I think this is true, and it was probably true long before Rumor Mill came along. As long as FFG is (intentionally or not) pushing competitive play towards ice destruction, we need better defense mechanisms for glacier or the only competitive alternative are to pursue alternative (“degenerate,” “unfair,” etc.) strategies which deviate substantially from core Netrunner. I understand that some folks didn’t like the ‘randomness’ of Psi games, but Caprice was the only option to semi-reliably protect a remote against more than a single run.
However, Rumor Mill tightly constrains this design space now. Any alternative will either be subject to RM, a Region, or non-unique. If it is non-unique, the power level will probably be really wonky – no matter what the effect is, if 1x in a server is good, 2x or 3x is probably crazy broken. More defensive Regions are probably workable, and they would inherently prevent some of the abuse cases of Caprice (stacking her with SSCG, for example).
I feel like if the corp is pre-rezzing stuff to avoid councilman, I’ve already come out ahead. People downplay councilman a little, but I think it’s a really good card.
Information is really valuable - I’m glad to know it’s a caprice and not a CVS. Or it’s an ash so I need to win a trace war. Or it’s a batty and I might lose my entire rig if I lose the psi game. It allows you to adjust accordingly. If it’s not match point, maybe I turn my attack to centrals if it’s Batty so I don’t just lose. It also forces the corp to commit to a plan.
I thought councilman and pol-op were well-designed. I like interdiction a lot. Not a fan of rumor mill.
I genuinely assumed that is what Syntax meant when he referred to SOL as the answer to Rumor Mill and got all confused by everyone’s contrary responses.
I see what is your problem but to me omni-decks shouldn’t exist. Don’t forget Wizz & Ash gtfo in a few monthes. Ash will get a replacement.
Everybody complains about AI, this is the same thing to me. Omni-horizontal is asking 3 click & ~12c each turn for the runner : it is plain stupid.
Nerfing omni-FA was good, nerfing omni-horizontal is good, to me. Until Ash v2, play something else in your glaciers, like Junebug.
This situation was nerfing heavilly the bluff decks.
It’s no wonder that after a 1 year disappearance, PE decks are coming back. I think it is a good thing for the health of the game.
I know that some would prefer Rumor Mill with naming cards. I think it would be much better if Rumor Mill would be a Run Event. You still could run Archives with Jackson. You could still use it against a mighty remote with Caprice, Ash and Batty. But you couldn’t use it with Blackmail.
Hi,
I’ll share my thoughts on the suggested list of banned/MWL’d cards:
Sifr: It’s obviously owerpowered, instantly killing anyone trying to score behind ice. However, it is said to be a last minute change just like Wireless Net Pavilion, so instead of banning, I’d be interested in the original version. Maybe just a -2 Str, like Null, or maybe set the ICE Str to 1-2 instead of 0 would be enough. It would still be potent with Null, would maaaybe enable Nulls breaker suite to be conveniently buffed up, but wouldn’t see much play outside, IMO. Rumor Mill: Yeah, probably worth of MWL at least, as I don’t see what it hates beside glacier, which is already in a tough spot. Aaron: Obviously too strong against current tagging and meat dmg decks. But I’d keep in mind, that just after 1 cycle Plascrete will be gone, so I suppose he’s just part of the runner side preparation for that.
**Blackmail:**It will rotate, and I don’t see it as dominant in the meta, so I wouldn’t bother.
**Feedback Filter:**Really? 3 credit / net dmg is considered sustainable? Along that how does one pay for anything else? I might be missing something, but never felt it’s a problem. DDoS: truly degenerate, but alone it’s not much, and the keyhole false echo combo takes quite long to build up. Even then a single foxfire handles it. (yeah… laugh if you will, but there are quite some good targets for it nowdays) Faust: As it was mentioned before, quite some AI hate over the meta now… Sensie: I do think asset spam is a problem, but I don’t think it’s because of Sensie alone. Temüjin: fair point, should be MWL.
So from the list, all together in my opinion only Sifr, Rumor Mill and Temüjin are worthy of immediate action, the others are okay, or shortly will be okay i think.
My problem however is the increasing number of Asset spam / Prison kill decks. Unless hardly teching against them, a runner has barely any chance against a PU Bioethichs spam. Or a NEH asset spam. With all the recursion and all the must trash assets. And my main fear is that, there is no 1-2 cards that can be banned to balance them, because they would just put in similarly expensive and devastating assets… It’s only counter in tournament play is the time limit.
Any thoughts on that?
As a quick aside, I also don’t buy ‘it will rotate out soon, so there’s no need to do anything about it’ as an argument.
Rotation is likely to be eight months away, which is a significant amount of time in the life cycle of a card game. If cards are having a detrimental effect on the game, making it less fun and thus reducing the number of people who want to play it, then it’s important to look at it now.
I mentally compare this to having someone repeatedly kick me in the shin, and when I complain they say “Don’t worry too much about it, I’ll stop in eight months.”
Having actually played foxfire in a glacier deck it ends up being pretty irrelevant. Dyper just install ddos on the combo turn most of the time, and often play 2x, and rarely fall for the trick anyway.
Yeah, but DDoS siphon is another reason people want that card banned, and it’s even mentioned in the article: “outside of Dyper its primary use is to cheese potato Account Siphons turn 1”
That’s a 2-card combo from different factions, so most often you will have 2 of one and 3 of the other, which puts the odds of having that combo available on turn 1 at around 5%.
The turn 1 siphon is annoying, but recoverable and otherwise plays out as typical netrunner. Dyper ignores typical netrunner running on the power of one abusive combo. I could see an argument for False Echo + DDoS interaction being as abusive as MCH + Heritage pre-errata. I don’t see an argument for DDoS + Account Siphon being as bad.
I agree that turn one siphon isn’t really an issue. Didn’t some crims used to import Knights for that very purpose? Mind you, Knight and DDoS are pretty different cards but ultimately DDoS an interesting card outside of cheesy False Echo shenanigans.
I personally think DDOS does too much to make ice irrelevant, particularly in the faction with the best AI breakers.
It can enable the toxic false echo combo, while also essentially enabling other deck styles to pressure R&D, HQ, your scoring remote and archives all at the same time for an entire turn unless the corp is at least 2 ice deep everywhere and (probably more to actually keep the runner out or tax the runner). That means some decks can threaten multiple keyhole runs, siphon spam, steal an advanced agenda, retrieval runs/omar runs/apocalypse all at the same time.
It’s kind of crazy it affects all servers for an entire turn. Compare to inside job, which can’t be used in concert with power cards like keyhole or account siphon and is a one-shot deal.
DDoS probably wouldn’t be as bad if it had a actual cost associated with it. Like, “at the end of the turn, take four unavoidable tags” as GlobalSec just takes a giant dump down your throat for doing it.
Would DDoS be played if the game could remember which Ice was the outermost during DDOS activation? I hate DDoS+False Echo combo, but other than that I find playing against DDOS pretty “okaish”.
I realize this is a different proposed banlist, but since there’s no thread for it: what’s up with everyone on Bad Publicity wanting to ban account siphon? It’s the centerpiece of the criminal faction, the main thing they do that is actually, you know, criminal. I could understand replacing it with a similar effect, but Criminal without stealing credits from the corp is like anarch without ice destruction or Weyland without meat damage. I would never discuss banning it without proposing an alternative.
