It’s really consistent already, I think Career Fair is a fine card but a luxury. Even when there’s a lot of targets, I often see it just sitting in someone’s hand because they don’t have one right now, and that’s a thing I don’t care for.
Why is NACH used against CtM? It doesn’t work against the ID ability, is it for stuff like Gutenberg and HHN?
In part for the things you mentioned, but mostly Breaking News scores - i.e. tags that you have very little control over (apart from checking every remote and trashing all the SanSans). The runner generally can decide when to take a CtM tag so that’s in their control.
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In answer to OP, how far can you get with D4v1d / medium digs, playing to take the tag?
CtM packs some punishment, but lets go over them:
All seeing I: You didn’t want to be a dlr combo deck, so this is of lesser consequence. I’d still play dlr, but if they want to play all seeing eye and trash 2 cheap resources, w/e.
Exchange of information is only a good card at the end of the game. If you can put yourself in a favourable position while taking the tag, this card is not a prime worry. After that it’s a lottery, you’ll lose a close game through this once in a while if the agendas fall in the wrong order.
Psycho is slightly more dangerous. A FA’d out astro does change the gamestate, but mostly, it means you have to play around the corps credit pool. Now you were planning to trash their assets aggressively, and they don’t have the most ice, but this one is the killer.
Closed accounts. Previous cards emphasised that as a runner you’d have to get a lead off the choice that you are going to take tags, and you need to keep that. If closed accounts is able to halt you, the breather given with it to the corp can lose you the game. Either your deck needs to be able to get up quickly again after your accounts have been closed, or it has to have econ on the table (in the form of tokens or recurring creds) that you can keep rolling.
Resistor. And this one could break you. You are going to find yourself in the midgame, with a bunch of tags, your accounts closed, and these babies on HQ and R&D. You can’t affect the corps creds anymore, can accelerate the game by digging with medium, while the corp catches their breath, creds up, avoids the R&D lock to draw into his Beale, and wins the game. This is the card you need a solution for that isn’t super obvious. D4v1d/knifed fills up your deck quickly. Nowadays you could maybe hope to outpace your tags with frequent NFR runs?
I don’t like this…
Because right now, the best way to deal with Traces is Link, and Link is completely useless for anything else. (See: Sunny. … And Exception: Nexus Kate.) If we get more options to actually leverage our Link, then I think this might be ok. As it is, it eats 2-5 deckslots of a Runner deck, that are potentially completely dead cards against HBFA.
I think Geist is in a really good place right now, at least on paper.
He too benefits from the credit boom of the Khantracts, already pumps his link, and can make frankly absurd amounts of cash to stave off traces. He never runs unless he has to (thanks to Spy Cam).
He also has built-in protection against Breaking News-Closed Accounts in the form of any combination of Decoy, Forger or The Source, without those cards being dead in other matchups.
The only question really is deckslots. I’m almost tempted to run a 48-50 card Geist, because of all the good stuff you’re cramming in.
3 Likes
He’s good until you try to go for the Levy and use up your Fall Guys, then get smacked with All Seeing I.
Oh, you need to play carefully, obviously. As you must with any deck against CTM. All I’m saying is that Armand has the built-in tools to combat CTM, rather than having to wedge them into pre-existing strategies.
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In practice, it’s not so good.
Contracts does not work well in Geist. Typically it’s an in-faction Day Job at best, where you spend your whole turn for 8 credits. The corp then ices that server, and the good times are over. Unlike other Criminals, there is no way to stack run effects on that server to make breaking the ice worthwhile.
On top of that you have very little other money in any Geist deck before your Tech Traders are online. That makes trashing large amounts of assets - the major deck archetype we’re seeing still played - very difficult, and Contracts alone is unreliable as a way to compete with CTM. I’ve had better luck spamming Siphon and going tag-me!
(On top of this, the HB Rush/FA matchup is woeful. About all you have left is a good matchup against flatline decks, and even that isn’t trivial for things like IG49.)
Geist related question: I recently played a game on JNet and was instructed that I couldn’t remove Account Siphon tags with Decoy since I was “taking” the tag. Decoy allows you to avoid a tag. You can’t avoid a tag you are taking (Data Raven, Argus ability, etc). Essentially I can only use Decoy when I’m “given” a tag (HHN, Breaking News, Prisec, etc). That’s the explanation I was given and was wondering if anyone can confirm this??
You can use decoy to avoid account siphon tags, since the tags are part of the effect. The only time you can’t prevent or avoid something (unless stated on the card) is if that thing is part of a cost. Like you can’t use fall guy to save decoy when you’re avoiding a tag cause then you wouldn’t have paid the cost of using decoy.
I think you can even use decoy to avoid the tag from data Raven, because taking the tag is not a cost to keep running, it’s just “choose A or B”, you choose B, and then you deal with the consequences of B the same as if it had been “given” to you.
2 Likes
Ah, ok. That makes sense. The fall guy/decoy scenario being similar to grappling hook/sacrificial construct??
So the semantics of taking/giving a tag is completely irrelevant. Good to know. Thks!
Note that Fall Guy can save Decoy, but, if you do, Decoy’s costs are not considered to be paid when its ability triggers, so it won’t result in an avoided tag (just a trashed fall guy).
Not much value/point, but it is allowed.
On the main point, you can always avoid a tag unless it specifically says you cannot (IE: CtM).
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One plausible example:
- Geist vs. Weyland
- Weyland has Cleaners Scored.
- Geist has Decoy and Fall Guy on the board, and 0 cards in hand.
- Access installed Pri-sec (No paid ability window during access). Weyland pays; tag and 2 meat damage incoming.
- Use Decoy to avoid tag, prevent Decoy trash with Fall Guy (Geist draw).
- Use Decoy to avoid tag (Geist draw).
- Live.
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Or just trash fall guy for 2c :P.
There is no paid ability window during the access step.
2 Likes
To clarify a little, like @Dragar said, you can’t use paid abilities while accessing.
Prevent and avoid abilities, however, are special in Netrunner; they can be triggered in reaction to the effect they would prevent occurring.
So, while we can’t use Fall Guy’s 2c ability, we can use Decoy to avoid the tag, which then allows us to use Fall Guy to prevent Decoy from being trashed, and net us a card. This saves the Decoy and stops the Decoy from avoiding the tag, which means we can circle back and use the Decoy again to avoid that tag, and give us the second card we need to live.
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Ahh yeah, good point guys!