Grimoire and Clone Chip, for example, takes care of Hive nicely without an opportunity for the Corp to do anything about it.
Which isn’t to say that Blue Sun won’t be a big kick in the teeth for Anarch at least until Order and Chaos.
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Would you mind clarifying this? OAI was a great card even before you had the ability to liquefy the ICE it rezzed. Having a two-click, one turn delayed 13 credit gain has struck me as quite incredible. What makes OAI-less Blue Sun decks better in your opinion?
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I can understand the argument for no OAI, but my deck is a modified GRNDL rush deck, so it tries to get as big of a lead as possible in the early to mid game. OAI is fantastic for that, dropping it turn 2 or 3 on something big makes the runner do one of three things: drop a breaker/run it/trash the ice, run somewhere else, or build rig/dig/click Kati. Running elsewhere is risky without scorch protection, so I want you to break it (burning yourself out) to deny me a BIGGER lead, or let me have the money while IIA next turn with a boatload of credits.
OAI is a higher variance strat, while going traditional econ operation (playing green HB basically) is lower variance, more reliable, but more predictable. Both have their strengths.
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I will say that OAI does have its downsides. Curtain wall is a pretty bad piece of ice when you’re not getting it for free (it may only be 1 cred less taxing than wotan, but dying to d4v1d is a huge liability). After gaining the $14, I always try to use a hadrian’s or TB instead of reinstalling the curtain, if I have the option.
Blue sun could instead use more of the root, AIZ, and/or adonis (I think eliza’s is bad) for more resilient & more long-term economy, without compromising on quality of ice.
Orion and wormhole will change all this, of course, come O&C.
TankMe hit many points here. For me, I think Blue Sun gets plenty of credits without OAI. OAI then becomes overkill economy that limits the utility of Blue Sun’s ability. If OAI combo is the center of your econ, you are probably wanting to bounce an OAI’d ICE the turn after it is rezzed. You definitely don’t want to risk its subs being broken. This means you may not be able to bounce other ICE when you otherwise would/need to.
I think BS economy is ridiculously strong already with Hedge Fun, Restructure, and the host of economy Agendas. OAI as econ requires 2 cards, ICE and OAI, while traditional economy (Hedge/Restructure) only requires one. Agenda economy gets you money while getting you closer to 7 AP.
One last point, that @bblum touched on: OAI economy is less sustainable, if you assume that you will eventually hard-rez that same ICE you bounced once. Granted, you can always bounce it back to recover those credits, but after that first hard rez, you have net -1c from the deal, after OAI’s cost. After that you’re just stuck in a loop of install, rez, bounce, loop, in which case you’re never going to recoup that 1c OAI, without AIZ or other tricks. My point is that I don’t find OAI economy to be as reliable or as sustainable as traditional economy. BS can make so much money without it that those 3 slots are better used for other cards, IMO. Moreover, if you don’t plan on hard rezzing those Curtain Wall or other OAI target after their bounce, they are dead cards. so basically if you are playing 3 OAI and 3 Curtain Wall, you have 6 cards that are probably making you 13 (14-1) to 26 credits per game. Even if you are recurring OAI and getting a silly amount of credits off the combo per game, I think it may be unnecessary. Turn 1 OAI Curtain Wall to bounce second turn is definitely strong, but is it the best way to play BS?
If you are planning on scorching them to death, hard-rezzing one giant piece of ice is doable. You can bounce it back to go +14 the turn you need to kill them. In the meantime, well, you have a giant piece of ice somewhere that doesn’t die if they break it.
That said, moistloaf’s point is good, it’s an interesting way to look at it. Restructure gives you 5 credits per card. Curtain Wall + OAI gives you 6.5 per card, less if you’re running Hadrians too.
The version I’ve been trying recently runs 3x Archived Memories to get more mileage out of the OAI and get that credit-per-card up.
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Hard rezzing large ice can be done, but man oh man does it suck if they’re playing Emergency Shutdown. The only reason I run Hadiran’s and Curtain Wall is because I expect to be able to bounce them back for the monies. Being denied 14 credits by hard rezzing into a Shutdown is a bigger cash swing than Account Siphon. This shuts off any chance of the scorch kill.
A lot of times if I’m planning on scorching them to death, I’ll try not to hard rez my big ice against criminal unless the access actually scares me. I might see if I can bait out a Shutdown with an OAI, though. Being denied the opportunity of 14 credits is better than actually losing the credits themselves.
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Totally agree with the things Peekay said. Basically BS is soo much stronger than the other Weyland ID’s, it’s not even funny. I’ve been running a ‘basic’ scorch deck, running 3 jackson, 2 SEA, 2 tollbooth, 2 data ravens for influence. Econ is hedge, restructure, OAI, sublim messaging and the root.
No fancy game plan, probably a deck that can still be tweaked quite a bit, but boy, it indeed feels like corping on easy mode. So without wanting to disrespect the OP, all those more situational cards could just as well be proven good cards, and you’d also have won the tournament imo.
HQ is infintely more important to protect than anything else, especially in this deck. But yeah, it’s basically a worse Siphon because it’s not telegraphed.
I don’t think that Blue Sun needs OAI, but honestly it’s not like there are better 0 influence econ cards.
BS is definitely much more competitive than the other Weyland ID’s. I don’t think this is necessarily a problem, as long as FFG continues to print ID’s as powerful as NEH and Blue Sun. As long as there are many powerful ID’s, the meta is still healthy, and the game still rewarding.
