Just wanted to say I’m loving what the new MWL did for the meta. When I first looked at it I though ‘heh, looks like andy is the only runner to play now.’ My friend kwind expressed belief that sanburg/NEXT HB will be the big baddie of this meta for its lategame power, while I personally leaned more towards friends/sanburg RP for its early game pressure on the runner with must-trash assets.
Anyways I threw in a couple of salsettes into Andy and as I expected, I lost no games as andy so far (out of about 8 casual+4 competetive). The aforementioned HB and RP decks also did incredibly well, 2-5 FIHP a game pulling me through win after win fairly easily (1 loss with HB, bunch of wins with both). At this point I believe I have the meta for the next few months pretty much figured out, shacking my head thinking ‘they forgot FIHP and aaron’ (and they totally did BTW).
After a night of heavy drinking with friends I get bored and cobble together a Sifr Whiz deck for the lulz (basically swapping temujins for liberated/kati/armitages) and, despite my games being closer/riskier this time (and me still being moderately sloshed), was impressed by how well it holds up after the MWL hit winning 3 close games, to the point I’m wondering if Anarch might be a good call now that salsette is still mandatory IMO, people are running more NEXT/big ice and rigshooting might be a thing again.
Anyway looking for some more feel-good easy wins, I switch back to Andy and pop into competitive at 6AM. Get a pretty nice economy hand vs Palana, usual opening moves, and then the unthinkable happens and I’m stuck with all servers iced, no code gate breaker (both were bottom 9 cards) and the corp sitting at 5 points with a nisei mk2 vs my 0. Anyway I finally find that breaker, try get some runs and for the first time in forever I see batty. Some very tense PSI games later (about 3 potentially game-losing ones) won through insane skill (luck) I manage to grab the win (undefeated as runner boiiiiiz!). But the batty PTSD is leaving me wondering if perhaps crim isn’t such an amazing idea after all, and maybe I should play some kind of tapwrm shaper lock or refine that anarch deck. And thats what I find great.
TLDR:
I think HB is great because NEXT/sanburg/HB/no FIHP tax
I think RP is great because asset pressure+money/sandburg/PSI/more money
I’m starting to think Palana is great because batty is great vs crims and its easier to fit him than in RP
I’m itching to play some Blue Sun now that it’s allowed to exist again
I don’t even have to consider playing yellow because there are other corps I like more that are viable
I’m happy playing Andy because she has game vs all crops for me
I’m happy playing Sifr Anarch because it still has game but isn’t the no-brainer it used to be
I’m looking forward to trying some Shaper this meta, especially PPV Kate
I like the fact things that were almost unicorns last meta (sandburg, PSI decks, glacier) are now so popular again that I’m seriously considering running rumor mill despite the influence hit.
So yeah, loving netrunner right now, but that’s coming from someone who was relatively fine with the old meta and thought rumor was ‘fine’. End rant.