This list is great news. If anything, it doesn’t go far enough - I’d like to see Caprice and Faust hit the list as well.
Blackmail and DLR should probably just be outright banned, there’s no situation in which they make the game better/more fun.
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If this turns out to be terrible there’s nothing stopping them from changing it back.
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However, they’re implementing a nerf bat, so why not hit clone chip with it? Honestly, Astro’s the big thing on the list. What other changes would you go for?
Pavilon got an errata nerf, and Blackmail has way more counters than most of the cards on the wanted list.
Faust again, is much more of a commitment and has preexisting counters/bad matchups. Especially because cards like Kominu and Yagura get better when parasite gets weaker.
As for Datasucker, it’s really a mimic/yog.0 support piece without parasite. Parasite/Clone Chip are the real power cards, IMO. Is sucker still good? Yes. But with less ability to blow up high strength pieces, it gets stretched thinner.
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Arrogance and Pride are far too strong for that to happen, I think.
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I’d also argue that hitting Clone Chip is a rather good thing, as it’s prevalence before meant Destroyers were fluffy and fairly harmless. It’ll still be there post-Most Wanted, but in lower numbers.
Considering Destroyers’re supposed to be one of the more scary types of ICE, this change is good imo.
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Yea, I’m not looking forward to, for example, bringing a Cybernetics deck with Eli, Architect, and 15 influence to weekly nights and getting excuses thrown for winning/losing.
I can see both sides of the argument and its a tough call to make. Do I play casually with tournament rules or not?
I’d argue that you should follow the deckbuilding rules both in-tournament and in casual play, but I guess we’ll see if there’s a segment of the community that ignores the list when playing casually. That would be awful for the game, but it might happen.
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Exactly what I was going to say. I think this list will fluctuate as the game goes on. I know this is a different (read: better) game, but MTG’s banned/restricted list changes all the time.
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Balancing with card design is a nice ideal, but the fact is that it is super slow. Like years slow. I didn’t personally think the meta was in that bad of a place (besides DLR shenanigans) to warrant this, but if you want to be responsive to unwelcome meta shifts than something like this is the only way to go.
So intense, dude.
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Very true.
Also Desperado was on the list, which is another card that works well with parasite, allowing free runs to give credit + datasucker counter.
I think nerfing one of the two (parasite/datasucker) was good, plus clone chip.
With Parasite getting the nerf, you can feel more confident about playing higher cost, lower strength, multi-subroutine ice. And thats a good thing, because parasite pretty much made those almost unplayable before, and this opens up the design space.
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Why should anyone respond to meta-shifts? I’m not sure that’s what anyone should be trying to achieve.
If all of the cards are reasonably well-balanced and include effects that are fun to play, the state of the meta should be whatever the players want it to be, and there shouldn’t be any problem with that. If people aren’t playing the cards in the exact way that the designers expected, yet the cards are still good cards and result in fun. balanced games, who cares? If the cards are not balanced or not fun, then the meta that results from unbalanced, joyless cards is not the problem, the cards themselves are. Surely in that case the thing that would need fixing would be the actual text of the problem cards, not the meta?
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Okay, so… balance Clone Chip in a way that’s better than this. Remember that just increasing the influence won’t work, as one big issue is the level and strength of in-faction play.
Make it more expensive to play? Kate gets hurt, but less than anyone else. Give it a cost to use? Well, sure, but I don’t think you’d be too happy if it took 2c on top of trashing it.
How else do you fix it?
This also means that they can reverse things more easily, if it turns out to be severe. Deckbuilding restrictions only matter before the game, you don’t have to mentally impose other stuff during play.
Take away Caprice and Glaciers crumble even faster. Faust is entirely manageable as far as AI breakers go – especially with Parasite restricted, as most multi-sub ice has just gotten a LOT more punch.
DLR requires tagging, there are ways to deal with tagged runners. Blackmail isn’t an issue outside of Val and she’s had a couple of hits already, aaand it’s also got other ways of dealing with it.
Doing too many restrictions at once also makes it harder to judge which ones mattered. Not like they can’t add more if need be.
[quote=“mendax, post:147, topic:6385, full:true”]
Arrogance and Pride are far too strong for that to happen, I think.
[/quote]What, really? If these choices are bad for the game in a few months of course they’d change back. They won’t for a while more because it’ll take time to see the overall impact more than any sort of Captialized Sins.
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I reject the premise - clone chip doesn’t need a nerf.
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Why should anyone respond to meta-shifts? I’m not sure that’s what anyone should be trying to achieve.
Well, there are obviously a fair number of people who think Caprice sucks. They are getting counters in Councilman/Political Operative but it’s been well over a year that they’ve been complaining and those counters still won’t be out for a while. If, after some period of high level play demonstrates that a card is too good, then why shouldn’t you move a little more decisively?
I mean, I basically agree with you… I didn’t think the meta was bad, and I don’t like the idea of Damon playing whack-a-mole with the meta… but netrunner will still be netrunner (and awesome) no matter what cards go on the list.
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Faust noise is relatively unaffected. Losing 2 clone chips basically means nothing to the deck when most of the corps that aren’t weyland are suffering, and deja still exists as a thing.
I’m afraid the main thing this does is make Noise more of a thing you’re certain to face, and that’s not going to reduce the amount of parasite in the meta. We’re probably going to see even more parasite in the meta and we’ll see shaper decks hone in on making clone chip parasite a thing.
ETF and NBN got slammed hard enough that their ice is all going to be a bit more crap. Which means losing other tricks for more parasites is probably still the right move.
As weird as it is, making parasite harder to play just means people will be playing less tricks that aren’t parasite. Sort of like how people used to run less tricks for siphon.
The other thing that saddens me is that this hurts new players quite a bit as most of their cards that are reasonably powerful will be on this list. Until they get up to speed they’ll be confused and at a larger disadvantage. And since this list is in flux, it means the list will never actually be published with the core. To me, I’d almost rather see them just reprint the core without these cards. Get rid of parasite/desperado/sansan/yog and fix the actual problem.
Otherwise, as a player of the current meta this will be interesting. I’m not down on the whole experiment, but I’m not 100% convinced it’ll be all sunshine and roses. I’ll try it out and see how it goes. Open mind and all.
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I disagree about Noise… I mean, I’m sure smart deck builders will figure it out… but paying influence for Parasite and Clone Chip seems a pretty big blow to me.
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I’m really not sure that Clone Chip is a card that seems overly oppressive, I’m surprised that it’s on the list. With any of the cards, it’ll depend on why all of those cards are on the list really as to what changes need making.
Parasite for instance I think is a really interesting card. The problem I feel is with “instant Parasite death” to completely nullify ICE such that the only relevant values are the rez cost and strength. I think Parasite would be still strong, but much more strategic if the check for trashing at zero strength was moved to the start of turn (after the counter is added) rather than being constantly on. If San San City Grid is a little too oppressive, I think a reduction in trash cost to three credits would be fine and seems more comparable to Biotic Labour (making Biotic better for scoring nakedly from hand, but San San much preferable if you can get it to stick around behind ICE or if the Runner is broke (an underemphasised NBN strong point!). Not sure about Clone Chip though, as I’m not too convinced what the oppressive bit is.
Nah, pretty much everyone agrees, you run 1x clone chip & 3x parasite and the deck is pretty much unaffected in terms of raw power potential. Clone chip is nice, don’t get me wrong, but it was never necessary. Could run SoT to double down on Deja Vu if you needed to…
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What is the list then? (Not trying to be a jerk - genuinely curious)