Order and Chaos (Now FFG Confirmed w Spoilers)

GreedyGuts · December 1, 2014, 9:37pm

Veeeery nice catch, that.

stoppableforce · December 1, 2014, 9:56pm

This seems to be the “in thing” to do, so why not, here’s a bunch of my unsolicited opinions on everything.

Side note: “Fire Wall” should’ve been “Wall of Text.” The image is just this post.

Corp

Identities

Argus seems like an attempt to bring the PE style of play to Weyland. It’s kind of cute but I’m not sure how effective it’d be. Just don’t run last click, which is good advice anyway, usually.

When I first saw Gagarin Deep Space, I assumed there would be support for some kind of taxing, horizontal, asset-heavy Weyland deck with things like The Root, Space Camp, Paywall Implementation, asset economy, and other kinds of non-Weyland-y things. Maybe that’s a thing you can do. I feel like it’s going to end up like Untrashable, though - a deck that just dicks around for a while and never gets around to winning before it loses.

Titan Transnational is the one most likely to sway me away from Blue Sun, at least temporarily, and not just because it has 17 influence. As I mentioned above, Mark Yale along is an interesting combo here - turn any of your scored agendas into a 3-credit rebate! Triple Fracking! Double High-Risk Investments! Atlas counters on unadvanced Atlases! I think personally that Titan Trick of Light is going to see some measure of success.

Agendas

Firmware Updates: A no-brainer in TT, I suppose. I like the interaction with Morph ice, allowing it to change types mid-run - once, anyway. A surprise Lycan or Wendigo, perhaps. You can also use it to “reload” a Trick of Light - use it on your opponent’s turn to advance an ice, and on your own turn to advance an ice, and now you’re ready to FA again.

Glenn Station: It’s nice, and if you’re avoiding bad pub entirely and don’t want to have to deal a 5-cost NAPD just because your opponent is playing Valencia, you maybe slot in Glenn Station instead. It’s got possibilities. Got a pesky 5/3 you don’t have a window to score, but don’t want your opponent to take it? Hide it on Glenn Station. Forever. Weyland solves problems by jettisoning things to space.

Government Takeover:

99.9% of the time this card is going to lose you the game. 0.1% of the time you’ll manage to score it behind your impenetrable barriers. If you score it and somehow didn’t win, getting 3 credits for a click is just gravy - your opponent’s probably already lost.

That said, hey, it’s a perfect candidate for hiding on Glenn Station. Forever.

High-Risk Investment: I actually really like this card. Especially in Titan (where you can use it twice!). I’m considering it as my token one-of in Blue Sun Midseasons, but Utopia Fragment is hard to argue with.

Assets and Upgrades

Constellation Protocol: If your deck concept is based on dicking around with tokens on ice, have I got an asset for you! If you’re playing with Trick of Light, it allows you to consolidate tokens a little. If you want to change a Morph back without spending any money, there you go. Probably a one-of in those decks.

Mark Yale: As I mentioned above, for every agenda you score in Titan that doesn’t have a better use for its tokens, Mark is a 3-credit rebate. In every other deck he’s a one-point incentive to spend agenda tokens. I wonder if, at 1 influence, you might not see him pop up in HB (gain 3 credits for using your Efficiency Protocol) or NBN (great, now Astroscript MAKES money for you). I still don’t think he’s especially good except in TT.

Space Camp: Well, it’s a Weyland trap. It fires from the archives. There’s nothing especially wrong with it, it’s just a little underwhelming. Problem’s going to come down to deck space, I imagine. Cute art, though.

The Board: An executive with a prohibitive trash cost?? What are these shenanigans? Basically they’re going to sit there in your scoring server until the Runner comes for them to win. The only executive that you don’t want to safeguard with Self-Destruct since it’ll effectively be a gain for the runner. (Unless it kills the runner, anyway.)

Satellite Grid: Not a bad region at all, probably best used with constellation and vanilla advanceable ice; keeping track of what your morphs are could be a headache and lead to play mistakes. It’s not the all-purpose rockstar that Crisium is.

The Twins: Hooolyyyy shit. Obviously great in The Foundry, as everyone ever has pointed out, situational in other decks, but I can’t think of a situation where I wouldn’t want to hit you twice with an Archer. On the other hand, this card immediately turns on Immolation Script. But how many people will run that?

