I really doubt losing 3 credits is an irretrievable position for the runner, and on turn 2, if the corp is spending 2 clicks and 4 creds to kill runner econ, they’re either unable to rez ice on each server, unable to afford fast advancing something, or they just drew a perfect hand. It’s not as strong a position as you make it sound.
I think you’re looking at trashing DC as the runner losing 8 credits… it’s really not. It’s credit denial, and it costs the corp resources.
In any case, this really is a discussion for another thread.
It really depends. Going from 3 to 0 is a totally different proposition to going from 13 to 10. In the latter case you can still play pretty much any runner card you like (save for the big consoles which aren’t really important at the moment) and/or have enough money to run pretty much anywhere. But when you’re broke you’re now 3 clicks away from being able to play any kind of economy card to bounce back to a position from which you can play or do anything meaningful whatsoever.
It’s maybe not so bad if you have Magnum Opus economy or something like Pro Contacts where those clicks are doing other things for you - but look at the winning decks right now, those cards are nowhere to be seen. If you’re predominantly using event-based economy with Daily Cast supplement and passive run-based economy like Desperado / DS then it’s absolutely crippling to go broke. That’s one of the reasons NAPD Contract is so strong - it’s not the fact that sometimes they can’t afford to score it so much as the fact that when the runner does steal it they’re often shut down for a long time.
See I tend to think of it differently. Against a bad player, I want them to see my dollars and slow down, letting me snowball my money and board state into an inevitable steal, either Legworking, or just hitting the remote when they realize they have to move on it. That scenario is easily based on how good I can play.
The more important thing is misrepresenting your ability to the corp, which matters much more in play against a good player. This is why I even bother with sure gamble in most of my decks, to hold it until I can coax a good opponent into thinking my money generation is too low to get in. I’ll then install SMC-> SG -> SG -> run and steal. This is the reason I find stimhack to be GROSSLY underplayed. Not only can it surprise the corp and coax them into installing, but it can also preserve your dollars to make those 2 needed runs on an RP server, the first just to fail the ash trace and trash him, and then run again on real credits to steal the agenda. There is a good case to be made for the utility and game impact of a card, and not become so concerned with it’s efficiency.
I like Cyberfeeder in noise for the other reasons mathed out in this thread, how it can be used for breaking and viruses, but also I can cache with grimoire into aesops cache and recover from 0 credits. A closed accounts off a breaking news, maybe throw in a trashed casts, hurts much more when my recovery money is non-existent. Also if my draws are going to shit, having casts show up in 1 or 2 copies makes me want to flip the table and put me on tilt. Not that CF is a lot better in that aspect…
On topic, I think it boils down to what others have said based on the maths, but also consider the game impact of the card. If you can give the corp reason ‘hope he doesn’t have a stimhack’ or ‘hope he doesn’t have a lucky find’ you give yourself an edge. Of course that edge has to be worth it vs just having the cash on hand and playing the inevitability game…
Agree. I’ve been wanting Stimhack more and more in shaper decks I play. The fact that it gives you 3 more credits than Lucky Find, and effectively costs 3 clicks less (starts a run as well), is totally worth the brain damage, against a lot of decks. Against the decks where brain damage matters, I don’t feel like you need to play your stimhacks. The reduced influence gives you room for Imp as well, without having to cut Corroder or Parasite.
On topic: Overall, conditional economy cards do make your deck less consistent. Seeing them early gets you maximum value, but their value degrades severely over time. Playing three in your deck gives you a better chance to draw them early, but also increases the number of dead cards in your deck if you don’t. I think they are mostly worth it, in the right decks. Not sure that there is a deck aside from Andromeda that doesn’t take a hit when it draws a bad starting hand, or has suboptimal draws in the first 3 or 4 turns of the game… so we might as well embrace the variance?
In my experience, Prepaid just isn’t worth it outside of Kate. Paying one for it as opposed to two is huge, and having access to Maker’s Eye and Quality Time in faction push it over the top. Additionally, Anarchs don’t have as many great targets for Same Old Thing, which is a big part of the late game Prepaid economy, (Same Old Lucky Find is like spending a turn clicking Opus, but it can also be Indexing/Maker’s/Legwork/LARLA).
I just wouldn’t put Prepaid in an Anarch deck.
Cyberfeeder is sort of a different story, because you can use it for ICE breaking as well as viruses, it’s pretty hard not to spend that money during any given turn. That being said, it’s still barely good enough in a lot of cases.
I think the cards I’m getting a discount on would have to in turn give me real credits for me to run a discount economy, so right now it would be resources and events only. Discounts are better as supplements to already strong econs
I run Public terminal in gabe AND tenma. If you don’t use Sure Gamble (GASP!) you’d be suprised how easy it is to include a 1 cost peice of hardware that acts as power shutdown protection, and feeds the criminal event machine.
Gabe/Express with dirty laundry, security testing and grifter, with feint, inside job, lamprey ends up very nice with public terminal.
Inside man however, will ultimately always be awful unless there is a resource cost reducer/ID.
Finally spinal and toolbox are already amazing. Recurring credits are how you beat glacier decks the easy way. Spinal + cyberfeeder is also pretty fun for Wyrm based builds.
Spinal modem is good, the problem being it’s meant for an anarch deck that doesn’t exist yet (well, it exists it just isn’t good). Net celebrity is decent, but marginal, Toolbox requires nasir + workshop, but is good once you get that going, scrubber is really strong right now, but you wouldn’t base an economy around it.
I think the supplier will probably be the most played discount economy card once first contact comes out