.

  2. “the best tools” is usually an indication we’re talking about the OP cards that belong on a ban or restricted list. It wasn’t that long ago that people ran Gamble, Casts, Laundry, and something else like Sec Testing or Liberated. I’m not sure it’s the end of the world, but I do miss Kati. Get some methadone and give it time for the Temujin withdrawal to fade…

  3. “I’m seeing”. I don’t see Stinson Sandburg posting top cut results in many tournaments, you can’t expect them to design their list around your personal local meta. But I do agree that I worry a bit about Gagarin now…

  4. Because MWL mostly doesn’t work. If there’s a busted combo, you play the combo and cut the other cards to make influence room for your busted combo. Cold Ones or Lock Hayley that run both Faust and Rumor Mill out of faction despite both of those cards being MWL 3. Meanwhile, the interesting/fun tier 2 decks die because MWL kills their influence. For example, building a fair, stand up regular Kit deck that just wanted some Clone Chips was rough.

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This is definitely the right time! It’s the magnitude of the lists, not the existence of them that gives me pause.

Of those cards you mention, only Rumor Mill stands out to me as being significantly distorting in a Core 2.0 + rotation world. I’ve said before and definitely still think it should be banned. Temujin is definitely the hotness, but criminals lost Siphon and Desperado, and are supposed to be the “Run Economy” faction, so banning Temu makes no sense to me. Restriction list? Sure.

Clone Chip and LARLA are not cards I’d think would need to be restricted or banned. It’s news to me that either of these two staple shaper cards are now considered toxic enough to merit the hammer!

Freaking Magnum Opus is on this purported list. Magnum. Opus.

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I’m sorry Stinson CI isn’t in the top cut of all of those post rotation tournaments no one has held yet? No one is playing it in my local. I’m seeing it on Jnet a lot.

If aseops is not bad on its own but has problematic interactions it’s an obvious candidate for removing from the core. it would, by definition, open up the design space.

Please remember that entire cycles are designed all at once and then the files are sent to the printer. So yes, old. Like 6 months or so.

This list will be a huge mistake and will be the nail in the coffin of Anarch and Criminal for the foreseeable future. With their power cards gone and their 2 economic engines of Temu and Moose gone, they will be far too poor to keep up with the ICE and assets that have been designed alongside scaling Runner economy. For Anarch and Criminal, this list means many turns are draw 1, take 3, the most pitifully boring and weak style of ANR imaginable. Criminal is forced to play Gang Sign decks by this list, and Anarchs can’t do much of anything. Many Shapers (and a few Anarchs) will continue to mash the Mopus button, but with less interesting and fun cards in their deck.

Overall this ban/restrict list, if true, dumbs down the game to a slow, mind-numbing experience even more vanilla than Core 1.0. I personally hope it’s misinformation; I don’t look forward to playing in the meta I predict it will create: super passive Runner play necessitated by lack of economy.

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There are always going to be cards that are “the best tools”, so… I don’t think this means what you think it means, or we’d be banning anything stronger than clicking for credits.

Aesops! We’re not seriously talking about banning Aesop’s Pawnshop, are we? Have I missed some game busting combo?

I’m old enough to remember the pitchforks and torches coming out because we wanted data packs to contain more interesting and more good cards, not because we wanted fewer :slight_smile: /oldmanyellsatcloud

Yes! This exactly! The MWL sweeps a lot of “fair” and “fun” near-tier decks out with the bathwater, even when it does manage to do enough to disrupt the frontrunners.

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You can’t build a usable kit now that includes clone chips. Inversificator, the most important tool for kit since her inception, can’t be played with clone chips. this doesn’t make tier 2 more playable.

I think that’s because she was near god-tier with this new meta. Kit with Inversificator and Opus is near unstopable, and god help you if she has CCs too. I’m amazed more people weren’t playing her, but I guess a deck that mills the corp out by turn 6 kinda eclipses some things =P

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The Ban List is for cards that are beyond “problematic” and need to go.
The Restricted List is to break up combos that are too good.

TL;DR
Ban = Card.
Restricted = Combo.

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This is my concern with the length of these lists too :slight_smile:

@saracenus hits the nail on the head with what I think banned and restricted lists should be for, based on how other games–including FFG’s games–have used them before. Restriction is to kill NPE/OP combos, not cards; banning is for game-breaking cards.

