Take it to a tournament!
Instructions unclear. Played IG, now have no friends.
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I sleeved IG to play at this weeks casual meetup, and then I quickly unsleeved it, removed the museums and ported it over to Biotech to see how people felt about a similar deck in a different ID.
The deck was considered fun to play against because the runner didn’t feel completely hopeless and if I did kill them it was in one shot rather than a slow drip of attrition.
Conclusion: Bio-ethics (as well as many other assets) are very flimsy without the support of IG’s ability and shocks in archives, and the click compression that goes along with that and the constant museum recycling is what makes the deck feel very prison like, and that’s just not fun for either party.
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Wait till next month, the cry babies will have found another unfun deck not to play against by then.
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Phew, you too almost had no friends!
I agree with your conclusion. IG and Museum quickly imposes a net damage/credit tax on that runner that requires them to expend a huge amount of clicks, credits and cards to destroy 12+ Museums, along with BioEthics and maybe a Hostile Infrastructure or two, before they lose.
And if they don’t do this, they will lose. Eventually.
The only other way out is steal the very few agendas which are often well defended amidst Shock! or Snare!, which are often untrashable. But doing this means they will lose to the BioEthics even faster.
Maybe the solution is just to play Magnum Opus, Feedback filter, and go to time.
best solution is drop keyhole turn 1 and snipe all the agendas within 2 turns, or just sneak out a cheeky win with hades shard. tricks aside, be whizzard with emp strike and AI and you will be fine.
So I really don’t think this is the solution. At least in the midwest competitive Netrunner is doing by like 25% compared to last year. I think that decks that are unfun to play and to play against being actually good is part of the problem.
I know that there is always the best deck, and that some people will complain about it being too strong. That’s not my point. My point is that there seem to be more decks that are common and competitive that are making people super upset and not willing to play than there used to be and that is an issue. At least in my experience.
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I actually just have “Testing IG” as my game names on jinteki now. It means 9 out of 10 opponents are specifically teched for the match up, with a lot of t1 archive interfaces, but as people really hate running hq v IG, I’ve still managed to win some games very unlikely to go my way. Pretty fun deck, sensie actors is super good
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Then I think you followed the instructions! 
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I sortof wonder how Bio-Ethics would perform in, say, a Replicating Perfection deck.
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The thing is, and I have the feeling that people protest way louder since the MWL, there is always a deck that is somehwat hated in the community, people say playing Dumblefork is not fun to play against or CI Combo or DLR Val or Fastro…people tend to overract, especially on the internet. I would worry about IG if everyone in a tourney would come with a sleeved up version of the deck. If you just don’t like it, because you dislike the playstyle, then I’m sorry, people have different tastes and I’m actually glad the corp deck archetypes expanded.
Regarding the decrease in your meta, I actually think this has more to do with the current flow of the new data packs and the rather underwhelming new cards/mechanics.
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It’s hard to find a reference point for what kind of decks people might like or dislike subjectively.
There’s an objective issue that optimized IG decks don’t finish their games sufficiently quickly.
It’s possible some, or all, of the reasons people find IG unfun to play against are tied to and linked with that objective issue, which is why I center all my complaints on that issue. It uses 3 copies of the only card in the game that can create a netrunner game of infinite length, aside from an unplayable 5/3. This makes the tournament administration guideline “players should play at such a pace that their game shall finish in the allotted time” ludicrous, absurd, illogical, and humorous.
If Museum is banned, as it should be, since it is figuratively a slow play rules infraction to even sleeve the card up, then I suspect the deck’s power level drops enough for it to only be as much of a problem as IT department is. Moot, because it’s not tier 1 anymore.
The amount of overreactions in this thread is insane. The sky has not fallen, people. Bio-Ethics IG is a deck that requires some different approaches and counterplay to beat, but it’s entirely beatable with any good runner deck. Stop flipping the table every time someone puts IG down and play the matchup, it’s the only way you’re going to learn.
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This is true for competitive players, but I don’t fault casual players for not wanting to play against IG on Jinteki or at weekly meetups. We play this game for fun- if you realize that the game will not be fun for you, and will probably take much much longer than most of your games, I don’t think you are obligated to sit it out just because you hit the “join” button. Perhaps you have some obligation to play it out if you are in the competitive lounge, but in casual, I think not wanting to play IG is perfectly fine. Of course, not sure if you meant to be responding to the people quitting IG games on Jnet or to the thread in general- if the latter, then yeah give it a few weeks and some tournament results before freaking out, I’d say.
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I also think you shouldn’t be surprised, particularly online, if a player concedes early. Sometimes it’s very obvious the game is lost and it’s neither fun nor pedagogical to continue the game. I hope people aren’t offended when I type gg and concede when it’s obvious (to me) it’s over.
With some runner decks that can be very early.
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I think the biggest thing that makes this perceived as unfun is the length of time between “probably lost” and “game over”.
Similar to IT Department before it, and MCH Gagarin as well, if the corp is able to maneuver the game into a game locking state, the runners chances of victory are low.
However, unlike say - 6 points and an Astro Counter, stealing an agenda into MidSeasons -> Scorch x2, or CI Combo - the game doesn’t end at this point, the game continues on for an extended period of time while the corp finishes the game; waiting for agendas to score behind unbeatable ice with ITD, slowly grinding out your entire deck with IG, or waiting for the agendas to appear with Gagarin.
During this time, the runner is just having a bad time, but the game isn’t over. In the time that you spent losing to IG, you could have lost to Peak Fastrobiotics 5-6 times.
Disclaimer: Piloted IG in regionals, and I was relieved that I only had to face it once out of 7 games.
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It’s not the difficulty to beat that bugs me (in fact, I don’t have too much trouble), it’s that fact that I have to take two hours to do it.
The issue stems from the fact that the deck wins with net damage. Unlike PE decks, there aren’t any Ronins to do it. They instead rely on getting rid of the runners entire deck in order to then keep them from drawing cards. It takes a lot of time to deal 46 net damage.
Hyperbole aside, if someone takes forever to play the deck it’s probably because they’re new to IG. Its lines of play are very different and not immediately obvious. With familiarity comes speed, both with piloting it and playing against it.
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Plus, games with it take longer online. I’ve never played a live one.
Isn’t this equally in your hands as Runner though? If you can see (or estimate) that you will get ground out in ten turns and find it upsetting to wait for that to happen, why not do some hail mary runs on HQ/R&D?
You might lose quicker, but you might also win. The important thing is that either way you won’t have to sit through the bit that you personally don’t like!
The types of decks that tend to prevail with IG are not impenetrable. They can lose, and lose easily. I tend to think that you will only get into the situation you say you despise if you as the Runner are playing to avoid losing for as long as possible, rather than playing to win. Yes, by making a play to win you might seal your destruction instead, but if you don’t even try to win you know what’s coming eventually!
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this. play to your outs.
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