The problem with designers is that they keep printing power creeps and then tell everyone that there are specific hate card you can slot in your deck to beat these cards,without realizing that if the most important thing you need to do in these match ups is to draw specific cards,then it depends mostly on luck not skill.24/7 combo decks needs to draw NACH and now Aaron,CI needs a variety of hate,RP/IG/PU asset spam requires Whizz/ES/Feedback Filters,HB asset spam requires Whizz too.
And why is this happening?Because all the runner bullshit printed to push more traditional decks out of the meta,so the only chance corps had is to play some combo/spam decks since core netrunner currently barely exists.
I won’t say that it requires no skill in nowadays meta,it does,but I’ve also noticed that more and more games I was thinking of draw faster to find specific cards,not how I should play in general.
I’d like to clarify that by “meta game” I mean the competitive scene. It’s very unappealing to me to want to enter a tournament when all I’m going to see is ctm and asset spam biolock, CI combo, sifr everything and Dyper, and maybe an Andy (which is fine). Jnet is a mixed bag and the only problem I have with it is that it tends to exacerbate the problems inherent to the game instead of offering a space where those problems can be disrupted.
The designers, as some have pointed out, have been pushing the power level of essential cards, which makes their supposed silver bullets all the more necessary. Fair runner decks have become money, breakers, and silver bullets. There’s no room for real spice cards, yet our binders overfloweth with “fun-but-irrelevant” garbage. Take a look at this most recent pack for a good example of what I’m talking about.
On the runner side, the power of ice destruction is the greatest it’s ever been, even counting clone chip parasite days. On the corp side, non-interactivity thrives. I used to hate playing against ctm, but now at least if offers the most interactivity you’ll find of the competitive decks (except maybe RP clone glacier, which is my jam).
I think there is a strong tendency among some designers to want to make the game ‘exciting’ and think a way to do this is to print powercards.
This works for coop, or lighter games. It completely fails in competitive games however, if they end up above the power curve or cannot be played around without specific counters.
I was talking with my brother last night about some of Netrunner’s power cards that come up for discussion for bans in these threads.
I had a thought that if some cards were relegated to non-influence status (like corp agendas) then a lot of the abuse potential could be cut down without banning some of the archetype defining cards. We didn’t spend a ton of time on it, but we came up with a good example for for each runner: Account Siphon, Clone Chip, and Parasite.
This eliminates most instant-speed parasites, focuses clone chip on recurring the shaper disposable breakers (Deus X, Sharpshooter) or rig recovery, and limits Siphon spam to criminal levels (which has never been as strong as it is in Anarch).
It also makes each runner faction more distinct to have power cards that are completely unique to their identity.
So that was my thought,instead of banning cards outright, restrict certain power cards to non-influence status to keep them only in-faction. I worry about unintended consequences a bit, and would like to see the list stay as small as possible.
That doesn’t solve all the problems, but it’s an interesting idea that I think has some merit.
Some random thoughts from testing:
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FiHP and Caprice doesn’t seem too much of a problem. It is powerful, sure, but requires influence and a lot of money. As a criminal-player i see the opponent getting to that point as partly my fault in not denying them their economy. Caprice also has the same weaknesses she always had, notably Political Operative.
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Stealth decks may be interesting. A stealth deck built in the local meta cut one Temujin and one Net Mercur, put in some ghost-runner to compensate and had to cut some corners on barrier breaker efficiency. Seems fair and the matchup versus HB seemed balanced.
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Lots of shapers going down to a single Beth, balancing her out a bit and making her more vulnerable to trashing.
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Lots of glaciery decks, nto necerrarily the Foodcoats-kind, but glacier in NBN using hte taxign barriers, glacier in Jinteki and in HB.
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Not too much Weyland yet, but slowly moving meta and small samplesize of games.
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Not a single monostrategic deck in sight, although this is likely for many other reasons (social) in addition to game-balance. The tournament will be the real test.
Anyone else have thoughts to share?
Thanks for the write-up Elusive. Did anyone bring PPvP Kate or similar? What did Criminal look like: similar to before, but with influence on Temujin instead of Desperado? And while the answer might be fairly obvious, what happened to the “fun” non-meta decks like the mini-factions or Professor - have they changed much?
No PPVP, not sure why that would be viable. We still use the old MWL in addition to this naturally =)
In my crim i sacrificed a single desperado and two employee-strikes to have my three Temujins. I feel like Temujin replaces Despy in a starting hand in power, and thus it’s OK to go down to two. I also hate dead draws, and in a sense this helps me get an additional functional card-slot. Depending on meta i can totally see going down to two Temujin however, depending on levels of glacier-y decks. This is probably a good thing.
One Apex, hard to evaluate. Didn’t seem hurt or overpowered.
In general, still just a bunch of casual games so we have to take all of this with a grain of salt.
Getting confused. A lot of different versions of MWLs running around. What was NBN up to? FA or kill?
A hand full of competitive players quit and sold their collections in our Meta during the Mumbad cycle with this intention in mind. Your fears are valid.
The NBN’s both did some kind of glacier build with tagstorm and taxing barriers.
I’d like to test this list. Is there a recommended way to meet up with others who play it?
For now you’ll have to organize with others yourself. THis is just an experiment at the moment, and to get a platform with which to discuss the issues the game has.
I’m personally using my own local meta and an upcoming tournament to try to get some data and opinions on how it works.
This type of game-balancing is difficult and prone to biases, so i would like to have a robust discussion on all cards, let people challenge the choices and test thoroughly before i say that this list fixes the issues.
It might, and i sure hope so, and you are welcome to contribute =)
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It’s been an interesting discussion and a ban list is a good idea.
There are a lot of compelling and different ideas going on to comprehensively fix the game but I think it would be best to introduce a very limited ban list and update it often. This is because the consequences of any given ban on the meta aren’t going to be totally obvious. Any one change will enable other things that might need to be changed as well.
I’m thinking the problem is that the dominant decks are too dominant. If the best runner is Whizzard it’s because the corp is playing horizontal. If the corp is playing horizontal it’s because the runner can invalidate vertical play. So the core problem is rumor mill and sifr. I’d make that the ban list.
I understand that that might also cause problems, and that other problems may exist, but it’s a change that you can test and see the results of. I’m advocating a small change to the meta as part of a process of regular small changes instead of trying to fix it wholesale.
Well said! I still think the corp cards that are forcing runners to hard counter asset spam need to be addressed on some level, but this is a fine place to start.
Have played quite a few games now, so far so good i would say. Man NBN decks really find a way to be good regardless of any banlist =)
What are the NB decks that are good? I’m curious about how they survive the BN hit.
My guess is probably Tagstorm Glacier builds like Midseasons Sol; they seem decent in this environment.
Yeah k was guessing something like that Bryan sync boom build, but was curious if their was something else.
NEH with 3 Booms seems good.