MNGA - Rolling Ban-List Discussion

God, I’ve had to re-write this post three times to not sound super-negative.

So, I’ve settled with a disclaimer: You are entitled to play the game in any way you want to, and to run a tournament using any custom banlist and rules changes you want to. Nothing I say below should ever be taken as me saying “No, you shouldn’t do that”. Please, enjoy the game!

Ok, phew. Besides the fact that it looks like you’re trying to make Netrunner 2014 Format, I see one card missing that exemplifies the problems I expect you to have…

Hard-Hitting News: You’ve banned Sensie’s. Ok, and when CtM runs Daily Business Show instead and is still oppressive? (I’ve done some test plays; It’s a worse card for sure, mostly just because it actually costs money, but it’s still comparable. It’s clickless draw and draw filtering together.) Heck, you can even just click Jackson and it’s at least playable. This won’t prevent CtM/NEH Asset Spam. The real offender is, and has always been, HHN. Aaron finally made the matchup playable again because you could actually spend something that wasn’t 2cr+Click for each tag. He happens to be very good in every matchup, so banning him brings HHN-Asset Spam back to the forefront. (Which, I think is probably the right call. Aaron only really solved one problem in the cardpool that was worth having his Powerlevel: Breaking News shenanigans. With BN banned, I see no reason to keep Aaron around.)

Whenever anyone talks about banning/MWL’ing CtM or Sensie’s and doesn’t immediately consider HHN, I have to question their targets. This is also indicated in how Power Shutdown was initially on the list instead of Accelerated Diagnostics.

Power Shutdown has non-egregious use cases that result in interesting play states. Accelerated Diagnostics does not.
Sensie’s has non-egregious use cases that result in interesting play states. HHN does not.

Before you break out the pitchforks, let me ask you this. If you can check every one of CtM’s servers, find the Sensie’s, and trash it for 2, then pay another 2cr and a click to clear the tag… Is that oppressive? That looks like two clicks and four credits to me. Additionally, the ability of Sensie’s firing once is powerful, no question, but by no means does it end a game. I’d honestly cost it at about 3 clicks worth of value. That’s super powerful, but not game-ending. (3 clicks, because Draw, Draw, Mr. Li is close to it, but you can argue that it’s 4 clicks worth of value, too.) Additionally, firing a Sensie’s when you have a full hand constrains your turn, unless you want to dump a bunch of cards into the bin.

Now let’s talk about the effect that HHN has on a board state. At its weakest, HHN costs the Runner 8 credits. At its strongest, it gives a bankrupt Runner 4 tags. 8 credits is more than 2 clicks and 4 credits for most Runners. 8 credits and 4 clicks to clear the four tags is a huge tempo swing. More than a Sensie’s activation? I’d argue yes.

To wrap this up, my analysis of the cards put on the various lists indicate a desire to play circa 2014-2015 Netrunner. This isn’t exactly a bad thing. There will be a few changes; Faust and Friends in High Places being some of the big ones, but I suspect the balance will be in the Corp’s favor. Andysucker might be one of the more powerful choices, except that Desperado’s on MWL… Replicating Perfection looks to be riding high on this particular set of bans/MWLs.

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Eh, it feels like if you’re thinking of hitting a recursion card, you should be looking at the cards they recur instead. It’s only a problem if the card (or cards for viruses) are themselves overpowered.

At it’s weakest, HHN is the corp vamping itself. Not going to argue that it’s not powerful but once the runner is sitting around 20 credits, the HHN threat is turned off as no corp is going to spend 20 to make the runner pay 8 which was a common occurrence in my old non-asset spam Sync deck.*

HHN is mostly a problem when, I don’t know, there’s an asset that cost 0 to rez and 4 + a click to trash and rapidly draws into simular assets. If there isn’t an asset that requires a response on turn 1, the HHN threat is much reduced.

I don’t think you’re wrong, HHN and CTM are still a problem even with these bannings but they can’t possible be as much as a problem as they are now with SAU not banned.

*except when you do sneaky things like drop an agenda and then HHN and force them to either end their turn tagged or let you score an agenda. Bonus points if they clear tags anyway and you didn’t even have any tag punishment in hand. Fun times, I loved that deck.

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Heh i appreciate the engagement =)

I agree with Kore’s comments below, and i think this card is a problem first and foremost in combination with ‘must trash now’ type assets. DBS is a much slower monster. I happen to think that HHN is well designed on its own, and it is in fact quite easy to play around without tech. Staying at 12 credits bankrupts any corp using it on you, and you can clear next turn for the same ‘cost’ to them. Not mentioning corp credits being worth more usually.