Dedicated Technician Team: Well, that’s a thing. It’s not a very good thing, but it’s a thing. Still, if I’ve learned one thing, it’s to quit pooh-poohing the power of recurring credits. Building ice towers on the cheap without costing much/any cash has so far been the realm of HB:ETF and scoring Eden Fragment. At least it’s an upgrade, so you can still toss other things on top of it.

Cyberdex Virus Suite: Hey hey, another ambush upgrade. I like this quite a lot; a far sight better than Cyberdex Trial. I’m glad Weyland finally paid for the license for their anti-virus.

ICE

A Constellation disclaimer: unless you intend to rez them for full cost or you never intend to pick them up, these are less stellar (har) out of Blue Sun. The token actually reduces the rez cost permanently, so it interacts with Blue Sun’s ability in the same fashion as Xanadu would. On the other hand, it also bones Nasir out of free cash. Win some, lose some.

Asteroid Belt: Because the Constellation suite totally needed a big boring barrier. Big boring barriers are a Weyland standby.

Wormhole: Useless until you rez any other piece of ice. That’s a low cost of entry. If you put down a Wormhole and an Ice Wall on turn 1, I can tell you which one the runner will inevitably run on first, even with no prior knowledge.

Nebula: If you advance this once, you have a Lycan at +2 strength that you can’t change to a code gate, or a Grim at +1 cost that didn’t give you a bad publicity. Probably my second favorite. Most likely to be windmill slammed into my current deck.

Orion:

Needs to be advanced, or Oversight AI’d, to get the best use out of it, but holy crap. Trash a program, end the run, and do something else? (Let’s face it, it’s probably going to trash 2 programs most of the time.) Even though it’s type everything, 8 strength means it’s not a pushover for anything but Quetzal with E3s, or D4V1D, or Femme, or… you know, the things that shut off other big ice.

Builder: Without even looking at the rest of its abilities, I like that Builder has a built-in way to shuffle itself to the top of your ice tower, the better to cheapen your Constellations or switch your Morphs. Other positional ice, take note. That said, while it does have a pretty cool effect, “strength 4 code gate” makes me cringe. Atman 4 or Yog + 1 counter, welp. At least it’s cheap to rez.

Checkpoint: I like it. I like it a lot. I am not super fond of the fact it’s both illicit and a trace, but its cost to strength ratio is in a good place for what it does, and trace 5 is not inconsiderable. It doesn’t say “end the run,” but it may as well. I’m willing to give it a shot, at least.

Fire Wall: It’s a big dumb barrier! Weyland now has 3 choices of barrier in the 5-cost range - Changeling if you value type-swapping, Hive if you value a tax that goes away eventually, or Fire Wall if you value big dumb barriers that can get bigger.

Searchlight: It’s not bad, but you have to sink some cash into it before the trace gets nasty. Falls over to Mimic, or (for +1 credit and a token) Cuj.0. While “2c taxing ice with a drawback for the runner” is a valid ice category - look at Pup and Architect - Andromeda and Kate and Edward are just going to waltz through it until you advance it quite a bit, then they’re going to Mimic through it. Probably my least favorite ice in here, tied with Asteroid Belt.

Operations

Accounting: Both Weyland and Anarch got a good current in this set. Way better early than late, but that goes for most corp currents whose name isn’t Enhanced Login Protocol. Weyland’s ability to keep smashing your programs helps it not be totally dead later, either.

Patch: What I always wanted out of an operation is the ability to expend deck slots pushing my ICE into range of D4V1D.

Traffic Accident: If you’re building a tagstorm deck, you’re not playing Weyland, and you absolutely can’t justify the cost of Scorched Earth, maybe you run Traffic Accident just to save influence? I dunno. You’ll want to recur it and keep smashing their car periodically throughout the day, though.

Sub Boost: I hear Corroder is still a good card.

Runner

Identities

Edward Kim maintains a mostly-proud tradition of solid 45/15 Anarch runners that you don’t really build around so much as they just have a good ability in general - Reina, Whizzard, to a certain extent Quetzal, you’re in good company. There have been many, many times over the past month that I’ve actually said “if I was Edward Kim, that ______ would be trashed right now.” Definitely worth a shot, I think he’s fairly strong.

