NAPD Most Wanted List - *Update July 2016*

[RTsa]

This could turn into a long discussion!

"Why did it even need nerfing? It was hard to play, hard to play against, and not too strong. Banning decks because they’re too good is one thing, but (practically) banning decks with functional errata that aren’t overpowered is something else."
I don’t think making WNP unique makes Dan’s Val DLR deck unplayable. It does give slower corp decks without hate cards a fighting chance though. The new DLR decks are definitely much easier to play than the old Anatomy of Anarch decks. It’s also not necessarily fun to play against if you know you’re going to lose because you’ll bleed 30+ cards off R&D, have no way to stop it or score out before you’re decked and you still have to play a long time to get there…we can disagree here, though, that’s fine.

"There shouldn’t be any functional errata."
I can sympathize. I do think that I’ll enjoy playing Netrunner more with less DLR -craze going around and publishing errata is probably the fastest way to fix a perceived problem. I’m not sure how else that could’ve been done in a short-ish timespan.

"MWL is errata and affects gameplay…"
Hmm, I had forgotten about calculating opponent’s influence during a game. That’s a good point! I don’t remember the last time I did that, but I’ve definitely done it in a tournament setting. That does definitely become slightly harder to do.
The benefit of having an online list instead of reprinting the cards is that they can be removed from the list if the situation changes. Of course you could ban the new version…I don’t know. It gets messy fast if you have multiple copies of the same card with slightly different stats.

My deck archetype rating system was perhaps explained poorly. In a perfect world where you know every card of every opponent’s deck, sure, there’s an absolute best corp and runner deck. But that won’t happen IRL. When you’re preparing for a tournament, you’ll have some archetypes that are “strong enough” and if the differences in power level are smaller then there’re more decks in the “strong enough” department. This is getting a bit philosophical and I’m tired as it’s almost 5AM here. Excuse me for retreating from this battle.

[GreedyGuts]

I think there was a miscommunication: this is my point. Any other change to make Clone Chip not an issue has to fundamentally hurt some aspect of what makes it worth playing in the first place.

It’s a useful ability and definitely has a place, but the ability it has provides too much strength to the Runner if left unchecked. I much prefer this solution – which impacts Shapers and reduces splashability while keeping it a card worth splashing – as a means of balancing an incredibly powerful effect (even if it’s a subtle power) over any and all of the “solutions” I was presenting above.

This is the kind of card that most benefits from this rules alteration, along with Astro. You can’t change either card’s in-game mechanics without defeating the point of the card, so this lets you fix the problem by having it constrain other options, making them less obvious guaranteed includes (or, at least, providing them with a more realistic opportunity cost).

[crossbrainedfool]

@Xenasis

Why did it even need nerfing? It was hard to play, hard to play against, and not too strong. Banning decks because they’re too good is one thing, but (practically) banning decks with functional errata that aren’t overpowered is something else.

WNP/DLR falls pretty squarely in the “Poppy” (from League of Legends) space for me. Is it OP? No, although it’s hardly weak. Is it easy? No. Does that make it good game design? Hell no.

DLR narrows the interaction down to a very small area. It’s a fun intellectual concept, but the actual game experience is not very positive - lots of turns that look the same, and a frustrating fight for the corp.

Honestly, I’d be surprised if we ever see such a unlimited mill card ever again. I’m okay with that.

@Xenasis

This isn’t going to break the game and post-functional errata game will probably be fine in terms of playability, but functional errata and the MWL set a horrible precedent for how Damon handles cards that are good. There will always be cards that are better than most other cards. You can’t fix that, and creating a barrier to entry by trying to do so is not good for the game.

Honestly, that’s not whats been done here. Otherwise Jackson would be on there, because he’s better than Rework.

The MWL is specifically targeted at cards that demand very narrow answers, override interesting deckbuilding choices, or destroy entire factional strategies. Faust isn’t on the list, because at the end of the day it’s just a breaker. A weird breaker, a powerful breaker, but it has ice it’s efficient against and ice it sucks against. Also, any strategy involving damage gains power against Faust.

Clone Chip is such a good safety net, with all sorts of utility. It’s also an effect that doesn’t lose much by hanging around on the board, so it doesn’t take up space in the grip.

Voicepad makes everyone who isn’t Kate forget the card, but it pushes the basic econ engine into place with other powerful econ engines influence wise (CacheShop in noise, for example).

@Xenasis

There shouldn’t be any functional errata.

I disagree. Functional errata is distasteful, but I’d rather play a good game and track errata than play a significantly worse game. From a pure perfection standpoint, of course errata shouldn’t be needed - kinda like a perfect soccer team doesn’t need a goalie.

FFG has made mistakes, and will make mistakes in the future. There is a threshold where adjusting retroactively is worth it.

@Xenasis

This is wrong. If you know, card for card, what every opponent at any given tournament is playing, you can construct an absolute best Corp and Runner deck for them given infinite time to test. Meta calls obviously exist, but there will always be the best few decks in a vague sense and there’s no way to ‘fix’ that. There will always be a (generally) worst Runner faction and Corp faction.

However, the distances are not fixed. There’s a difference between being last by a bit and last by a lot. There’s also the ‘unfun’ tax - if a strategy is a negative enough experience (especially when repeated), then game designer wishing for anything more than a very niche market will try to make that strategy less powerful/harder/less common.

[Orbital_Tangent]

Like it or not, this decision has already generated a lot of discussion at a pretty quick clip. If the goal was to shake us up, mission accomplished. The Stone Era has begun!

