Not much discussion on this new ID either here or on NRDB. When I initially saw it spoiled I thought it was probably the worst of three new Identies in the new Deluxe box but anything yellow can be made an auto tier 2 because Astroscript Pilot Project is the best agenda in the game.
The identity itself is interesting in that it essentially takes on the ability of the current. For example, with Predictive Algorithm the ID ability essentially becomes the runner must pay 2 credits to steal an agenda.
So what is the optimal build? Fast advance, Glacier or kill? How many currents is best? Most decks I’ve seen run only 3 which may or may not be correct. With only 3, there will be games where the currents are buried deep in R&D. I think 5 or 6 is probably the right number. Also what currents are best? For me, I like the 0 cost currents as they aren’t a tempo hit to replay if the runner scores an agenda so Targeted Marketing and Predictive Algorithm are the ones I roll with.
If anyone has experience playing, or playing against this ID, I’d love to hear your thoughts on its current place in the meta game.
Have done some minor testing with it, as you said Targeted Marketing and Predictive Algorithm have been the best currents to work with. I found it a very mediocre ID, as having to play the currents means you’re losing 4-5 deck slots that you’d want to use for cards such as SanSan, Ash, or DBS, unlike Spark where the advertisements double as economy cards and all you’re getting in return is saving some influence on ICE by being able to play News Hound.
It doesn’t have a niche of its own either, as NEH is better at fast advance, Spark is better at building a big remote and scoring out behind Ash as its econ is reliable unlike Targeted Marketing and works double-fold in draining the Runner’s credits, and SYNC and Haarpsicord have the tagging plans covered. For this ID to work, we need some more heavily pushed current cards, as the ones we have at the moment aren’t good enough to warrant playing this ID in my opinion.
I think it’s the worst one by a significant margin. At the very least, Sol needed to ignore the play cost of the current and then we might’ve seen some play with the more expensive currents like Manhunt/Cerebral Static/Surveillance Sweep.
Spark makes already playable cards like Product, PAD, Launch, Adonis and Pop-Up even better.
SYNC makes already playable cards like News Team, Data Raven, and Gutenberg even better.
Sol basically has one synergistic card, News Hound where you pay $1 more than a Hunter to have an ETR sub added to the bottom. That’s good value but it doesn’t justify the ID by a long shot.
IMO, even if currents were good Sol would still be bad because if your problem is your currents dying too frequently, you can just play fewer agendas and/or more copies of those currents. Or NEH and have better draw power and more influence to see more currents!
I don’t care for Predictive Algorithm, Runner economy is $2/click or higher so it’s barely a speed bump in the majority of cases. The best three are probably Targeted Marketing, Cerebral Static, and Paywall Implementation.
Interesting thoughts, I really like the idea of ignoring the play costs on the currents which would have helped a lot. I’ve thought about Paywall and Cerebral static but eventually decided against using influence on out of faction currents. Have you played or played against this ID kiv and if so how did the game go?
My friend started testing a NAS deck a few weeks before release, and while it had some strong showings at first, it won largely off of how unfamiliar the D&D cards are. He played Targeted Marketing as the only current, and was pretty consistent in getting it out (thanks to NBN’s draw power). With enough insight into your opponent’s deck, TM is very strong at manipulating the runner into acting in certain ways. Being able to name SMC or Account Siphon in the early game can have a powerful effect on what kind of remote pressure the runner is able to produce.
The ice package was a lot of tagging and program destruction. Keegan Lane was instrumental as well, trashing off of Data Raven and giving a new target for TM. If the runner ditched TM’ed cards because they weren’t going to use them, that let you change TM’s target quickly. That’s one of the great powers of NAS: not only the persistence of the current effect but also the flexibility to change the current as the game progresses.
Unfortunately, as you played the deck more, it became clear that TM was a bit of a bluff. There wasn’t very much for the deck to do with its money, no Ash and pretty weak ice, so with the exception of draining the corp with Account Siphon, there wasn’t much reason not to ignore TM. Add to that the abundance of recursion in the meta. It wasn’t a deck that was well suited to win most match ups.
The deck could probably be improved by adding things like Ash or stronger ice, but it’s an ID that ends up pigeonholing the build, imo.
I’m currently working on an upgrade farm version of the deck that looks to leverage the TM credits (ASH, Caprice, Chimera) and knock out key breakers using Will O. The scoring server has worked a charm as a rush server, BBG makes Will O, Ash and Caprice very easy to use, especially if they give you 10 creds to get through your ice the first run. Central protection seems to be the toughest thing to figure out, and right now i’m testing a tagging suite for the centrals with Keegan as a piece that can open up scoring windows.
I like Will O more than traditional program trashing here because it’s easier to tax out their SMCs/Special Orders than it is to tax out Clone Chips/Scavenge/Deja Vu.
