Mining Accident’s Six-Month Performance Review

Happy Friday, I thought I’d try something a little different as a thread idea.

By my estimation, Mining Accident has been out for roughly six months. It’s become a staple in Anarch lists, particularly Val lists where its value seems undeniable.

But is it really all it’s cracked up to be? Let’s cast a critical eye on it. I’ve put in several dozen games with Val over the past few weeks and I’ve discarded more unused copies of Mining Accident than I care to admit. I have these observations:

Pros:

  • Drawn early, particularly in pairs, against a poor corp, it really shines at enabling more runs, which beget more Turning Wheel counters and mitigate the clunkiness of the heap breakers. :+1:
  • It helps beat CTM :sunglasses: and Gagarin.:nauseated_face:

Cons:

  • Val’s match-up against CTM😎 and Gagarin🤢 is already strong. 1 Bad Pub is already a lot. Stimhack helps trash occasional expensive targets and eat traces. All Mining Accident does here is end the game a little sooner?
  • Drawn late, or against a rich corp, I find myself discarding Mining Accidents. The two credits and a click may represent more value to me than the corresponding Bad Pub in a game which may end within less than 5 turns, especially when what I really need is to draw into Indexing or Rebirth to close the game.
  • I’m deeply suspicious of cards that promise Best Value if you see all three. I ran Aeneas Informant in Criminal for exactly one week for the same reason: if it’s not universally applicable, if it’s poor when drawn late, if it could have been a better draw, or if the click to play is actually a hidden cost… I’m skeptical.
  • Mining Accident is worse in Turtle Val than Femme Val, as you’re less likely to get a pop at an open server early on. Arguable and timing-based, but just my experience.
  • The best way for the corp to play around it is do something they ought to do anyway.
  • Potentially less valuable in tournament play where faster decks are more prevalent.

What’s your experience with Mining Accident? Have you ever cut it? Do you think there might be something which could make Val even more ruthlessly consistent, or is Mining Accident simply the next-best 3-of in a 50-card deck? What about for other Anarchs?

3 Likes

I think the bad pub side of this punisher card is a tiny bit too weak. Not in the BP itself, but because there are few effects that proc off it.

I’m a bit confused what your metric is for saying it is not all that it is cracked up to be. What specifically are people saying about it that you find needs deflating?

I’ve really only played Mining Accident in Val decks, but I find it to be a strong card and cannot think of another zero influence Anarch or Neutral card I’d trade it for. I don’t run three because I expect to land all three in any game, but because I want to get it early, which you point out is when it is often most useful.

While landing all 3 would be great for -15 credits or 3 Bad Pub would be great, I find that even 1 Bad Pub is a great benefit in many games.

True, it is not a great card if you are up against a super-rushy deck that does not play assets and jams out behind gear-check ice. But against Corps playing assets or taxing ice, free credits via Bad Publicity every time you run is great.

I think the card is well-balanced and fair but still very useful.

4 Likes

In a 50 cards regass deck,you just play good decent cards that have a straightforward effect.

Mining Accident is not a really key card,so you won’t actually mind not drawing it early.Each time you play it,either you get a BP that fuels your aggressive runs,or the corp lose 5 credit which is not a small tempo hit.

The most shining stage of Mining Accident is in the early game,that’s why we play 3.In early games there are usually open centrals like Archive you can easily get into,and most corps just choose to get a BP rather than lose 5 credit in their early game,so you just play it to get a long term econ,with Val it means play 1 Mining Accident gives every run 2 credit,this sounds really good right?because it is.

Sure it gets a little bit worse in the mid-late game,then you simply discard it,not a big deal,if you successfully going into the mid-late game you only need more money and access tool,this card is no different from other non-access cards.

My point is that this is a card you don’t need to build a deck to make it work,it works on itself.It’s just a punisher card that actually done right.

1 Like

I think this is the real kicker to the card. It’s well balanced. In the current meta it’s value declines as the game goes on because 1) you’re getting less use of bad pub and 2) The current meta corps usually get significantly richer (CtM, CI). It’s also one of only a few cards that have a fairly significant impact in both match ups (stall the corp’s progression early game or fuel trashing/breaking).