[zarathustra]

Deck’s from different faction’s won’t share cards, but decks from the same factions and decks for the same IDs will be much more likely to share them.

[JTG81]

Thinking about PPVP, I think I understand why it was put on the list. I may be wrong but maybe the ubiquitous nature of PPVP Kate has made it difficult for the design team to print event economy since it could be too good for PPVP Kate. This nerf opens up the design space again.

[crossbrainedfool]

@zarathustra

Deck’s from different faction’s won’t share cards, but decks from the same factions and decks for the same IDs will be much more likely to share them.

True, but that’s probably just a given considering how Netrunner deckbuilding works.

[Podoboyz99]

Can somebody please explain to me why Desperado and Paradite are on this list instead of Security Nexus and Datasucker?

[crossbrainedfool]

@Podoboyz99

Can somebody please explain to me why Desperado and Paradite are on this list instead of Security Nexus and Datasucker?

Security Nexus is a) too new, and b) not (thus far) the type of card this was aimed at. Are their entire corp strategies that get shut down by Nexus, with no real chance of a victory? Is Nexus an auto-include with low opportunity cost?

Thus far, I’d say not really.

Datasucker is needed to make Fixed strength breakers work. Parasite synergy is powerful, and what really breaks the card, especially synergy with insta-parasite (the most common form of which has been double whammied). Parasite says “Low strength ice sucks”. Datasucker says “You can use Mimic and Yog as primary breakers”.

Also, with the most powerful form of ice destruction, as well as the most irrelevance inducing fixed-strength breaker on the list, building up sucker counters is harder. If you stack two (non-lotus field) 4 strength code gates, the runner slowly bleeds out tokens if they have a single sucker. A parasite pushes this back to breaking even. But now that Yog and parasite are at a premium, this scenario is more costly for the runner.

[Podoboyz99]

I disagree about Nexus. RP gets crushed by Nexus Kate, and it shuts down a lot of taxing Jinteki ice. Maybe I’m bias because I love Jinteki, but the above is just my opinion. Also, Desperado was good and efficient, not a problem card.

About Datasucker, I don’t think there is much of a discussion. Sure, it lets you play Yog and Mimic, but that’s part of the problem. I think the ease of the fixed breakers suite is the problem in the meta right now. By nerfing Datasucker you still let the fixed breaker suite run, but there USA bit more risk untill you get Ice Carever, Atman, etc. up and running.

[GwiLo]

This is the first time I’ve heard anyone complain about Security Nexus. A lot of the cards put on the list were put there after being found in a wide variety of decks and making the playable pool of cards that much smaller. The only places where the cards were less ubiquitous (SanSan, for example) are those that define an archetype that has historically done really well for a really long time.

I mean, I’m not entirely sure why they feel they have to nerf so much right now, but most of the cards they included are definitely the most noteworthy cards that lead to less diversity. In my mind, at least.

[spags]

Nexus is too new to admit it was a mistake.

[cranked]

Nexus is an 8-cost console that everyone but Sunny is paying 3 influence a copy for and takes other cards to truly make it work. I’m not sure it warrants a spot on the MWL.

(Disclaimer: I fucking love Nexus Kate.)

[Podoboyz99]

It also provides a negative play experience for the corp and also is super frustrating to play against (reminds me of the feeling I had against pre-Clot NBN).

Disclaimer: I fucking hate Nexus Kate

[Danwarr]

I’m interested that a not insignificant amount of people want Account Siphon on this list. Just Desperado being on the MWL is a pretty significant nerf to a significant number of Criminal builds. Adding Account Siphon would make Criminal all but unplayable, in my opinion.

I know I’m biased here being a big Geist player, but Clone Chip moving to 3 influence outside of Shaper really sucks. It’s one of the best cards for Geist and is almost required to play the B&E suite. In his flavor description it even talks about how the Muertos smuggle in Clone Chips and now it’s almost impossible to play.

Overall, however, I have mixed feelings about the Most Wanted List. On the one hand, I really hate this decision to even create a restricted list. Some of the reasons FFG laid out are really weak especially the one for Desperado being “no top tier decks play any other Criminal console, so we nerfed it to force to you play other ones.” That just seems like really lazy designing. If they want people to play other consoles, make those consoles at least comparable in power level.

On the other hand, the meta is basically at Day 0 right now so this new deck building challenge will be interesting.

That being said, I’m more in the camp that the Most Wanted List might be overall bad for Netrunner. Obviously only time will tell, but I feel like even the existence of “The List” is dangerous. People will be calling for certain cards to added constantly, whether or not those cards actually deserve to be on it. It is also unclear as to when new cards may be added or taken off the Most Wanted List. Will it be every 6 months? At the end of every cycle? Once a year? I can’t imagine this will just be a one time thing.

Anyone want to handicap the odds of Levy and Faust being added to this list?

I also like to think that this whole decision came down to a Psi game between Lukas and Damon and we all know what happened.

[Nobo715]

NAPD Enemy No. 1

Goddamn it. Dan/Anthony give me ‘Needlessly Reactionary’ as a title or I’m quitting the game and selling all my cards.

[LordNat]

Why not look into running Foxfire? I have found it a fairly good card in the current meta.

[chaosjuggler]

The Stone Age, surely?

[Danwarr]

Daemon Stone?

[Asclepius]

apology for poor english

when were you when Netrunner dies?

i was sat at home watching new year eve show when Damon ring

‘Netrunner is kill’

‘no’