I’ve seen much discussion about certain cards were designed poorly/not play tested well and that led to them being banned from competitive play.
How would you rejig those cards to make them playable, balanced, fun and likely to be used?
For example would Bloo Moose be better if it had an influence cost and only gave 1 credit per turn?
Pick apart the rest 
I think bloo moose only giving 1c would be too weak given that its already unique, not even caring that its 0 inf. Its effect is equivalent to installing 2 data folding, but you only need to find the first one. As such I would cost it similarly. I think 7c to install, maybe 8c and its fine.
Temujin is the main other offender in being economically too strong. IMO its numbers should be less than half what they are. 2c to install for 8c total credits where you gain 2c per run.
I think most of the other banned cards are just poor decisions in design that should’ve always been weaker. Faust probably should’ve been a program suite instead of an AI (similar to the virus breakers but for trashing cards), etc.
Temujin would be more than fine with the simple adenda “use it only once per turn”.
Sifr, on the other hand, needs its inf redone (I’d say 4).
There is a lot of banned cards that could live again by adjusting their numbers but most of the time, it’s a matter of limiting spam.
Syphon is another problem. Desperado too. Sansan also (5/4 should be 5/0 for exemple, or say 5/2, pay 2c to runner on access).
Difficult because some of them do things that are seen as being out of line with the fundamental economy of the game. (As an aside, Original Netrunner was all over the place with wild and extremely swingy cards because that’s the kind of game Richard Garfield liked. FFG netrunner started off a little caught between two schools of thought. The emphasis now is on cards that are less swingy.)
So there seems to be a constraint that no unlimited drip card gives more than 1 clickless credit per turn. So Bloo Moose needs to be errated to 1 credit per turn at which point it is binder fodder without an adjustment. Compare to Data Folding and Underworld contact then Bloo Moose needs to cost less than 4 and have a condition you meet before it turns on.
For example:
Bloo Moose, cost 3, unique.
When your turn begins you may remove 2 cards in your heap from the game. If you do, gain 1 credit.
It would fit in a few decks based around Aesop’s Pawnshop and/or Patchwork but is probably not widely useful. After all, even Sunny doesn’t always choose Data Folding.
I suspect that you probably can’t make Bloo Moose’s fundamental mechanic fit into Netrunner as it has evolved. If you wanted a third source of neutral, unlimited drip economy (and it is not clear that Netrunner actually needs that) then you need to hang it onto something else. E.g. cards in hand at start of turn, hand-size, number of installed cards, presence of absence of card types or subtypes in play, taking damage from the Corp etc.
Temujin on the other hand seems like a card that should exist for Criminal but with different numbers. The huge advantage it has is that you can use it in combination with run events and that needs to be kept.
I would say something like
Cost 4. Criminal 4 Influence
Choose a server and place 18 credits from the bank on Temüjin Contract when you install it. When there are no credits left on Temüjin Contract, trash it.
Whenever you make a successful run on the chosen server, you may lose click to take 6 credits from Temüjin Contract.
This gives it an economic pay-out of 7 clicks for 14 credits (net +7 vs clicking) but of course 3 of those clicks are runs which add value in their own right. The analogue for criminals is Hot Pursuit (+7 but take a tag) or Rogue Trading (7 clicks for 18 credits and 3 tags, no run). It means you can usually only use it once on the turn you install it where it gives a pay out of 2 for 3 clicks (net -1 over simply clicking for credits*) so all the value comes if the Corp can’t find ICE for the server.
*or same benefit as making 1 run and clicking twice for credits.
Yeah, agree that Temujin stands out as the one with decent design but pushed numbers, while the others would probably only be fixed by reworking the design so much that they don’t play the same role any more.
I think this is why banned cards are so interesting: they can show you why the game works. Museum of History is a great example of that because it shows you how integral the corp being on a timer is for the game to be fun
24/7: Not sure this effect is fixable. The one thing I’d try would be to make it cost 3. You can technically fix it by making it Terminal, but I’m not sure it’s playable, then.
CI: Inf to 12, and even then what needs to happen is a meta shift, where it’s possible to drain the corp of money through Runner action. (Account Siphon, for instance, helped keep this ID from being too broken.) A fun thing to try would be to prevent inclusion of Weyland cards when building this deck. (Sortof combine this and Custom Biotics. This ability is strong enough to make up for the deckbuilding restriction.) In exchange, you lose the ability to combo-kill with meat damage from this ID, and also lose Shipment from Kaguya, another combo piece for the deck.
CSM: Trash itself upon use and/or 0 trash cost. Possibly make it 3 to rez. The effect is very strong.
Moon: Require a Click+Trash to use. (Would try just a Click+clear power counters first to see how that plays out.)
