Shapers say goodbye.
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I run Stimhack and just don’t play it against Personal Evolution unless it’s really necessary. In general, I find that PE is the only matchup where I really need to avoid using Stimhack, and I typically have a big advantage against them anyway.
Don’t underestimate just how many different sources the damage really is coming from. Long gone are the days of Deus X completely neutering the flatline threat. House of Knives is especially potent in this regard.
At the very least, I’d avoid them when facing Nisei Division. I mean, you gotta assume they’re running Cerebral Cast, which means that you’re bound to pretty much be forced to take more BD at some point in the game. God forbid their deck is actually designed around the BD flatline threat.
And then there’s the “get rich off of assets, then smoke you with some combination of Ronin and Punitive Counterstrike” flavor of RP. And some other kill deck stuff I’ve seen in the last week or so.
Playing Stimhack against Jinteki in general seems like a less-than-solid idea. Given how red is FotM, it’s quite possible Cyberfeeders (or some other 1-inf card) are a better use of the influence.
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Your point about being able to use PPVP passively is a good one. I hadn’t thought of that.
However, let’s do some math. Lucky Find is a net of 3 credits, the same as Armitage Codebusting. Since these cards are the only ones different in the decks’ economies other than CF and PPVP, the difference in econ strength mostly comes down to CF vs. PPVP. Both setups are six cards different, but PPVP + LF uses 3 more influence. Is that 3 influence worth the potential benefits of PPVP over CF? I don’t think I can say at this point. Can you?
Since we are doing math, I will work along with you.
Lucky Find is a net of 3 credits, the same as Armitage Codebusting
Lucky Find costs 2 clicks and 3 credits to gain 9 credits, 3 - 9/2 = 3 credits per click for 2 clicks.
The card’s base net gain is 6, and if you count the click to draw and two clicks to play as a 3 credit opportunity cost, the card becomes a net gain of 3 credits as you say.
Before we get too far off track here, a net gain of 3 credits using this kind of calculation is insanely good - since 1 click is equal to 1 credit in this equation, a card that gives you a net gain of 3 credits is the same as gaining 3 clicks, or almost an entire full turn. The corp equivalent of this would be a biotic labor that costs 0 credits and gives 3 clicks instead of 2.
Armitage Codebusting, Nets 5 credits over 6 clicks, after subtracting click to draw and click to play (a fairly antiquated method of card analysis at this point) we have a net gain of 3 credits.
I would postulate that the armitage codebusting is a net gain of 3 credits with the condition that you live long enough to click it 6 times, calculating the value of the card in this manner ignores the fact that you don’t achieve that net gain of 3 credits until the final click of your second turn after playing the card, plenty of time for your opponent to score 3 to 6 agenda points.
A more reasonable method of card analysis is simply to convert your clicks to credits, since that is the goal of economy cards, to ultimately allow you to finish your game faster than you would otherwise be able to by clicking for single credits.
Lucky Find = 3cpc in one turn, Armitage = 1.8333cpc sustained over several turns
I don’t really even see these as comparable cards, Lucky Find with support can generate 4.5cpc whereas Armitage will always be 1.8333cpc
To kind of bring this train back into the station, PPVP is good in this deck because it allows you to threaten to clonechip a femme fatale and run in the same turn (something that you can’t do without voicepads).
That’s both an economy card and a trick (tricks being anything that allows you to score when the corp doesn’t think you can) Armitage codebusting sits on the table and the corp can count how much you can get with it anytime - Luckyfind hides out in your hand until the corp thinks you are broke after a run.
The influence value on something like that is worth more than 2 per card.
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@LeoLancer: So… you played ONE game with it and then declared PPVP sucked. So you got some of the economy before you got the PADs… sometimes you just get a bad shuffle. It’s happened to me several times, but I don’t think the PAD sucks.
Maybe it’s just not your playstyle. Use whatever works for you, man. I just think you should have given the PAD a little more time…
Don’t get me wrong, Cyberfeeder is awesome, especially if you’re rocking a lot of Viruses. Much like Datasucker and Knight, I just don’t think it works in this particular deckbuild. Additionally, Codebusting can be trashed by the Corp. Lucky Find can’t be trashed unless you take some damage…
Also, PPVP ain’t just for economy cards. It helps cut down on the cost of things like Maker’s Eye, Escher, and such, giving it more utility in this deck than Cyberfeedeer would have.
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Here’s the thing: PPVP and Cyberfeeder aren’t directly comparable, in my opinion.
The name of the game is netrunner, and unsurprisingly, ideally you want to run each turn. If you’re in a position where you can make a meaningful run each turn, Cyberfeeder lets you keep doing that longer (possibly indefinitely, if you have multiples out and/or are rocking the anarch suite).
PPVP doesn’t really do that. Sure, it can make some run events cheaper, but its primary purpose really is to give you the bankroll that you need to get to set up. Cyberfeeder can sort of do this if your setup involves getting viruses on the board, but won’t ever come close to the main use of PPVP until Cache comes out, at least.
PPVP is useless without an event to play. Cyberfeeder won’t get you off the ground if you’re broke and need money to be able to actually start doing something meaningful.
Incidentally, I see Public Terminal as a weird cross between these two - it helps with the long-term sustainability of runs, but is keyed to actually having an appropriate card.
(At least that’s how I see things, feel free to tear me to pieces now :p)
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I guess my primary concern with Cyberfeeder is that incentivizing a run every turn can be very detrimental. One of Shaper’s two worst matchups (going off of @Ajar’s OCTGN data) is against HB and as you and @Nordrunner can attest the key to beating ETF/CI is targeted, meaningful runs rather than aggressive running every turn (in which case you’ll bankrupt yourself rather quickly).
