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21

It’s true Q-Coherence Chip doesn’t work well with some cards. That doesn’t mean it’s terrible. It just means don’t put it in those decks. It isn’t more vulnerable to power shutdown than Akamatsu Mem Chip except in rare scenarios which is balanced out by 0 cost 0 influence. I’d actually consider it fairly good against Power Shutdown. The 0 cost also creates some possibilities with Replicator and Aesop’s Pawnshop for starters. If criminal can drop Faerie then this is cheap MU for Sneakdoor Beta, Savoire-faire and Magnum Opus.

Don’t write off Medical Research Fundraiser too quickly. Hedge Fund is great, good enough that you’d probably see 10 copies in a deck if it was legal. This is even more money than a Hedge Fund! It also passes the first turn test that restructure fails! It’s as if you were GRNDL. Generally a credit for the corp is a little more valuable than a credit for the runner; runners tend to make money more easily. You could also think of it as an investment, I’ll take an extra two credits now because I’ll be able to put that into early ICE that’ll cost the runner more than 3 credits over the course of the game. At one influence I think this will show up in a big way.

3 Likes
22

It cost the runner 1 click… and there’s now a rezzed Tollbooth!! Generating all the scenarios of what a runner could do with 3 credits isn’t that helpful, three credits is three credits. Yes it does help runners who have bankrupted themselves with Sure Gamble in hand, please let me know where I can find these runners.

It’s very solid in your first 6 cards for any deck, comparable to beanstalk royalties later. Great for non-taxing decks that aren’t as focused on the runner’s credits: fast advance, binary ice, bad pub, combo, flatline. You’d replace an econ card for it but it wouldn’t be worth the influence in every deck

23

In NBN, remotes aren’t usually “safe”. In Weyland/HB they’re sometimes safe, especially if you catch a fortuitous timing window.

24

Of the two scenarios “Fast Track, go, next turn I score it out of hand” “Fast Track, install something into a remote, go” the former is much more scary for the runner, I feel. With H&P out, every corp will have two 2/3 agendas and a way to score them out of hand (well ok, maybe except Weyland… but influence is a thing).

Because Siphon, Vamp and Shutdown exist, HQ is usually protected as well (or better) as the primary scoring remote, so presumably the cost to get in will be about the same. The difference is, with the remote it’s certain which card you’ll be accessing, it’s sitting there (can be exposed etc). With HQ, the best case scenario for the runner without multi-access is a 20% russian roulette - presumably, if you’re Fast-Tracking, you don’t have other agendas in hand.

If you’re stuck without HQ multi, you could conceivably see the same card multiple times (as we all know, this actually happens a lot), even if you’re in a board position so completely dominant that you can make several runs per turn no problem. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not lose a game on a roulette of random 1-card HQ accesses… and to me, it’s pretty obvious this could happen if the corp Fast-Tracks and has, say, 7 credits.

Stimhack, Test Run and Inside Job say a remote is never truly safe :smiley:

I’d really like to second this particular sentiment. If you’ve played any amount of Jinteki at all, you know how awesome Celebrity Gift is as a recovery tool. I see the Fundraiser in a similar position, with a different opportunity cost - also, just not being a double is probably worth the 3 credits to the runner, in my mind.

(also, let’s be real here - if they’re sitting on a Kati loaded with 15 credits, giving them 3 to make 4 extra probably won’t make a huge difference to them, but it might to you)

1 Like
25

eh. The beauty of fast advance is that you draw the agenda and score the agenda in a single turn. Putting it in your hand and passing the turn sounds like missing the point to me.

Now, that’s not a bad play. But I’m not wholly convinced it’s strictly better then just waiting to draw an agenda naturally.

But more to my point, I don’t see additional HQ access, or rewarding successful runs, as important as a counter as reliably making runs. Those cards are good if you can run rampant on HQ, but they don’t help you run on HQ. And if your opponent sees that the runner can reliably get into HQ, then I’m hard pressed to imagine why someone would tutor for an agenda into their hand.

Now if they can’t get in, it doesn’t matter. You can Fast Advance it or use a secure remote to score it next turn. So to me the more important “counter” is simply getting your rig and econ up faster to minimize scoring windows. Additional HQ access is nice, but I don’t think I go out of my way for it.

26

But the thing is… “drawing the agenda and scoring it in the same turn” only really applies if you draw the agenda as a mandatory draw. Except for the most extreme circumstances (like, double biotic, an already rolling Astro Train with a rezzed SanSan in place, etc), if you draw your agenda even as the first click, you can’t really score it that turn any more. Fast-Tracking for it puts you in the exact same spot.

And yes, of course it’s strictly better than waiting to draw an agenda naturally. For starters, it breaks RnD lock (though it’s a bit of a double-edged sword in that regard, as it shuffles your deck - totally deadly against a fed medium, for instance). What’s more important though, you get to choose which agenda you get. There are plenty of instances where you’d kill for agenda_a, but agenda_b is mostly useless to you.

tl;dr version - I’m totally Imping Fast Track whenever it shows up :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes
27

I feel like Fast Track should have an influence cost and/or cost more than 0. I can see the need for it because otherwise the Jinteki Medical ID/Agenda is useless, but as it stands this card just makes the already best deck even better (FA) while also helping to counter the already strongest Runner strategy (R&D lock).