FiHP: RFG itself. (Like holy shit how is that not part of the card…)
Museum: Remove the ‘Alliance’ inf-reduction ability.
Sensie: Variety of options… 0 trash cost, adjust the numbers from 3draw+1bottom to 1+1 or 3+0, must change rez cost to at least 1, probably 2 or 3. I’d look at a combination of these. (I think you can do 1rez/1trash or 2rez/2trash, you just can’t have the wild imbalance of 0rez/2trash.)
Aaron: I’m in the minority that think Aaron is mostly fine. Needs to be 3+ influence, though. Making it draw OR remove tag makes the card too bad to play, btw. After a fashion, Aaron existed to solve Breaking News problems. With BN no longer in the game, Aaron doesn’t actually need to exist as a card. But 2 tokens on score/steal, and draw+tag remove on each token, is Fine. Yes, it hoses Argus and PE, but there’s other cards that do that, too. Conversely, there’s Runner cards that do something on score/steal and all of them that don’t have the word ‘Current’ or ‘Fan Site’ on them are unplayable. (I did see a Spoilers deck at one point which was Amusing, but not good.)
Bloo Moose: I honestly think this effect is Strong, but Fine. We had just started to see counters to it popping up, like Blacklist or more Chronos Project. If you wanted to ‘fix’ it, you’d give it an influence. Ultimately, this card is better for the game than Magnum Opus, because you can’t sit back and just gain money, you have to be playing cards and removing them from the game to get benefit. It encourages more consistent decks by making it so unique 3x aren’t a terrible thing to have.
Faust: Needs to not be able to break all types. A cycle, like the virus breakers, would serve this well. Probably increase to 3 influence.
Hyperdriver: Unique. (My read is that the high MU cost was supposed to imply it was unique, but there’s too many ways of getting around that. Just make it Unique.)
Mars for Martians: One of two things. Either it needs to be Terminal (possibly dropping the draw-cards bit), or it needs to cost some amount besides 0. First pass I’d make it cost 3. (Alternatively, if ‘Clan’ had actually good cards, you could lean harder into the clan bit by giving credit+card for each clan resource and dropping the tag part.)
SVA: Change to Click: Make a run on R&D. If successful, the Corp trashes X cards from the top of R&D where X is the damage you've suffered this turn.
SIFR: Three influence. Also look into making the cost actually a cost, like discarding a card, instead of just temporarily losing one handsize.
Tapwrm: RFG on virus purge.
Temujin: Either once a turn, or halve the credits. (8 on the card, get 2 back on successful run.) Would also try 12/3 just to test.
Zer0: Change it from damage to discarding a card at random. Functionally the same, but removes CV abuse case. You can also try to make it just discard a card instead of net damage at all, but that ups the synergy with the conspiracy breakers. Also, it should cost 3, or be a Console. (As an aside, I wonder if anyone ever tried Synthetic Blood with Zer0…)
24/7: Make it terminal and cost a cred or 2. It no longer slots into railgun, but could fill a roll in 18 Agenda PE.
CI: Cap The max hand-size to 10.
CSM: 0 trash cost and can only recur a specific card type
FiHP: RFG on use
Museum: static 2inf
Sensie: Make it like Rashida, but for filtering instead of tempo. Also, since it can’t be iced, potentially allow it to shuffle back into the deck instead of trashing (Marilyn clause). Also give it a 0 trash cost.
Aaron: Make it 1 counter. Also only allow it to prevent tags instead of remove them so Citadel decks lose their safety net.
Bloo Moose: Boost install cost to 6 + 1inf and change to remove up to 2 cards from your heap, gain 1 credit per card removed (this is likely still too strong).
Faust: When the runner installs Faust they may take any number of brain damage. For each brain damage taken, put a power counter on Faust. Faust’s strength is equal to the number of power counters on it.
Hyperdriver: I agree with the idea to make it unique
Mars for Martians: Halve the credit gain (1 credit for every 2 tags), and make it cost 1-2 credits to use.
SVA: Just make it require the corp to have dealt the damage. Every oppressive self damage card can be resolved by needing a corp card to deal the damage.
SIFR: Reduce the cost of a piece of ice by the number of cards in your grip (reverse cradle).
Tapwrm: Add the corp can spend click and 2 cred to purge (similar to pad tap). Alternatively, make it a hardware so it’s less tutorable or recurable with regular shaper tools.
Temujin: Make it pay out 18 credits at 3 credits per run. Keep the cost at 4.
Zer0: I’m okay with this dealing damage so long as SVA/CV are eratta’d to require the corp to deal the damage to gain counters. Otherwise just make it a random discard.
