HB has Eli and Architect in faction, yes they can have it all :D.
2 Likes
Still on a high, right? Congrats 
1 Like
Very much so!
In all honesty, Grail RP went 3-3 in swiss and 3-1 in the cut. I’m pretty certain it isn’t tier 1 any more (and I’ve been pushing it as good for some time). Normal RP is just plain better in a world dominated by Anarch and Shaper. I think Grail does cut it in a Criminal heavy world, but that is not something we are in now.
9 Likes
Congrats! The Crusade has been hugely inspirational to me–I’d always had a soft spot for grail, but was never comfortable playing it in various shells until your RP masterstroke came along. I understand the meta has moved away from the deck a bit, but I’m curious about your latest list–were you planning on posting it? Thank you!
Great player plus good-enough decks is often enough 
Although I guess your Leela showing suggests that she is more than ‘good-enough’.
1 Like
A top-tier pilot with above average dex usually outperforms above average pilots with top-tier dex in ANR.
9 Likes
How are people feeling towards excalibur in modern RP? I always felt it was serious money over your scoring remote, but iv noticed lots of lists dont slot it.
I really don’t like it. It’s not good outside of one specific situation (and won’t stop Maker’s Eye, Siphon, etc), and often it really doesn’t matter what ICE is in front of your Caprice, as long as it’s ICE that costs them money to get past. It can be Femme’d/Atman’d/Parasited and isn’t an effect that always hits no matter what (like Ruhr Valley when the cool kids were running that).
It’s a bit more defensible in the rushy decks that aim to get out early Niseis and don’t care about the compromise to their ICE suite, but you can stop a run with basically any ICE if you’ve got a Caprice or scored MK II.
It’s a strong ICE and it’s something you should respect, but I personally wouldn’t even consider putting it in the more glaciery RP decks. The early game is already the weakest part of their game plan, and I don’t want to make it worse for an ICE that has great best case scenarios but bad worst case scenarios. If you can win a psi game, it keeps them out, but that could be said about a great deal of ICE.
4 Likes
I like it. I don’t disagree with anything @Xenasis said above; it’s just a matter of your play style and whether you’re building your deck to be better for the early or late game. I think the early-game build is getting better, and the ability is getting stronger to repeatedly gear-check the runner well into the midgame – both largely because of crick.
On paper, it seems like the ability is win-more, since you only get guaranteed scores if you already scored your first nisei, but I think this is only true for builds that don’t want to rush. Testing it out in SHL4, I found myself rushing a lot, and the 2 rez cost is really great for getting back on my feet after going nearly broke to score the first time.
I don’t think I would play it if I had fewer than 2 DBSes.
5 Likes
I’ve taken a look, looks solid. Apologies if I missed a post, why was I looking at it?
In regards to Excalibur, it is amazing and I honestly believe it should be in most RP builds. I’ve got a lot of respect for @Xenasis and his crew, but I have so much first hand evidence of that card winning me games it’s unreal. I think you should retest.
It won me a Store Championship, I had lost otherwise as I was R&D locked hard. It won me the final of Sheffield Regionals against Laurie as he couldn’t find the solution to it and the Grim* in time.
- Yes, I was running Grim in RP. It won me games, as everyone is happy to run with just Mimic.
5 Likes
I think this is one of the things that sets @Cerberus apart from the other good players. His flavour choices are spicy. Excalibur seems good in Jinteki. Gear check 4 or 5.
5 Likes
Thanks guys, yeah my experience with excalibur has been pretty immense, and outside of grail builds as well. Caprice and excalibur is pretty solid, with a nisei toke its pretty much locked for that window. There are answers of course, scavenge and femme or parasite.
Iv found sometimes its all iv needed.
That said i think its important to see things from both sides of the fence, so im going to try some games withouy excalibur and re asses.
I feel Excalibur is more of a utility card/upgrade then an additional piece of ice. When your trying to squeeze 2nd dbs, or blacklist, or bootcamp into the build, its hard to fit in.
It is really hard to defend early servers with 17 ice, when you have susan, tollbooths and excalibur in your list. That is quite a bit of ice that doesn’t do much of anything early on. I didn’t play it in my regionals list, but I can’t fault anyone for including it. I just took a more conservative approach I feel. The card has some huge upside, and if you want some wins from nowhere, excalibur is great.
I had a tournament game once where I won the game with 0 rezzed ice and 0 credits against a stealth andy deck. They let me score an early Nisei counter without running my upgrade remote, it was a very clear score window before stealth andy was set up. And I ended up using that nisei counter + an excalibur to score a second nisei. In the meantime I got account siphoned and shutdown my excalibur. I then went to score out TFP, using same strategy. I won with exact amount of credits(0 left). And they even got to shut down my excalibur, but it was too late.
I definitely could have lost that game, but the excalibur was obviously a huge surprise to my opponent and created some difficult decisions for them to make.
It is a pretty cool card :D, but try not to cut early game ice for it(unless your grails). Grails can do it because the threat of grails slows down the runner. Regular RP does not have very many scary ice anymore. Tollbooth is amazing, but I wouldn’t call it scary.
3 Likes
I definitely think that 1x excalibur is solid in any deck with access to nisei mk2. It doesnt need rezzing until you have that token, and its rare that an opponent has called it correctly and femme’d it when it isnt rezzed. It does die pretty hard to femme, but still. I think testing both with and without is in order, your right that dropping ETR ice for it doesnt make a lot of sense, with tollbooth being too expensive early and things like pup and crick not actually ending the run.
I played a net damage RP at the Dutch nationals last year, winning it too. First two games in the cut were won within about 10 minutes - total. Took it to the Belgian nationals a couple of weeks later and got crushed, ending at 25th or so.
1 Like
Is anyone making big changes to their ICE suite with the incoming Net Ready Eyes? It makes me really sad at the idea of Yog cutting through lotus field on the fly.