1 Like

I spectate a fair number of games on Jinteki net and watch a few streams, and I’ve noticed a lot of players ditch the Mining Accidents if they don’t think the BP will stick, which seems strange to me. It could just be a difference in piloting, but unless the corp has something like 20+ credits with a bunch of ICE rezzed, making them lose 5 for 2 is almost always good value.

Obviously there are going to be scenarios where the corp’s economy is so out of hand that 5c makes next to no difference, but if you’re Val you shouldn’t be letting CtM chill on a Bankers or anything like that.

1 Like

Mining Accident should be pretty good against some flavors of CI (Moons, Stinson) as well. Did you find that in your testing?

Most likely they’ll take the BP, which allows the runner to keep getting accesses without worrying as much about setting up econ.

1 Like

I find Mining Accident to be very strong against CI Moons, as both choices usually are really bad options.

There are times when you can combo the next turn, so you don’t mind a BP that will only last 1-2 turns, but early losing 5c is bad, and giving up a BP ever is really bad.

I once had an opponent give me all 3 bad pub. He realizd his mistake when I was running through multiple ice for 0-2c, and sometimes only running to get a free install using bad pub. Bad pub is pretty strong on it’s own, it doesn’t need to enable anything else to be impactful.

3 Likes

No metric. I’m trying to do a couple things here:

  1. Try to see if anyone can come up with an argument against slotting 3x Mining Accident in every Anarch deck and convince me that it’s valid. Like I say, I think it’s the next-best 3-of in every Anarch deck after the essentials are covered.
  2. Try and elicit some responses from others to see how they’ve found the card and to think critically about its value. Like I say, I found myself discarding it often enough lately that I actually noticed myself doing it and made a mental note. So, thinking critically, if it effectively costs four to play (assuming a click is worth 2 credits), do I make enough value off it? I don’t completely buy the idea that Value Mining is a good way to play the card, and I never seen anyone play it that way (unless they have two Minings in hand, which I think is solid play).

Haven’t seen any Moons really in a while but “Yes” to various Stinson or MCAAP decks. Oddly Val seems to be able to keep these games from snowballing with Femme for Mythic, Stimhack to install heap breaker and contest or trash, D4V1D for FC3, and other bits and pieces. The ice is either mythic and you break it cheaply (assuming you can) or it’s FC3 and god help you anyway. Sometimes I just dig for Rebirth and Indexing. They run real three-pointers, shrug.

Yes Bad Pub is flexible and mitigates the crapness of Black Orchestra, but wouldn’t I rather have Scrubbers if corps are going really wide? One Scrubber is as good as a Mining Accident two runs per turn! Same price! Doesn’t require a central run! Eh! Eh? :astonished:

I guess the point is, it’s good against some CI, which is the top Corp ID, good against CtM (and other asset-based decks that are less prominent), good against AgInfusion if the games go longer. There’s not that many cards that have that kind of broad appeal.

4 Likes

You make a convincing point!

So no takers on my counter-offer that Scrubber is as good as Mining Accident? Just think: two Scrubbers give you amazing, Bad Pub-like value! Four realistic credit-style tokens to use for those pesky trash costs.

Anyone?

:expressionless:

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I think Mining Accident was the best Anarch card of the past cycle due to it’s overall value. It can fit into most reg Anarch decks. While the tag-me Anarch cards of Red Sand did create a competitive archetype, they’re all somewhat reliant on each other. MA is good on its own in a way that very, very few non-breaker, non-econ (OK, so it’s pseudo-econ), non-draw cards are.

There are plenty of builds that wouldn’t want it, mostly ones that run rarely. The clanarch decks that generally win with just a few big Counter Surveillance runs are the first thing that comes to mind.

1 Like

I’m starting to think there’s no argument to be had.

I was just thinking to myself, If you told me I could have a deck with six Dirty Laundries, I’d probably go for it.