Aaron Marron should have been two different cards, but with Breaking News gone, the tag removal doesn’t need to exist tbh
but the one that remains should reward the runner with drawing cards (possibly removing tags as well, but definitely shouldn’t do both at once) whenever agendas are stolen
the numbers will likely have to be fixed in some way. perhaps only draw cards at the beginning of your turn and remove a token, but stealing an agenda gets quite a few tokens on it. as a criminal way to draw cards, rewarding the runner for making runs and stealing agendas is such a criminal way of drawing cards that is really great. rewarding the runner for letting the corp score isn’t though, and it’s really tiring having most other criminal draw effects just turn credits into cards
24/7 as a terminal would be fine, but it probably doesn’t need to forfeit an agenda at that point. it should self-rfg and maybe have a trash cost though
most of the political assets should have had lower trash costs and higher rez costs, and i think they’d feel a bit more fine, but the main problem with this is ID abilities that work with them like genomics and CtM, and upgrades you can install in the server like prisec and mumbad virtual tour. the lack of ice isn’t really a roadblock since that’s something a lot of corps didn’t care about anyway. it’s just a must-trash asset, and if you put the runner into a lose-lose situation by forcing the run, it’s really not fun (or good design, imo)
personally, i never would have designed them, or would have lowered the effects quite a bit. imagine a PAD campaign that costs 0 to rez, 2 to trash but can’t have ice protecting it. it’d probably still get played and serve as an alternative to PAD that helps you keep up your tempo but still force the runner to come in and trash it (or ignore it, if you load it up with things, since it’s not a game-changing effect)
commercial bankers didn’t really need to pay 3c per turn to be worth it. sensie didn’t need to draw THREE cards. not really sure how bio-ethics or suffrage could be lessened without totally changing the effect though
hyperdriver: cannot be hosted
tapwrm: self rfg on purge
faust: ends the run after the current encounter; higher base str and lower install cost; unique
bloo moose: cost a click to use, only once per turn, 1-2 influence
museum: just keep that shit banned; one possible solution could be to lessen the restrictions on influence and as a cost to shuffle a card into R&D, trash the top card of R&D so it doesn’t actually mess with the corp clock on the game
mars for martians and CI: put a hard cap on these. maybe a max of nine cards for CI, and a max of 4-6 credits for M4M
zer0: higher install cost (4 or 5); banning or restricting the heap breakers; CV should not trigger on self damage
temujin: i really love this card and am just really sad how it’s just ridiculously powerful and fully deserves to be banned. i also blame this and aaron for why all the other criminal cards from flashpoint were so bad. i have many, many possible ideas to fix this one, but here is probably the simplest
leave the numbers as-is (4 to install and has 20 credits), and it only pays out at the end of the run 1 credit per installed ice on the server, to a maximum of 3-4c per run
also, regardless of what idea is used, 4 or 5 influence is basically mandatory. this is an extremely criminal effect that should stay mostly criminal
estelle moon: cannot use this ability during a run
or, instead of triggering by installing cards, change it to an advanceable card that gains credits equal to double the advancements and draws a set number of cards (like just 3, regardless of the number of advancements)
Sifr: lower handsize until beginning of your next turn by the str of currently encountered ice to reduce ice str to 0 for the remainder of the encounter, higher influence
friends in high places: this is just such a bullshit card tbh. higher cost, must pay to rez (but could be really strong as a way to rez ice), self rfg after playing, one per deck, idk. the best way to reprint this i think would be make it cost an extra click, neutral, 0 cost, but only installs 1 card. you can even have it ignore the install cost. maybe give a new name like Interns or something
I don’t see this changing anything.
To get multiple tags, you need to be tagged for a very long time, like x turns.
The corp couldn’t do anything these x turns before Mars. Making it x + 1 doesn’t fix anything here, in my opinion.
The Runner will still end 20c ahead of you after you rezzed your ice.
Mars is fine where it is in my opinion, unless it’s a terminal ressource + “put credits on it, at beginning of your turn, trash Mars to…” + maybe “if the corp trash Mars, clear all tags”.
There is not much you can do vs this card (like Syphon).
These are impact cards, achieving a huge credit “alphastrike”. Like Lucky Find, unreasonable credit alpha compared to click-card enables the most nasty techniques runner-side, but you can’t say “hmm, let’s make a 0 tag syphon only getting 2c” (though a 0 tag 3c syphon could see play).
I mean you realize like me that changing alpha on this one is difficult, but the main problem is there is no max number on the card (like on Syphon or Lucky).
“Max 7 credits” would work, too.
There is a fine balance to find between having 2/3 of the runner’s that could r&d lock with no inf (Medium), and today.
I would try to revive Medium to threaten corp’s R&D a little more but with a purge + etr after first agenda access (ie can’t steal more than 1 + restart from 0 dig after agenda access). Maybe 2MU if that’s not enough.
If it’s terminal you can’t M4M directly into your combo turn. It allows closed accounts to become a cheap tech option in addition to HPT (which is largely a Weyland exclusive) as a way to keep the tag me decks in check.