Regarding the PS/AccDiag discussion, this is an ongoing discussion after all, i’m certainly not omnipotent. This is why i’m asking you guys for help.

The reason i’m kind of wanting Caprice on here somewhere is that it will come back in a big way. MWLing her might be a good compromise.

The obvious cards that DV recur that are a problem are Account Siphon and Parasite. Both i consider powerful core cards of their factions, and banning them would seriously affect the game. Deja Vu in anarch (coupled with Same Old Thing) enables a critical mass of Account Siphons however, which can be a serious problem.

They also enable abuse of the Parasite’s. Thus in a vein, similar to Clone Chip being MWL’d and me needing just a small bump down for problematic Anarchs Deja Vu seems like a good choice.

My other alternative instead of Deja Vu would be to MWL Datasucker i think.

Suggestion: Ban the Horizontal IDs (IG, CtM, Gagarin, possibly RP and NEH as well).

Assets originally had bad rez-to-trash ratios, probably because the intention was that they were either weak-ish (Pad?) or needed to be iced (Adonis). First RP and then NEH nudged decks into playing more “horisontal”, and then IG and Gagarin appeared to make full blown horisontal decks attractive. At the same time, however, they changed the rez-to-trash ratios on new assets. I think that the power of asset spam is at least partially because they buffed assets twice, when once was probably enough. As it’s not practical to ban every new asset, remove the IDs that protect them.

Then you can ban Whizzard to make assets more appealing for the IDs that are left.

(I’m unsure about NEH and especially RP. NEH is probably fine as it’s straight up above the curve, but RP has a pretty interesting idea. Might have to go to prevent RP Prison from floating to the top.)

Banning Caprice is a huge mistake for the reasons mentioned above. The runner has plenty of counterplay to her, not to mention simply running elsewhere. MWL her and make RP pay influence, but don’t ban her.

I notice you did not read through the whole thread. I don’t blame you. People talked me out of it, and now she is suggested as MWL’d.

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Sorry! I did try to read most of it! :slight_smile:

I hate to derail, but this gets at something that rotation has me thinking about a lot. Is there a subset of releases at which Netrunner is “best”? This could a single moment in time, or a combination of expansions, or even a sufficiently precise banlist (though I have my doubts, for some of the reasons already discussed).

My own completely subjective–and almost certainly false–impression is equal parts bleak and sanguine. Overall I think Netrunner hasn’t ever been quite as good as it was at the end of Genesis, but that rotation has the potential to make it better than ever.

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I’m encouraging your derailing a bit here, since it’s interesting.

I somewhat agree, although i do think Netrunner has only gotten better since Genesis under the surface but since we have been plagued by balance issues on the top level (First Scorch kill, then Astro, then PreMWL meta, then Prison IG and now what we currently have) the real improvements have not gotten as much visibility as they deserve.

Top players play top decks, that is natural. A card game is also very hard to test and balance before release. I think FFG does a very good job overall in development, but that they have been too reluctant to grapple the issues that inevitably pop up post-release when the hivemind solves the meta. I think this has been a maturing period for FFG as well, but that they would need to step up their MWL/Banning game somewhat to let the game they have designed come forward and be its best.

I also think that they have encouraged simpler monostrategic deck-archetypes a bit too much, which discurages people from exploring and developing skills with the complex deck-types that they really seem to want us to play.

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Just like in real life, regulating one thing normally just creates undesirable consequences elsewhere, most of the time its better to just let the invisible hand do its work and let the game evolve naturally. For example, I dont like CI but im quite happy it is having its day in the sun.

Reverting back to some golden era (which probably never existing as folk were whining about that too at the time) is unlikely to work the way you envisage it, just because peoples behaviour and choices change in response. I would be very wary of ban lists / errata / mwl’ing and anything that does happen should be really light touch. Are you fixing the game or are you just playing favourites with certain cards/stragaties/factions/decks?

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This is an ideological statement, not a factual one. If it was there would be no reason to have the MWL in the first place, or indeed to have playtesting at all. This argument also is very hard to apply to a wholly human-created rules-environment (i.e. a game).

Also: even though the statement oft repeated that ‘new problems will pop up’ most certainly is true, the aim is that those problems are less problematic in character and less destructive for the game environment.

