I think that since I learned Netrunner playing against one friend that kept using Gordian Blade, that’s been my point of reference for evaluating code gates. That, and Parasite. So when I look at Chum and TL;DR, I see them as being, at best, a 3 credit tax, and at worst, gone. So, to me, they’re okay in a world without Parasite. (Though I’d rather use Victor 1.0 as the 3 credit tax since it can be more punishing on face-check.)
I agree with you on where the game has potential to go with the MWL with respect to code gates, but on the subject of gear checking: isn’t that what you include cheap ICE for anyway? I never expect to build any sort of taxing server based on small ICE alone - that never really seems to work. My only reasons for including them is so that I can afford them in the early game to temporarily keep the runner out, to dissuade them from running there until I get my money and bigger ICE out there. I can’t imagine a Netrunner in which a couple pieces of small ICE alone kept a runner out of multiple servers.
Sorry, that was just because PPVP was your main subject : I was on my phone and clumsily used your post as a bookmark, which is a stupid move I sometime make with my phone.
I agree this is not replying specially to you and that the subject deviates from your original post, my apologies for this.
I think yog is fine for the same reason that it’s okay for lady to be on the list. Anarch is supposed to suck at code gates at a pipeline or aurora level.
I’m happy about a Yog.0 nerf from a colour pie point of view. Each Faction’s best ice matchup is backed off in the flavour; code gates need to be beaten by being clever (shaper; gordion blade), barriers with brute force (anarch; morningstar), and sentries by guile or agility (criminal; ninja). This also defines their worst match ups; anarch, criminal, and shaper, respectively.
While the flavour of Yog.0 was a very anarch approach to the problem (brute forcing a solution by running through every possible solution in a database), it being power-wise one of the strongest decoders was off. It should be on the level of Crim barrier breakers or Shaper sentry breakers; inefficient (aurora, pipeline) or with a limitation (breach, sharpshooter). The amount of cards that interact with strength these days means Yog.0’s limitation really doesn’t come up enough to limit its power.
I actually really liked Damon’s interview. I thought he made really sensible, well considered points, and even if we can all cry about how he’s biased this way or that, he’s at least aware that possibility exists. This was actually one of the interviews I’ve been most impressed by.
I think the points about Mimic were particularly wise.
I do think he underestimates the player base in terms of how rigorously cards are tested out. Suggesting Criminal players have missed some amazing deck because they’ve all been focused on Andromeda’s ability is maybe a little justifiable (@Cerberus demonstrated that with single handedly taking Leela far further than anyone thought possible), but probably wrong in full. But that’s okay - I suspect this might be part of him being stuck in a weird ‘design space’ meta of unprinted and rotated cards. He even mentions he finds it difficult to play the game because of that.
I liked the interview on the whole, it was good of Damon to give as frank an interview as he did so soon after the announcement of the list, even if I think some of what he said is a bit ropey.
There were a lot of good points made, but agree that the thinking on Criminal isn’t necessarily there. Andromeda wasn’t all about Siphon spam and she fell out of favour more in the face of RP and tough glacier more than anything. People are definitely trying to make other criminal decks work - they’re just not as strong as Shaper and Anarch at the minute - maybe that’ll shift a little with this list… Criminal had a long time at the top though, it’d be good to see some non-Kate Shaper do something.
I like the approach they’ve taken, although suspect that NEH Fastro isn’t as badly hit as the design team expect. Swap a Biotic for a SanSan and keep three Astros in some decks (that don’t already have 3x SanSan obvs.), plus Kate with Clot recursion was the biggest predator and that’s been significantly weakened.
Overall its a positive start to shake things up a bit, and with an eye to the player base and flexibility in the list as play develops. By Nationals I expect things to be in a good place and with some new decks going okay. With any luck some more diversity.
I wonder if clot-sacrificial construct-fester can be a viable counter to Fastro. It can get pretty oppressive when you have to purge multiple times to get rid of a single Clot.
It was a nice interview and I think Damon explains himself very well.
That said, the idea that “Criminals are not worse at all” or that Jackson is a “crutch players don’t need anymore” and that players just don’t give them a chance is simply wrong. There is some groupthink in Netrunner, but that’s way beyond its realm.
It seems an odd approach to me. Wireless Net Pavillion was felt to be a mistake in it’s printed incarnation: it was errata-ed. Desperado was felt to be a mistake: no errata. Or rather, instead of a single card errata, the entire ruleset was errata-ed by introducing a complete new concept. Why the discrepancy? The same thing goes for Parasite. If the instant kill side is seen as the issue (as per Damon), why not errata the card to trash at start of turn?
I understand the ideal of not having to errata cards to avoid confusion, but I don’t see the introduction of an entire new concept (also at odds with the physical cards) as any less confusing. Especially seeing as the number of “errata-ed” cards (whether individual errata or influence errata via the NAPD list) is getting on for a datapack’s worth of cards which could be provided as a “patch” to update the physical cards.
Agree - I’ve been light-heartedly down on Fisk Investment Seminar recently for example - without Jackson that card would suddenly be a whole lot better.
Speaking with Dan around Worlds time, he pointed out that Jackson enables you to deal with some of the bad early draws that would otherwise make Corp a lot worse than it is with Jackson as a card. In order to limit swingyness (new word) in Netrunner, Jackson fulfills a role.
It’s not so much a crutch as “a really good card, low influence and two great abilities that sometimes work really well together”.
I think I’d disagree. In terms of mental load, either you can rely on the printed cards, or you can’t. Granted, there is an increased issue the more changes you make, but the big jump is deciding to errata at all so that a player even has to worry about whether or not this particular card is one of the ones that doesn’t mean what it says.
If you’re going to errata at all (say through the NAPD MWL), I don’t see why at that point you wouldn’t just bite the bullet and make the changes you know are needed (Desperado at cost 5, Parasite not being instant), since you already are mentally taxing people anyway through some kind of errata.
Because the list might change, as FFG has stated, and because the cost of reprinting a pack of cards is far more than putting a single PDF online. And what, would they charge for the reprints? I’d be pretty outraged to buy cards I already had just for the MWL’s sake. I’d probably just stick to the copies I own, defeating the purpose.
I think the approach they have taken is very elegant, and better still by being in ‘soft form’ it can be updated as a living document to change with the meta. I would keep the MWL as is for now although some permanent errata I thin would improve the game are Astro: limit 1 per deck & make Jackson defect to Weyland and change the reshuffle ability to a click, trash rather than instant speed ability (this would give Weyland +3 influence and NBN -3). Ultimately all NBN decks will continue to play 3x astro despite the restrictions.
A patch datapack might solve some balance issues short term, but more than likely it will just be the beginning of patches on patches as new balance issues that were not caught in playtesting are discovered.