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I never said it’s an easy card to play with 
@lysander totally agree, except early when the runs are free or really cheap. I will click through ice just to get accesses against CI, doing anything i can to find 1 or 2 agendas before they’re iced up. But ya, once their all iced up, it’s all about less frequent, timely, multi card access runs.
I really like this version of PrePaid that won the Phoenix Regionals. Managed to fit an Account Siphon in.
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Looks really solid. Definitely some fat that can be trimmed for extra cards, like 3 Modded? 2x LARLA?. Also not sure Siphon worth it over Legwork?
Interesting. Prepaid for 12 cards? Wonder if he just blasted through cards and LARLA’d a lot. I had a CT build a few months ago that was akin, with 1 more Siphon, and no Prepaid.
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@Larro Modded is solid with the amount he’s drawing.
I think you’re probably right Spags, PPvP certainly gets better odds after a LARLA.
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No, I said I had issues with the card (not the same as saying it’s a bad card, just that I had concerns) and also acknowledged that I shouldn’t really be making conclusions after only one game. I did anyway with the knowledge that I hadn’t given PPVP a fair shot because I was pressed for time (I only had a few days to make my tourney deck, and was out of practice). I fully understand that I couldn’t make a fair assessment of PPVP but I though making a fair assessment of CF would take less time. Thus I went with CF.
All this being said, I was wrong. At the tournament, I found that Cyberfeeder was really mediocre. I discarded it a lot, and also discarded The Personal Touch a fair amount. Three of each was really overkill and neither was really fantastic. I think I would have done better with PPVP and Lucky Find. (Though ACB was still great.) I’ll definitely not be using CF anymore, but I want to keep TPT a while longer, maybe going down to two copies. Also, I will give PPVP it’s fair shot.
@Chill84 Those are good points. I think the analysis method I used was just going out of style when I stopped playing regularly, and so my thinking was outdated. I agree now that Lucky Find is better than ACB. However, can you really say that LF with support generates 4.5cpc? Isn’t it more accurate to consider PPVP an econ card in it’s own right? Or is that method of analysis outdated as well?
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Well, glad to see you were big enough to admit the flaws. As we’ve seen, PPVP works, and works well. Heck, a Kate deck with only 12 Events won a 50+ player Regional using it. @Chill84 took 2nd in CHI with it. It’s viable, it’s strong, it’s different, it’s burst-y, it’s fun. Costs zero INF.
CF, OTOH, is more specific, costs INF, and just doesn’t always work well. I find it hard to believe this was even an argument. Apples/oranges.
I haven’t played AS in Shaper for a couple months now; would this type of deck get enough mileage and consistency from running just one? Aside from that, it’s certainly an interesting deck. On the surface, I would surmise it plays a bit slower, but establishes a harder lock than my version. I don’t think LARLA is worth a deckslot unless you have a ton of draw accelerants, and the only one I can think of that’d mill through the deck quickly enough is Wyldside (sidenote, I need to try this archetype in Anarch).
What do y’all think about Refractor, and possibly other stealth cards? On one hand, it addresses almost every small code gate, but needs a lone stealth card to address the 5 strength CGs. If we elected to use it and a stealth econ choice that isn’t limited to defractors, we could also consider Dagger or possibly even Blackat.
Cerberus Lady is also interesting (in-faction defractor that requires power counters to break subs). Scavenge would get a lot of mileage out of it.
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@LeoLancer
Glad you tested, and you can use whatever method of card evaluation you like, your first analysis was not incorrect, you just need to be sure to contextualize all of the cards in the same evaluation model - I pointed it out because a lot of netrunner players used to fall into the trap of not extending their analysis to the non-econ cards.
God I sound like a pretentious douche.
Anyway, an old shaper play used to be test run opus and click 3 times turn 1, install opus turn 2, if you clicked opus on turn 2 after installing you would have 9 credits (5 - 3TR + 6 - 5 MO + 6). Or you could drop ACB on turn one and click it 3 times to go to 10 credits in a single turn.
So you could say that ACB is better than opus in any deck that wins before lategame. I think it reasonably takes the lucky find slot if you aren’t playing voicepad (without ppvp, I don’t think LF would be worth 2 influence)
But here we are because @Lysander and @Ajar found ppvp to give the deck enough gas to be tier 1, the economic base is stable. I think it’s kind of hard to work with, but that’s part of the fun of playing the deck, there is a lot of credit-brinksmanship involved; you have the ability to make a zillion credits easily, but if you make more credits than you need, you are wasting valuable time that you could be scoring.
Refractor is an outstanding card, and playing dagger would solve almost all of my problems. I’m not sure it wouldn’t create new ones since that starts building 2 card dependencies into the deck that you already designed out of the deck.
I think Lady would be playable in this deck also, I don’t think you would need to scavenge it against anything other than HB Glacier, legwork and makers eye will get there before the power counters run out. Actually, its probably too soon to say what ice will be out there.
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My experience with PPVP-Shaper has been that the deck runs great when you land an early PPVP, but feels pretty weak when you don’t. I’ve also had a lot of trouble against Caduceus in NBN:MN given that Femme and Parasite are my only answers to it. Maybe I should try to fit in Atman or Mimic? But fundamentally, I don’t like how draw-dependent the deck is (particularly when compared with Andy).
The Criminal Control Thread has given me an idea. That idea is DONUT.
I know it directly conflicts with PPVP engines, but PPVP can’t be the only way to make good Shaper Control decks. I want to try to make a resource-based-economy alongside Donut in Shapers. My biggest concern is Asset-based corps. Like those Jinteki:RPITA decks. Imp or Scrubber could be good choices, perhaps.
(Off-topic but related: Whizzard with Donut could wreck every single corp’s econ. Hmmm.)