But Mining Accident is at least as good a card as Dirty Laundry, more flexible, possibly vastly more payoff as well.

The risk of drawing one late is the actual downside compared to Dirty Laundry which is just a flat three credits plus your run.

Lock thread, we good!

I have tried it in other (non-Val) reg anarch decks, but not loved it. The threshold for value bad pub seems to be about 2 (the cost of bankers and reducing heap breakers to about 1 for small ice), and since Val starts with a bad pub it’s easier to hit that threshold. Out of other anarch decks, I think there are other better options, like peddler.

I agree with the OPs thoughts on it being better in Seamus Val.

Yep!

For a while I thought I might be able to get similar value out of smoke as her stealth cred is like a more limited bad pub, but I really have just never been able to reliably build a deck out of anything other than Anarch with Mining Accident.

Scrubber is NOT the same value as Mining. Either Mining gives you a Siphon effect to force the Corp to lose tempo, or you get credits every run. You need 2x Scrubber to equal 1 BP. And BP can also break. Scrubber just be scrubbin’.

2 Likes

Of course you’re likely to discard them if you draw them late. There are far fewer runs left for you to make, so that bad pub will save you a lot less money. But if you land 2 of them early Val can basically walk through one piece of ice every run for free!

It’s not as good in decks that prefer to make fewer high impact runs raher than run as aggressively as Val.

1 Like

I think there’s some similarities, but there’s some major differences. The obvious one is that Scrubber is only good at trashing things, which BP still helps you with. The next is that BP is provided to you every run you make for the rest of the game, so if you have 2 BP or 2 Scrubbers, those are the same in terms of value if you’re trashing 2 things (assuming certain trash costs). If you’re trashing more than 2 things, BP is better. If you’re trashing one thing that costs 4, then Scrubber is better. If you’re Val, getting to 2 BP probably just costs 2c to play Mining Accident. Playing 2 scrubbers cost you 4c. Sure, you have to make a run on a central before casting MA, but this is called Netrunner, not Netthumbspinning, so that “cost” usually doesn’t matter that much.

So 2 BP is nearly equivalent when it comes to trashing, assuming a mixed number of trash costs (or close enough to it that I don’t feel like making too big a deal about it). However, BP also breaks ICE, while Scrubber just sits there like a scrub. BP also helps you install your breakers, since Val still uses the bin breakers. There’s tons of times I can think of where I’ll make a run on, say, a Barrier, install my Paperclip with 2-3 BP, bounce off it, and then make another run, breaking it with those same BP. The savings is real.

BP4lyfe (in Val).

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I think the fact the 2nd BP is better than the first is a true and non intuitive point. People tend to assume things have diminishing returns in netrunner but they don’t always.

The easiest scenario to think about is the runner has 6 credits and 2 BP vs 6 credits and 1 BP vs 3 Pad Campaigns installed.

The runner can trash all 3 and end on zero credits in the former, and in the latter only 2 of the pad campaigns. The runner gets not just the 3 Credits from the 2nd BP but ALSO gets an additional usage from the the first one. So the 2 BP runner uses 6 BP vs only 2 BP. Getting the second BP increase your ability to utilize the first which is an exponential increase in value. Au revoir is a similar concept where the first one is useless while the second is very good.

The second point in terms of BP value is that’s it’s value increases when you build your deck around leveraging free runs (Turning wheel, Bhagat, etc). Since Val has at least one BP you’re able to build your deck with this in mind asince the first BP still makes running good, bjt a different Anarch BP deck is vulnerable to the Corp either paying 5 to Mining Accident or not drawing them, and so has a harder time building a deck to fully leverage BP.

Anyway, my verdict is it is an extremely good card in Val and not a great card in other Anarch, but more run econ support could push it back into generally strong.

14 Likes

Not saying that there are diminishing returns with bp, exactly, but that I often find myself too busy doing other things to play the second mining accident. This isn’t always the case, and I’ll gladly go to 3 if the Corp gives me time, though it happens much less frequently excepting those games where I double mining.