Originally published at: Mull or Keep #5 – by Miek - StimHack
Discuss the latest article here.
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Thanks for the great mull or keep article.
I always play a game with these, by scrolling down, seeing what’s been drawn then guessing on whether I’d mull or keep, then seeing what you have come up with. It’s a lot of fun, and educational!
Aaah, I was kinda hoping for a “play against Moonites” one. 
Well, maybe next time.
This one was indeed pretty straight-forward. I think MOpus decks are one of the easiest decks regarding “Mull Or Keep” - there’s one card you want to have, and you mull everything that doesn’t provide you a way to get it turn 1. The NVRAM part was more interesting, but I have the feeling it boils down to “1) no click-compression cards in NVRAM, 2) at best no Priority events in NVRAM”.
Nevertheless, I’m still a fan of the series. 
Keep going, they are good.
Nice article, it’s always fun to play along with these. Some things, like the Priority events, I didn’t even think about.
I have to disagree with one thing though: I think Modded is comparatively good in NVRAM. Even though it is a click-efficiency card, it is much more conditional than Diesel or Process Automation and only really helpful early. Taking Modded out of NVRAM is like clicking for 3 Credits, which is not bad. It just speeds up your setup, especially if you do not see MOpus.
I would be really interested in a similar article with a (more) competitive Ayla deck, since I think the strategy for what to NVRAM could change a lot (where do breakers go, what to with useful/useless silver bullets etc.).
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A good example is Hand #7.
If you had put Modded into NVRAM, you can Click Modded out of NVRAM, Click to Modded in Mopus, click Mopus twice to end on 7 credits, 4 cards, and 2 MU, one credit ahead otherwise.
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I don’t hate it, but remember that each NVRAM slot is potentially something valuable, and by putting modded in there you’re sacrificing a potentially other useful slot for… 1 more credit.
However you are right that in the case of Hand 7, this is probably better than say Careful Planning. I may have applied my click-compression rule too vigorously there.
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I’d argue modded is better than sure gamble… Two clicks for three credits and an install I feel it’s slightly better than four credits…
A couple of times you put a personal touch back when deciding nvram on the basis of not needing it early. When I first started thinking about nvram I was favoring cards that would be necessary at some point or that I wanted in a particular order. Personal touch is worthless early on because you need a breaker first, making it one of the cards that fit my criteria.
On one of the occasions when you pitched the personal touch there was a deep data mining. I would be inclined to pitch that because if it ends up in my starting hand it could be useful immediately. If I get the personal touch in my starting hand it’s useless immediately.
There are several things that complicate the logic on this so I’m having trouble figuring out if either approach is a mistake.
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Disclaimer: I have never played Ayla, but I think the discussion here brings up interesting considerations about NVRAM.
I love how complex NVRAM is. A card in NVRAM is 1) accessible whenever you need it, 2) doesn’t take up space in your hand, and 3) is not in your deck. All of these are relevant and push you towards selecting different cards for NVRAM. Silver bullet you won’t use? Then it’s good for reason 3: putting it in NVRAM removed a useless card from your deck. Silver bullet you DO need? Then it’s great for reasons 1 and sometimes 2; you keep it safe from damage and readily accessible until you need it.
Expensive consoles like Ubax are PERFECT for NVRAM; they’re cards you don’t want to see at all until you need them, when you want to see them IMMEDIATELY. Security Nexus is another great example. I think Deep Data Mining is also great, because it’s a power card that you want to have when you’re ready for it. I would always put Magnum Opus in NVRAM in any deck that runs it, but it’s still not a great NVRAM card because the extra click grabbing it hurts your efficiency. Magnus Opus is a card you’d rather have in your opening hand, while consoles and powerful run events are better on NVRAM. In constructed Shaper decks, breakers (except maybe your fracter) are generally bad on NVRAM too because you can’t SMC then out, but they’re good in Terminal Directive because of the lack of SMC.
For the article, I wish a dummy card (Exploratory Romp) would have been dubbed for the three missing slots and treated as blank. I found myself wondering if the article was giving an inflated sense of how likely you actually are to find a 2-of card on turn 1 in a 45 card Ayla deck.
tl;dr: Don’t just think “Is this a non-efficiency card I want to see early?” when picking NVRAM; consider the effects it has on your entire deck.
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I haven’t finished the article yet but I wanted to head over here to point out that if you stick to the one core suggestion then you only have two mopus. I’ve been playing with two and it feels way worse than three. Having said that we did add creation and control to the card pool for the campaign so I could smc for it.