I think the Q chip is fine, but it’s not for every deck. It’s effectively an in-faction Easy Mark for Shapers with Aesop’s.

Overmind could be excellent, especially for Shapers and particlarly with Will O’ Wisp coming in the next cycle. Decks will need to factor in recursion and/or redundancy to counter that, Overmind is one step ahead of that game because it wants to be removed from play in order to go again later on.

Rainbow I feel like should cost 2. Strength 5 would be a bit too beastly because that makes it very pricy for almost any breaker to crack. It could gain in stock though if the Corp finds ways to remove sub-types (in the same way Shapers have the ability to give them out).

1 Like
28

A slight caveat - unlike the click to draw agenda, Fast Track reveals that you have an agenda in hand and which specific Agenda it is. Also, playing Fast Track doesn’t increase the number of cards in hand, which makes the Agenda a little easier to find.

Very slight caveat because the upsides you’re talking about trump those downsides. Plus Celebrity Gift has demonstrated that in Jinteki at least, revealing Agendas in hand isn’t so terrible.

1 Like
29

I actually feel strongly the reverse. Celebrity Gift strikes me as one of the most overrated cards in the game-- I often gain huge advantages from the information it provides me as the Runner.

Is it great in Cerebral Imaging? Definitely. But “mainstream” Celebrity Gift play does in fact strike me as pretty terrible.

30

Shows up awfully frequently in tournament winning Jinteki deck lists for an overrated card. Granted, Jinteki doesn’t win many tournaments, but it isn’t like the Jinteki decks that win are the ones that adopt the opinion that it is overrated and win by not playing it. They win by playing it.

2 Likes
31

The Jinteki decks that I’ve used to win tournaments don’t play Celebrity Gift, and when I do play Celebrity Gift it weakens the deck. There are certainly archetypes where Celebrity Gift doesn’t weaken the deck, but I’m far from convinced that mainstream Jinteki is one of those archetypes.

32

Disclaimer: For the purposes of this post, I’ll pretend CI doesn’t exist, because it breaks one of the fundamental traits of Celebrity Gift (TWIY does it to a lesser extent).

Celebrity Gift is one of the most well-designed cards of Spin, in my opinion. It’s perfectly costed (both credit and influence-wise), is placed into a faction ideally both in terms of flavor and how much that faction needed that particular kind of effect, and has extremely interesting gameplay (I wouldn’t shy away from saying it makes playing the game more fun, plain and simple).

Two of the biggest mistakes I often see people making with CG is:

  • revealing the whole hand, not keeping anything secret (which just plain isn’t worth it for 2 credits, in my opinion)
  • incorrectly choosing which cards to reveal (which will lead to the runner being able to deduce what the unrevealed card was)

It’s not worth 7 credits to give the runner perfect information. It’s definitely worth it when you get 5 credits to give him incomplete information that lends itself to misleading interpretation. This can lead to huge tempo hits for the runner if you do it correctly.

Celebrity Gift is definitely harder to play correctly than Hedge Fund and needs a specific agenda composition to work, I’ll give you that. Overrated, though? Not by a long shot.

2 Likes
33

Am I wrong here or does trashing programs in your hand from damage destroy this card? Note that it does not say installed.

http://forum.stimhack.com/uploads/default/340/2496d5bde590b3bc.png

2 Likes
34

I believe you’re correct, SneakySly-- just another reason not to play this card.

1 Like
35

Most likely, ja. I don’t understand that card at all :(.

36

I can very clearly see the purpose of Q-chip.
It works brilliantly in Shaper with Overmind. It’s an extra OM counter one turn and then pawned for cash with Aesop the next, so it’s essentially an in-faction Easy Mark.

This is not a card to be used as a run-of-the-mill MU solution. If that’s what you need then look at Akamatsu, Dyson or a console. This is a niche card for a specific deck.

37

The problem is that Kate-- still the most popular Shaper by a fairly strong margin-- plays Akamatsu for 0, so it’s also an in-faction Easy Mark with very little downside (sometimes you install it after other things and pay 1 credit), especially relative to Q-Coherence Chip’s very significant downside.

38

So if it’s not good in Kate, don’t play it there. There are three more Shapers identities to pick from… and Overmind synergizes best with CT anyway.

1 Like
39

Already saw the first deck:

The ‘Walker’

Chaos Theory: Wünderkind (Cyber Exodus)

Event (9)
1x Levy AR Lab Access (Creation and Control)
1x Lucky Find (Double Time) ••
2x Scavenge (Creation and Control)
2x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
3x Test Run (Cyber Exodus)

Hardware (23)
3x Akamatsu Mem Chip (Core Set)
3x Clone Chip (Creation and Control)
3x Cyberfeeder (Core Set) •••
3x Deep Red (Mala Tempora) •••
3x e3 Feedback Implants (Trace Amount) ••••• •
3x Omni-Drive (Creation and Control)
2x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)
3x Replicator (Humanity’s Shadow)

Icebreaker (4)
1x Mimic (Core Set) •
3x Overmind (Honor and Profit)

Program (4)
1x Magnum Opus (Core Set)
3x Self-modifying Code (Creation and Control)

15 influence spent (max 15)
40 cards (min 40)
Cards up to Honor and Profit

1 Like
40

The problem is that Kate-- still the most popular Shaper by a fairly strong margin-- plays Akamatsu for 0

But if you’re playing Overmind, you might want the extra MU of Chaos Theory