@jdc_wolfpack I’m not sure 2x or even 3x 1inf closed account would be a usefull silver bullet there, considering you could play 3 M4M per Larla.
You may want there to find your 3x Closed account in time, plus recurring them faster than the runner could go 1st Larla (not counting SoT).
In most if not all cases, recuring something (on demand) is easier in Runner side than in Corp, so the runner would SoT their M4M faster than the corp finding their Closed Accounts.
(SoT would allow a runner terminal : clic clic end of of turn works)
jdc basically gave the right reasons why Terminal is a fix for M4M. It telegraphs the combo turn (which is a large problem with a lot of combos in ANR, btw…) and also gives the Corp a turn in which to Do Something about it. (Btw, Market Forces is a really really good answer to self-tagging archetypes…)
SoT allowing runner terminal is fine. Archived Memories works for Corp terminals on that side. (And if you’ve never had someone Archived -> HHN you, let me tell ya, it’s good and strong.)
The problem with M4M isn’t that it gives the Runner a bunch of money. (Though it does that.) The problem is that it gives the Runner untouchable large amounts of money. Every other really strong econ option has some way to interact with it on the Corp side. Even Bloo Moose you can shut off with a Blacklist. There’s nothing that stops M4M from giving the Runner lots of money.
I like the temujin fix that pays credits equal to ice on that server. In that case you don’t need a maximum. (Honestly if you walked through 8 ice, you can go ahead and have eight credits back.) It neatly prevents the ‘abuse’ case of turn one Temujin archives -> run run run.
@anon34370798 you’re right that the runner will be able to play more M4M’s than a corp will be able to play counters.
It’s important to note though that combo decks are always on a timer. If you can’t get off your combo quick enough you’ll lose. Any opportunity for interacting with and disrupting that combo makes a large impact on the viability of a combo deck.
Currently the only strong counter to the deck is High Profile Target, and this doesn’t disrupt the combo. It just ends the game. It also has a prohibitively high influence and a very narrowly useful effect. Allowing interaction via closed accounts (cheap, low inf, and commonly played in CtM), or market forces (low cost, moderately high influence) provide deck building options that weren’t there previously. This allows corps to attempt to slow down the deck or tech against it without spending a prohibitive amount of influence.
Additionally, even disregarding any new tech options, it telegraphs the turn as @CrushU pointed out. This means if your a regular corp with no tech you know it’s a good time to slap down even more ice on R&D instead of focusing on rushing. Just having a telegraph allows you to slot more generically useful tech like Malia to blank CV or Dean Lister.
TLDR: You’ll never be able to completely lock down the runners recursion (unless maybe you’re skorp), but making M4M terminal opens up reactive counter play along with new tech options at reasonable influence costs.
i think it would need further testing to say definitively, but my thinking was if someone used things to drain the corp of money and then made runs on a giant server knowing they couldn’t rez anything
although that might actually be a good thing to counter something like Jinja, so it probably could simply pay out regardless
and yeah, the main idea was just shifting it to a late game way to subsidise runs on a server you need to run many times instead of simply paying out absurd amounts of money because the corp didn’t ice up everything first turn
4 ices to pass or break is a too huge nerf imo, its price should then change to 0 and credits on it to 16. Uniqueness may change too.
But the card still yield too many money : 3x16 = 48 credits is a lot when games are won within 60-90c. Meaning 3 SG (+12), 3 Daily (+15), 3 something (+9 → + more) is enough to never click cred if you just allow more inf in drawing.
That effect was what I was thinking when I proposed the “once per turn” clause. This means 15 turns where a corp have 5 turns to ice a particular server, and 1-7 turns to find the runners cards, and you can’t Larla it much within the 15-22 turn spot.
(turn 22 is a pure empirical “law of game over” of mine. The corp drew a minimum of 27 cards, a little more than half of their decks).
It is starting to become a completely different card but I think a decent card will be something like: pick a server, whenever you make a successful run on that server, gain credits equal to the number of ICE protecting that server.
It would still be a unique resource but you should be able to get away without capping the credits on it. Early game this will do pretty much nothing so you would be reluctant to run three (especially with it being unique). It just means that late game you get a bit of a refund when you get through that particular server. It certainly doesn’t set you up in the early game like Temujin did if you can put it on archives first turn and run it three times.
The other card I was thinking about was Aaron. It’s biggest abuses were when the Corp scored a Breaking News and when you Siphoned the Corp and then used it to clear the tags and draw two cards - landing one of those can swing the game way too much.
I think if Aaron only gave counters when an agenda was stolen, I think it would be a fair card.
I feel like Temujin would be solved easily by making it usable only once per turn (pretty certain someone upstream or on another thread suggested that).