IT Department is (probably not really) bad for the game

Decklists
61

I think there are maybe two conversations here, though they are interrelated:

  1. Is ITD bad for the game because it’s ‘overpowered?’
  2. Is ITD bad for the game because it creates un-fun situations?

I don’t really see it on the first one – at least so far. I’ve had a couple of games now that became unwinnable against ITD (note: I’ve been running a lot of stealth Kit, and due to the limitations on stealth even racing for money won’t get the job done), but it doesn’t seem like the ITD builds I’ve played against reached that state any faster or more reliably than other corp builds that aim for that kind of manufactured inevitability (RP/Nisei, PS/AD combos, etc.). If you’re able to advance anything 22 times, it seems to me you deserve to win. Hell, Project Beale only requires 13 advancements to win outright. (I recognize the difference – Beale isn’t self protecting, but then ITD isn’t worth any AP in and of itself, either.)

As to the second question, I can see a better case. 2 Nisei/Astro tokens means that if the corp hasn’t won yet it’s only because they have to dig for an agenda or two, where it might take a very long time to translate an ITD “lock” into victory, especially if the runner is forcing you to spend tokens frequently. I dunno, though – lot’s of people still say SEA/Scorch isn’t fun, either. In any case, I can’t see the “fun factor” becoming a major issue unless I’m really, really wrong about the first question. The long end game doesn’t exactly seem like loads of fun for the corp, either, so if it’s not performing better than other competitive builds, I expect it to fade away after the novelty wears off.

10 Likes
62

If it ever gets too out of hand, you can always just play a straight Iain Stirling DLR / Masanori mill deck. Or some kind of HQ Interface / Raymond Flint / Activist Support jank.

Make 'em pay for investing in Ice at all and just mill em into the ground (and hope you hit Hades Fragment).

63

I agree. Card is not fun, and in my experience way too good. I say this from both sides, as I’ve been testing it out to see if anyone has a solution. So far the answer is not, with a lot of concedes as they realize they have no answer.

In the best case it will force silver bullets in every runner deck, diluting decks further. Runner winrate below 25% anyone?

64

I’ve been playing with it before this thread started with HB and it’s not that strong because it’s not easy to set up. Some games you do set it up and it seems amazing, but so do a lot of other decks that can feel ridiculous when it works. I haven’t used the RP version myself yet but RP keeps getting more and more tricks and I wonder if it’s not RP itself that is accentuating their dominance on keeping runners out with IT department? Excalibur in RP is simply painful.

I am getting annoyed on OCTGN now that I’ve faced 4 RP decks back to back with IT department in it. However, I’d probably be as annoyed if I faced 4 RP decks back to back even without IT department. But maybe the good thing now is everyone will get to play against IT department and we’ll know whether this is just hysteria over a new card or is actually a big metagame shift.

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65

If the last post is correct, then there are many more examples of games that are simply not fun at the point where your opponent has set up his win. Some decks try to win, some try to achieve the situation where they can’t lose. This is maybe a new and concrete example of the last.

As of now I haven’t ran into it yet, but I have hopes that the decks I run have some angles to attack it, knowing what is going on.

66

Yeah, I certainly think there is an element of “the straw that broke the camels back.” But on the other hand, if that’s the case then that’s the case.

I do feel like this is an Account Siphon type effect where learning to play/build against it is going to be important. Runners tend to be best at running where the corp is weak, and with this they really can’t do anything that doesn’t pressure it.

I would be surprised if they banned it though. An errata is more likely. Maybe click only once per turn and/or use once per turn. Also, Order and Chaos is coming soon, and while I don’t know if any of those cards will be a direct counter, I expect these cards will further impact the meta.

67

Card errata is just a bad solution. Look at the other LCGs. It’s just painful to read those 30 page FAQ fuckfests. A ban would be way cleaner but in the case of IT Dep., I don’t think it is necessary. Lukas will probably just say that you can effectively pump the ice once, because of the “gains”/“has” thing…

2 Likes
68

At work atm, but isn’t the spoiled Drive-By a silver bullet to this? Thought it let you trash an asset without making a run.

70

You can’t expose a rezzed card.

1 Like
71

Drive-By exposes a card in a remote and trashes it if it either an asset or an upgrade (Source), so a rezzed IT Department would be fine.

It might be too early to think about this, but ITD might be a good counter to Eater decks, so it might be wise to reserve judgement until O&C comes out.

72

Been playing 3 days with this deck so far (not much). I don’t think ITD is very good, as long as the Runner knows to trash it ASAP. You can’t get it set up early game, and by mid-game Runner has strong economy and generally plenty of tools to get into that remote and trash ITD. Sure, if a Runner has never played against it and lets it sit there, they lose. But then they learn, and ITD becomes significantly less good. To use a silly term, the card seems very lose-less

1 Like
73

Ok, so, I don’t actually thing this card is broken competetively - against runners who can see it coming and have brout a tool to deal with it, it’s really no better than SanSan in terms of “ease of setup to how fast you win the game if they can’t trash it” ratio.

BUT the quote above is extremely true. This is a card that HB needed, but is frankly extremely unfun to play against once it gets going, particularly for a new(er) player who isn’t likely to realize that if they don’t find a fix this or next turn they are just going to have to sit on their hands for the rest of the game.

