The Media Blitz is also to hit hopper for card draw and tempo.
I’m pretty sure Sleepers is correct if you’re playing no 5/3’s. The runner has to steal 4 of 10 real agendas to win if using Box-E, and has to steal 4 of 11 agendas if using Turntable. You have to score 3 agendas and “pass 2 turns” or score 4 agendas against Box-E, and possibly have an additional possible scenario of needing to score 4 real agendas and pass 1 turn against Turntable. Offering 10% more scoring opportunities and having a 3/11 (math?) chance of needing to score 4 real and skip one turn and a rough 5/11 chance of scoring 3 and skipping 2 turns seems better than requiring yourself to score 4 real agendas 10 out of every 10 times with a pile of 3/2’s and 4/2’s. If I brought 48 cards of this list to a tournament and a Whizzard showed me two turntables in his opening hand, I’d still shuffle Sleepers in as a 49th card, and that’s before even considering the appreciable number of Grimoires, Astrolabes, Mayas, and Desperados that will be in the matchup spread.
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Regarding Econ options:
Econ Ice is nice and if there were any in HB I would be playing them in addition to the ice already in the deck, because I dont want to cut ETRs at all. I think the best econ ice I could add is Caduceus because it can also end the run, even then it would be troublesome to increase the number of cards in my deck that are invalidated by mimic. Pop Window is also worth considering but it would only go on centrals, mainly R&D and the card becomes annoyingly positional when paired with my more plentiful gear check ice. There would definitely be 2 if I had 3 more influence
As for Green Level vs Blue Level they are both pretty good but I want the money more than I want the card and Green level is 2c&Card / click while Blue Level is 1.5&Card/Click, I can get the same credit per click if I Green Level, Credit. In the mid-late game my hand stays pretty full most of the time so I don’t often want the second card because I wont have time to play down to 5 as I’m building up econ to pull off a Biotic play. I also very often make a install->advance Hoppers Play turn 1 and the 3rd click is idea econ so green level is vastly preferred there.
I certainly agree that Successful Demo has the issues you mention, I have definitely forgon scoring on a turn to play it which is not idea in FA. Slot maybe better served but Blue Level, Peak Efficienc, or more archive memories as the double version of Hedge fund. I think Lateral Growth from Fear the Masses would be quite good. I will be testing out alternatives.
Regarding Media Blitz, it costs a card, click and 2 creds to install, so would require 4 turns of running just to break even. The runner will never run just to trash your stuff (no assets), so all runs will be with the aim to still agendas (r&d dig, remote run, whatever) I think in the majority of cases they will get an agenda sooner than after 4 turns of trying, so just the combo of Media + Hopper doesn’t sounds so good to me. I’d never pay 3 influ for it. I see it’s place more in a deck with 3 man ups, not this one.
The econ ice doesn’t comes instead of etr ice, but in addition. You need to start the game already running, 2 free installs at least but preferably 3. Many ice makes your abt’s better, come to think of it, team sponsorships is also a good card to plunk an agenda from archives straight in the remote.
Green is easier to play than Blue, but I find it just doesn’t do enough for a deckslot. Sure, Blue means you might have to pitch a card, but if you have some more ice in deck, there’s always one which isn’t good for your matchup.
Sublim messaging is also a really good rush card. Doesn’t costs tempo to play, and often the only thing the runner can do early game is dig for his breakers. 3 of those is too much, but 1-2 is pretty good.
I don’t want to belabor the point on green level vs blue level and I still maintain that the 2 are really close in this deck. But I see drawing over drawing and being easier to play on turn 1 enough to tip the scales in Green Level’s Favor.
Fair points of media blitz I don’t think anything you think said is unfair, but the flexibility of it, no its not the best fast advance card or the best economy card. With fast track I can set up mini Xantos Gambits to push out my last couple of agendas. And against criminal I would say its comparable with a pop up window, gaining money from the Security Testing runs and it also the outer most ice on all my servers during the first run. By your math a pop-up window on 1 ice deep server takes 3 runs to payback.
Now could I say run 1 San San and and 2 pop-up windows for the same infulence and get the same effect or better effect? Maybe.
Sublim looks really good I think ill definitely slot 1 in, it sets up a damned if you do damned if you don’t drip econ.
Fair enough on Blue vs Green, they are pretty close.
It’s hard to compare ice with operation, but pop up also costs the runner 1 cred, so the ‘break even’ point is after 1,5 runs in your example (assuming corp creds are equal value as runner creds.
I haven’t played with media blitz, so I’ve no practical experience with it, but it just doesn’t seems worth the 3 influ in a deck that wants plenty of cheap, good ice. Why play NEXT if you only play 21 ice? If you settle for only 2 free installs (and a pretty big risk of only getting 1), I think the Foundry, let alone Etf are better. I see the econ ice as a way to shore up your ice count without having to cut back on econ too much.
I ran some numbers on the probability of Drawing X or more ice in your opening hand if you always mulligan hands with less. Note: the odd of getting exactly 2 ice is P(2 or more) - P(3 or more)
2 or More ICE, 49 card Deck
20: 90.30%
21: 92.32%
22: 94.01%
23: 95.39%
24: 96.50%
25: 97.38%
26: 98.08%
27: 98.62%
28: 99.03%
3 or More ICE, 49 card Deck
20: 54.37%
21: 59.32%
22: 64.10%
23: 68.66%
24: 72.96%
25: 76.96%
26: 80.62%
27: 83.93%
28: 86.88%
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Based on your list with 21 ICE?
I’ve used the same list when I played, But it doesn’t tells the whole story. When do you mulligan? More specifically, do you mulligan a 2 ice hand? I ran 25 ice in my next, which allowed me to mulligan a 2 ice hand, unless it was a really good hand. After all, I knew that my odds of getting 3 ice were a tad over 50%, and the odds of getting 0-1 ice were pretty low.
I’d suggest you also make a table for your ice in hand without a mulligan, and also look at the odds of getting 0-1 ice. This really is what killed NEXT for me, some games were half lost before they had even begun.