Mother Goddess

[Mother Goddess][1] replaces [Chimera][2] in my mind. 2 more to rez, but not insta-parasited, needs to be broken by AI if first piece to rez, and doesn’t derez every turn. Chimera was always a better first turn ICE anyway, but MG holds strong through the midgame I think.

Thoughts?

*Edit: Note that Mother Goddess is unique, which creates another small drawback compared to Chimera.
[1]: Mother Goddess · NetrunnerDB
[2]: Chimera · NetrunnerDB

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I think I generally disagree. In my CI deck, Mother Goddess is (theoretically) pretty bonkers because you can score behind it, and you really don’t need to rez any ICE over centrals until something like account siphon or multi-access hits the table. But in a deck where I have to actually rez my ICE, I favor Chimera assuming I’m using it to score behind, I don’t like the additional porousness of Mother Goddess. But with an ICE in front of it, you can continue to score behind a chimera until an entire rig is assembled. If you find yourself Icing a central with your mythic ICE, then I guess I can concede that Mother Goddess is a comparable alternative.

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I think Mother Goddess and Chimera do entirely different things, for all that they both keep the runner out.

Chimera you want multiples of, to protect a remote server at all costs until they can break absolutely anything (or parasite it out), usually working in conjunction with other ice. Ice Wall in front of Chimera, say.

Mother Goddess you can only have one of in play, and while it’s uncrackable turn one (short of Femme or Inside Job) it only grows more porous as time goes on. Basically, if they can break any of your Ice, they can break Mother Goddess. It’s definitely better than Rainbow, especially for NEXT, but it turns from Hard ETR to taxing ETR almost immediately.

I like it a lot, but even as a tax-ice, they can choose the cheapest breaker to use, and turning it back on is much harder than with Chimera. Its use in a regular deck feels much trickier than in NEXT, so I think most folks’ll want to keep their Chimeras – because for all that their utility decreases with time, it never quite goes away entirely.

Interestingly, you actually CAN turn Mother Goddess back on, if you install over an ICE if they only have one breaker out. It also creates interesting dilemmas for emergency shutdown and parasite, because the runner has to be wary of giving you scoring windows.

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How about a remote with Chimera AND Goddess? Now that’s what I call impenetrable! :stuck_out_tongue:

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This is why I said it was harder. Even something like Mutate could do it, in theory, if they’ve only the one kind of breaker and the new ice is of a different sort.

Actually sounds pretty effective. Can double-rez in the face of Inside Job or Femme until they’ve got everything set up, is taxing enough that early runs will still drain the runner economy (though it might drain yours as well somewhat, especially if you can’t put Chimera on the inside of the server where it belongs). Tricky to get it out, be able to rez it, and score the agenda in question, but if the economy works out you’re right that that’s going to be nasty to get into.

Mother Goddess still gains whatever subtype you choose for Chimera, but it still forces them to get whatever breaker(s) they’re void in.

At the very least. With Chimera on the inside, they have to AI-break it or bypass it altogether before you even have to rez Chi (or pay a big tax with whatever other ice types you can use before Chimera shuts them down, making the run more costly for them than for you, at least.)

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That pairing will also combo nicely with gear resets like Destroyer ice and AggSec. Edit: And potentially Bad Times.

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