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Of course, the next cycle could change the landscape significantly I guess, although I appreciate we’re only likely to see one or at best two datapacks before the new year…

Criminals are dead? Okay, I’m going to just… borrow… these things…

grabs Security Testing, slaps a GlobalSec logo over the cyber-skull, and runs away

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I’m just going to say how happy I am FFG finally got over their ridiculous fear of a banned list. Even if this change doesn’t do much, it opens the door for a true banlist in the future. It’s not like we pay extra for super powerful cards anyway like in a TCG, so I don’t see the problem with banning cards.

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I placed 4th at the Spanish Netrunner Nationals and was undefeated in the Swiss rounds with exactly that deck.

Personally, I think the main reason it sees little play is that people don’t like grinding an advantage for 30 turns, not its power level.

As far as MWL vs Ban List, I don’t see a reason not to have both as they serve two different functions.

The MWL is best used to tackle cards that are over the line. Architect is the best example, an outright ban is a waste compared to adding 1 influence cost to it.

There are some cards that would not be tackled by an influence hit. No matter how much s spent on additional influence, Yaghmoth’s Will or Tolarian Academy equivalents would break the game. I don’t see any cards on this level thoug that new dumb Anarch combo probably fits the bill.

Ideally, you would use both, IMHO.

This lists looks silly to me, by the way. Gang Sign? Fairchild 3.0? Pawnshop? Don’t see it at all.

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Gang sign is such an odd include in that list. I guess it’s to stop it from comboing with film critic? I don’t see that that often online, tho.

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I think it’s because Aumakua gains counters off Gang Signs, so they can build a deck that just sits back and installs Turtle and HQIs and Maw. Most of the proactive “force the runner to come run” stuff like Breaking News is gone with the new Core, so you can just build a deck that pressures the Corp just by sitting there and accumulating Turtle counters.

You still can build that deck, you just can’t have your Film Critic and Employee Strike in it…

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I hope this is real.

The idea that a restricted list only functions to ban combos is a bit misleading. Yes, it does that, but it also subtly nerfs all the cards on it without banning them. Because you probably want to play other cards on the list (e.g. the Aumakua example above—every Criminal seems to play Employee Strike these days, whether it explicitly combos with Gang Sign or not) since they’re strong cards. I admit that I don’t see particular synergies amongst some restricted list cards I just think “restricted is a ban list for combinations” is an oversimplification.

And I’ll just step in and be pro-ban while I’m at it. Broken cards be broken. Nothing stops them from seeing play, not a restricted list nor an influence tax. I don’t want to see a copy of Sifr or Friends in High Places in the game at all and the only feasible way to accomplish that is banning them outright. If there was some way to enumerate “fair” uses and ensure they were used only in those ways—cool. But there will never be such a thing because broken cards, by definition, twist the very conditions of the game. They encourage abuse at a competitive level, not fairness.

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Sifr maaaay be OK if it gave you - 1 mu and still I am not so sure.

Back to the day when MWL was out,I thought it was an elegant pseudo-restrict list.I always admire the effort,MWL updated 2 times (not counting the original one),and each time it did shake the meta a little bit.

But I’ve made up my mind on MWL and Ban/Restrict list.I realized that the effort to shake the meta does not require to be ‘‘elegant’’.If a card needs to put 3 more influence on it,maybe that card just shouldn’t be played at all.People say that restriction list decrease the variety,I say that if they can just pay a little more influence to include those cards in a deck,such deck would indeed decrease the variety.

Truth is I do hope the rumor is true and the list is real.I don’t know you guys,but I’m always the one who had “ANR is the best” syndrome,like"we never had anything like Banlist in ANR,unlike other games",“ANR is unique and good so we don’t really need Ban/Restrict list like other card games”.Now I’m trying to get over it.

ANR is still the best card game I’ve ever played,and I serious doubt any game can challenge that title,but it’s time to admit that just like any other card game,it has balance issues,and when problem came up,just deal it with quick and harsh way instead of so called “steady and elegant” way.

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This was my thought about the restricted list. You don’t have to use it to disrupt combo decks, you can also use it to nerf/soft ban decks that are too strong in the meta.

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