My Sol Taxman list continues to win most its games at the LGS. Granted most decks I face are also tier 2, and the list is definitely carried by Astro. Predictive Algorithm actually does have an impact IMO. I often score naked NAPDs when the Runner can’t/won’t spend 6c to steal it. Granted it’s a blank 2 points, but it’s 2 points I didn’t have to commit anything else to in order to score. I would say RSVP in this package is about as good as Data Raven in QPI lists. Stacking News Hound is effective versus Criminal. The list can also rush behind Wraparound if it needs to. All in all I would say my personal list is a Rush hybrid that uses Algorithm as just enough attrition to open/close scoring windows. It’s probably the only NBN list I will continue to play with any regularity.
so far lag time in conjunction with Improved tracers allows the ICE to grow with the stage of the game. I just about always achieve +2 Strength on the ICE and often it gets up to +3. Lag Time’s cost is mitigated by so much of the ICE being cheap. I’m not a fan of the Uroboros right now due to it’s cost but I haven’t played enough games to make a real call on it.
I want to try ELP as well but i haven’t decided what the tag-punishment should be so it’s hard to build it.
I think a lot of people are seriously underestimating this id. Targeted marketing is balanced by the way it naturally goes away so it only delays rather than preventing playing things. Take that limitation away and it’s positively nuts. Pick ppvp against kate, desperado against crims or parasite against anarch and you fundamentally change the efficiency of their decks. Tagging nonsense is best left to other ids. Sol’s niche is classic taxing never advance, and the more I test the more I’m convinced it’s a genuinely legit deck. News hound is gross. Perma-marketing is gross. Nbn have all the best cards. Mix these together and there is some serious potential. (on phone so I can’t share latest decklist, but inf is going on architects, food, patch and crisium. When you have 3 news hound and 2 architect patch is for real)
That’s just it. You build around the fact that whatever you pick is impacting their econ more than it is yours, but you do need to be playing enough ice and ash etc that having more money actually can help. You have a bare-bones set up of wraparounds, archangels, news hounds and architects, plus tollbooths and assassins for late game or when they’ve decided to ignore a TM.
Back on a real computer now, here’s the latest version:
Sentry (7)
2x Architect(Up and Over) [color=#8A2BE2]••••[/color]
2x Assassin(Data and Destiny)
3x News Hound(Data and Destiny)
It’s basically foodcoats with added astros. Yes, your econ is significantly worse than HBs, but with targeted marketing around your opponents are even worse off, and you still have News Hound. Or they hand you endless free money and you become an unstoppable glacier fortress that can also fast advance.
Looks similar to what I experimented with first in Sol. I found a number of things. good players won’t give you your money unless they absolutely have to. Naming breakers is about the only way to guarantee a fire of TM. You might get Kate if you land a TM before her first PPVP but if not she can just ditch her other 2 and be much better off than you. Anarchs don’t need Parasite to win. Again, you may get 10 credits if you slam TM “Desperado” turn 1 versus Criminal but you’re getting nothing after that unless you name Corroder or something. In vast majority of games against a myriad of decks, I rarely got any TM money and when I did, it didnt do much. Most games I would fail to get more than one piece of big ICE early and proceed to bleed agendas from centrals. You say your opponent is worse off for your TM firing, but I think that’s wrong. TM at its best only helps you, it doesn’t hurt your opponent. One could argue if it allows you to rez bigger ICE, it hurt the opponent, but I don’t find that to actually be the case in most games. Last thing: I think TM partly forces and partly encourages an anti-rush strategy, which I think Sol wants to play thanks to News Hound.
All this said, I played a deck very similar to yours before I gave up on TM, and it’s probably just as effective as my own Algorithm build. I didn’t personally like giving my opponent the option to control a facet of my economy. Then again, Film Critic entirely nullifies my entire build and it’s a popular card.
This has been working well for me. It can play both fast and slow depending on the match-up. Cerebral Static turns the Noise MU upside down (along with some others as well, I wrecked a Faust Quetzal with it a few days ago). This deck makes crazy money and then rezzes tollbooths on R&D and a SanSan server. Pretty fun to play.Explode vs NAPD is a meta call. If people don’t run as much you want Explode for your econ, otherwise NAPD is better.
Have you ever rushed behind an architect? Much easier at str 4. I think lag time is a legit current to use with sol, provided that the 2 credits you’ll have to pay for it each time isn’t harmful to your plan. The only problem I had with it was that it goes away, and when they use their one shot solution for 5 str ichi, or whatever ice that becomes unreasonable at 1 str higher and get an agenda, it’s easier for them again. But not with a permanent plus 1. Obviously the strength increase alone isn’t that strong, or else stronger together would be far less of a joke, but some ice people just don’t have a solution for with more str. Thinking about stealth builds and anarch in particular, the added strength goes a long way. Criminal really has the best answer with ninja and faerie, and ninja isn’t the best overall, and faerie eventually goes away. If there’s to be a taxing glacier nbn, it’s probably sol. I’m thinking about giving grail a try with it, for shits and giggles.