Last, i’m not trying to roll back to an earlier era. Many underlying problems present in the game that are of less consequence than the ones we are trying to fix here are, in my opinion, vastly improved by the newer (better designed) cards as you can read in my summary article. A more correct description of what i am trying to do is to let this underlying game ‘pop out’.

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i’m a much bigger proponent of a restricted list, like say, no Parasite and Sifr in the same deck

i think rotation will actually fix a lot of the current metagame problems. i just hope this cycle releases quickly, so we can get onto the next and see what rotation does. i almost feel like a ban/restricted list now is just triage on the bleeding metagame when a proper fix is coming, so i don’t think is really has to be super complicated or exact

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I also find it interesting - perhaps telling even - how difficult it is for people to agree on which cards belong on a banlist or even the MWL. I’m definitely not against the idea at all but I think it showcases how many different wants people have for the game. I think the question underneath the desire for any sort of card restrictions is “Why is this game fun?”

For me part of the draw of Netrunner is how much the game sort of thrives off uncertainty. At it’s best Netrunner is a game that feels full of choice and risk which makes for thrilling, interactive gameplay. I rarely feel helpless or locked out of a game and while there’s always a “best” choice the amount of hidden information in the game makes those choices harder to identify.

That said there have been points in Netrunner’s tenure that are dominated by certain archetypes and strategies and the game becomes less interesting for me when it’s predictable and when most of the decisions come from metagame-deckbuilding choices. I’m not saying metagames or netdecking is bad or that I don’t enjoy deckbuilding. But the game becomes really stale and unfun when the number of viable decks becomes limited to one or two sections of Netrunner’s color pie and even worse when limited to a handful of IDs. Maybe what I’m describing is a desire for the game to be more “casual” but I don’t think that’s it.

I think games can be competitive and fun but right now its too much of the former. I don’t really have suggestions to add/remove from a banlist but I’m curious to hear what other people like about Netrunner in the first place and maybe that will help pin down which cards really are “the problem.”

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This is a really important point; I’ve mentioned elsewhere that FFG needs to figure out what their “core” of Netrunner is so that it doesn’t just become the asset spam/combo game.

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DLR should not be on the list imo, it’s at a pretty good place as it is today (could be a good meta call but not a all-around good deck) and especially with deja vu it seems like it’d have enough problems as it is.

I don’t even think it’s that un-interactive (unless you have god-draw or play against someone who has no idea what DLR is) either, on the contrary I think the dlr games are often very interesting with lots of decision points.

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I’ve heard discussion about not banning specific cards, but combos of cards. You can have one card of the combo but not both. For example:

You get either Power Shutdown or Accelerated Diagnostics.

Sifr or Parasite.

CtM or Hard Hitting News.

Is that another way to think of it or is that just muddying this whole idea? in general, I don’t care about restrictions or changes to deckbuilding rules. I think new constraints just open up new possibilities.

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What stands out about this debate to me is how widespread agreement appears to be on certain cards deserving ban and MWL treatment – not only in this thread, but also in conversations I’ve had with other players and the Netrunner Dorks FB page/reddit.

The cards just about everyone seems to agree have to go are sifr, aaron, rumor mill, DDOS, blackmail and sensei actor’s union, with some reasonable concerns expressed about other cards that may need to be considered surrounding the move (like Sandburg’s resurgence if rumor mill goes) and many people thinking the power shutdown and accelerated diagnostics combo also needs to be broken up.

There also appears to be widespread agreement that temujin deserves the MWL treatment, although many people qualify that by saying it would be devastating to the resurgence of criminals if desperado weren’t taken off as a complementary move.

I have a lot of opinions on the subject and many of people’s individual ideas, but I mostly just wanted to observe and emphasize that the community seems to have a pretty strong consensus on a lot of these cards. Ball is in your court, FFG.

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Certainly possible, especially with Deja Vu there. It’s one of those decks that in certain times have disrupted the whole meta however, and it is a deck the game does not really need to be healthy (imo), and in addition requires the oppressive-anarch style to be effective. I put it on to start the debate, so we’ll see what happens. It is a card we surely must discuss anyway.
Any other well-argued votes on the side of allowing DLR in this environment?

Been suggested earlier in the thread. My reason for not wanting to do it is simply that it brings more complexity, an i’m not sure if that is worth it.[quote=“kwind, post:59, topic:8629”]
Ball is in your court, FFG.
[/quote]

Indeed.