It’s too bad, too, this could have been a very fun card if it just had a built-in out for the runner

74

From page 22 of the Core Rule Book

Expose
Some effects expose one or more cards. Generally, only
unrezzed installed cards can be exposed, unless an ability
specifies otherwise. An exposed card is revealed to all players,
and then returned to its previous state. If multiple cards are
exposed by one effect, they are considered to be exposed
simultaneously.

You can’t Expose a rezzed card.

1 Like
75

“Generally” only installed unrezzed cards… I can dream of an FAQ/errata letting this trash it anyway, but it takes away decision-making from the game so it must stay as is. As an aside, the faction with the best tricks and cash doesn’t need this card, flavor or not, but I digress.

76

Having played a couple of games. I can see ITD winning games before anyone has scored an agenda point. If you really want to ‘fix’ the ‘unfunness’ allow players to concede. Concessions would be good for the game anyway imho.

I still don’t actually think it’s as good as some are suggesting, personally. Until people get familiar with it, it will win a lot of games. After that it will still win a not insubstantial number. Many other netrunner cards do the same.

Archer can easily lock out certain runners if it lands, for example.

Caprice + Nisei MK 2 token means you’d best not be in a hurry to access that remote.

Trust people to be grown ups about it and let’s save a few minutes in tourney rounds.

77

I have an idea for a hilariously bad deck with ITD…3x Mandatory Upgrades, 3x Efficiency Committee, Director Haas…try to use an early-ish ITC to score EC, then use the EC clicks to pump ITD to protect the Director and score Upgrades…I think this just might be because I’ve always wanted to use Mandatory Upgrades though haha

2 Likes
78

I’m guessing you’re playing @bblum’s list. Have you played against the NEXT Design version?

The only game against ITD was the NEXT version and I played String Theory. He got it out turn one and already had 2 ice defending it. I used Test Run Femme and got in thinking it was an agenda, but I was 2 credits short from trashing it. Next turn he puts 3 counters on it and leaves his centrals loosely defended. I get a 3-pointer on a lucky pull from R&D or HQ (this version only has 7 agendas).

The rest of the game I got locked out because he set up most of his server with dangerous ice (Roto, Grim, Fenris, Architect) followed by an ETR ice. I was completely locked out with String Theory from getting the ITD (I think the server was Roto followed by NEXT Silver), but I was able to access some of the other servers with some tricks and got another 3-pointer. But even with 50+ credits and access to any card in my deck (via 2x Levy) over the course of the game, I knew that I would not be able to win unless the Corp makes some mistake. After 40+ minutes, he eventually one 9 to 6. It was only a bit fun because it was the first time I played against it and I was curious if there was anything I could do to beat it. In the end, he might have gotten a great draw against me (although my deck was a favorable match-up anyway), sometimes there’s nothing you can do against GRNDL if they get all their pieces to blow up your apartment in the first few turns and you don’t get your Plascrete.

The one weakness I saw with the NEXT version is that economy was lacking, but he did manage pretty well because he ran Successful Demonstrations and Hedge Funds and, IIRC, Beanstalk. Also, he mitigated the low econ with cheap ETR ice including Paper Wall and the fact that ITD doesn’t cost anything to use after it’s rezzed.

The questions now is what tools can you use to defeat ITD? I can only think of Parasite (not if they use Lotus Field, but not cutlery since they can boost to keep you from breaking it) and/or D4V1D recursion, Femme/IJ (unless they use Guard as @Nordrunner mentioned and it’s limited to one ice per bypass effect), Noise/DLR and Hades Shard (but the NEXT version at least uses Eden Fragment, so a complete mill strategy doesn’t work unless the runner packs Eden Shard). Most of the best tools seem to be Anarch. I’m not sure if Shaper has any directly useful tool unless you count tutor/recurring the other faction’s tools.

On the plus side, it does seem like an ITD deck has a high skill cap: to know which ice to use at which point to defend it. I think after some refinement it’ll be a very strong (if not tier 1) deck that will require good piloting to win.

The big problem with it that may make it bad for the game is that in the right hands the runner basically loses the game unless they can somehow trash it before it gets rezzed and get to 4+ counters unless they run Parasite and/or D4V1D recursion. SanSan can usually be trashed a few turns later (if the runner is lucky and the Corp doesn’t have enough agendas to win out) and/or can concentrate on R&D lock and HQ multi-access to deny agendas before they get to the SanSan. RP with Nisei MK II and Caprice is also very strong, but it’s limited to only one use (and at least there is a terrible hard counter to Caprice on a non-HQ server).

79

Yes, I’ve only been playing with the ITD 59 posted at top of this thread. I’d be interested to see this list you played against. I find it difficult to even get 2 pieces of ICE in my opening hand with bblum’s ITD 59, so perhaps the version you faced was better. I played against a CT String deck with it, and had trouble due to recurring Femme (with Scavenge). I also lost last night to an Andy Supplier, who was impossible to race economically. He ran my ITD every turn to force counters off, and eventually got in. my current record stands at:

Game 1: loss to Andy Sage
Game 2: win to CT Sage
Game 3: loss to Quetzal (Hades Shard)
Game 4: win to CT String (7-6)
Game 5: win to Leela (7-0)
Game 6: loss to Andy Supplier (3-9)

Quetzal should have been a win; I didn’t consider the possibility of Hades Shard and left too many points in Archives. I also am surely not the best pilot yet.

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80

The effect of IT Department counters stays for the whole turn, so you might have been playing incorrectly there.

81

Can we at least agree that the line of play where the runner trashes IT Department early is a “Classic Moss Line”?