Sure it is. That, my friend, is what we call “power creep”.
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Which has to happen in an LCG. Otherwise nothing would ever change. At some point things will get to the point where the game has to be reset. But if the design is good (and with the exception of a very few cards I think netrunner design has been and continues to be very good) then that doesn’t have to be for a very long time.
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That’s not really true, or at least not an a good argument given the intended meaning of the phrase. As an example, Personal Evolution shell-game decks are pretty viable and dangerous now. It’s hard to call that power creep - it’s not just stronger than other decks, it’s very different (which may mean it ends up a stronger place, but that’s okay if it does). Certainly it got some strong cards (Mushin No Shin, Komainu, House of Knives) but they’re not simply stronger versions of earlier cards: they’re different. Very different. And that changed things considerably.
NEH, on the other hand, seems just better. There’s nothing different here. It’s the same old. Just better.
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I think it brought ‘some’ old cards to life. Marked Accounts maybe?
I think that was the extent of it. There were posts here that were (paraphrasing, a little): “I take my Making News deck, and I swap ID, and it’s better!”.
Actually it’s sort of sad; NEH has some really cool potential with NBN asset spam and certainly did open up some new decks.
Blue Sun is actually much better: people are not just swapping their ID over. They’re changing the ice costs, adding in Oversight AI and new assets, and maybe even changing the gameplan from Scorched Earth. That’s cool.
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I agree. I felt the same way about NEH as you must feel about BS, so perhaps it’s relative. Top 8 nationals for USA, 6 were NEH. The deck is strong and straight forward; the asset economy is more reliable and lets you dig crazy fast. That’s a deck I feel anyone could pilot, but really runners just have to adapt. World’s will be interesting to watch in that regards. It takes 90% of my brainpower to play Weyland competitively, or I can just play NEH and spam remotes til I chain Astros, I used to think, but now it’s finally MY turn to play the faction I love and have an ‘easy’ time with it. Scorch is in faction and the agenda spread is all econ or flatline. I really don’t think it’s fair to complain about BS; show me the tournaments Weyland has been winning. Show me their representation at top tables in ANY regionals or nationals. Meanwhile HB has been top tier for over a year until NEH comes out, and H&P gives Jinteki a huge shot in the arm. What does Weyland get? Witness Tampering.
What I feel is happening is, World’s decks to beat are NEH and RP. Runners are trying to tune themselves to these polar opposite Corp play styles, and now here’s a THIRD bullcrap Corp? People get upset all over again. And it has little to do with Weyland, it’s about players feeling Corp is too strong.
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I don’t agree here. NEH may be the most powerful NBN id, but there are still decks (as in combinations of cards) where Making news is better than NEH. Same with HB, EtF may the best id, but the other id’s still have a use. Same goes for Jinteki. But there simply isn’t a deck with Weyland where BS wouldn’t be the best id to take, Blue Sun just made the other id’s obsolete.
I really like the diversity in Netrunner. Some cards are just plain bad, and don’t get played, that’s ok. But cards that are very powerful, and at the same time obsolute the use of a bunch of otherwise fine cards, are bad design imo.
A week after BS is released, it’s ridiculous to claim that. Cite statistics, win rates and losses? Blue Sun makes runners include cards they might not have played otherwise, because the deck did not have a weakness in a specific area until a deck type shows up that challenges it. IoP alone can wreck Andromeda, but is it played? Was it even played before NEH? Marginally; yet Andy stays top tier to this day. Blue Sun means the same thing as Jinteki PE, you’re playing a different game.
GRNDL rush decks are not better in Blue Sun per se. Blue Sun is vulnerable to trashing especially more than most Weyland IDs, think Anarch cards like Imp and Keyhole, or Noise in general. Runners are already splashing an imp (mostly shapers), test run a femme into Legwork, Crypsis stimhack into demo run…
Core Weyland is the most reliable ID, rewarding you for doing things you already want to go. GRNDL sacrifices late game for huge threat early, just having the ID on the table. Blue Sun gives flexibility of their servers and jank potential for flatline. There are ton of cards right now to efficiently deal with Blue Sun; the dogs, stealth breakers, blackmail runs, CT power nap/turbo rig…
All the runner decks are tuning themselves to heavy asset play and fast advance, and Blue Sun challenges runners with something new, something that is not just “the blue sun build” like the NEH we’ll be seeing 50 duplicate copies of at Worlds, a deck can afford to be a blank slate for a whole host of strategies while still having some flexibility. Saying “Blue Sun does it better” is just incorrect; I’ve logged hundreds (and hundreds) of hours with Weyland with every ID for over a year, through a whole swath of different metas, rises and falls. It brings something new to the table, and it’s not power creep. The Eliza’s Toybox novelty will wear off and unique decks will come out of this faction.
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Just wait until Order and Chaos comes out. I’m willing to bet you’ll start seeing other splashing Witness Tampering like crazy.
(In fairness to your wider point, it’s not that long ago that Weyland Tag and Bag was the “easy to win with” deck of choice. These things tend to come and go in my experience.)
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I don’t think you read my post well. I’m not claiming a BS deck is better than a NEH or RP deck, this indeed still needs to be seen. I’m only claiming the other Weyland id’s are simply worse than BS. If you need another 100 hours to realize this, no probs, time will tell.