MaxX is probably my current favorite, and not just for the Maximum Punk Rock card subtitle or her appearance on Day Job. I like her level of consistency, though in true anarch fashion, even her consistent card draw is offset by the inconsistency of trashing 2 cards per turn. Still, between Deja Vu, Retrieval Run, the upcoming Trope, and the ever-popular Clone Chip, I think it’s easy to mitigate her downside. The punk rocker is probably also pretty strong. I don’t know if I believe that she’s Andromeda-level strong, as some people want to believe, but I think she’s got some teeth.

When snow-jax was talking about Valencia Estevez a long time prior to O&C’s reveal, his semi-cryptic statement was that her deck size and influence were not a 3:1 ratio. I assumed this meant she’d have 10 influence or less. I did not see a 50/15 coming. I feel like there’s going to be about a month straight where everyone in your local meta who plays annoying jank decks - you know the ones - are going to be bringing Valencia Blackmail recursion decks to your weekly meetup, and then that’ll trail off. That said - bad pub is nothing to sneeze at, and I feel like between her ability, Investigative Journalism, Itinerant Protesters, and Vigil she’s got some strong possibility there’s a basis for a “you don’t get any cards in your hand” denial-style deck, but boy is she glad that Steelskin and Earthrise Hotel are available.

Event

Is it just me or did Anarch get a lot of events?

Amped: Why in the hell is Stim Dealer still a thing? This card has so many possibilities if you’re not afraid of brain damage (and maybe you can dodge it, unlike Stimhack? The spoiler doesn’t say, and ways to avoid brain damage are few and far between, but it would happen). The brain damage is inevitably going to hit the thing in your hand that you want to use all those clicks on, but 1 credit and 1 brain damage for +3 clicks is undeniably powerful.

Steelskin: Easily my favorite card in this set. I’d like to see a ruling on the timing of it - if I get Scorched with a 3-card hand containing a Steelskin, do I still die? I have a feeling the ruling is yes, since damage presumably happens all at once, but if not, it just gets better. Perhaps more importantly, not a dead card in matchups where no Scorch or net damage is forthcoming - it replaces itself and then some.

Itinerant Protesters: Annoying to type, but a very solid runner current. Pretty build-around, though - you almost certainly want to be Valencia, and you almost certainly want more Investigative Journalism, as -1 hand size is not a huge deal, but -2 starts to become annoying. Throw in Vigil was well, see if they want to let you draw for free, or if you can essentially squeeze another -1 out of it.

Showing Off: Why?

Wanton Destruction: A pretty solid method of hand attack, in-faction. Very click-hungry. Pairs nicely with Amped Up for extra destruction, Utopia Shard to finish the job, and Hades Shard to see what you just dumped into the archives.

Day Job: This is going to take the place of one of my in-faction money cards, but I don’t know which one. Like all Anarch money, it’s got its pluses and minuses. Not dead against factions with 0 or 1 remotes, and it doesn’t advance agendas for the corp, unlike Queen’s Gambit, but twice as many clicks for +2 credits. Doesn’t have a 6-cost entry fee like Liberated Accounts, but can’t be drained over time as needed. You can’t just play it willy-nilly, though - you need to be able to identify windows in which you can take a whole turn to just make money, and you have to already have it in your hand, since it’s effectively a priority card.

Or, you know, you have to be Amped Up. Doing drugs on the job is totally an Anarch thing to do.

Forked/Knifed/Spooned: A pretty neat twist on the ice destruction theme. It’s a lot of deck slots, although maybe you’re already running 3 Parasites, 3 Datasuckers, and 3 Clone Chips just to recur the Parasites and you want to try something new. I think what will more realistically happen, besides “no one uses them,” is people will pack the one that their deck has the most problem with, which is not a terrible solution, but I don’t think these will see as much use as Eater.

Uninstall: Want a Scavenge outside shaper? Don’t have influence? Do have deck slots? Willing to accept it’s worse than Scavenge? Here you go.

Programs

Eater completes the Utensil set, but has so much more potential - like saving you from surprise ice, or making Keyhole or Wanton Destruction runs potentially cheaper. I think Eater is going to be a terrifically popular orange card, alongside a suite of fun things to do that don’t include accessing cards. (Not too many, though, or you get into the territory of spending so much time playing around that you forget to win.)

Harbinger is probably the one card that seems tailor-made for our old pal Whizzard and his love of trashing installed cards. Could be a little pesky to find deck space, but isn’t that the way it always goes? (Unless you’re Valencia.)

Hivemind has so many nasty possibilities; I think this will give rise to a virus-based deck that doesn’t belong solely in Noise. Got a Hivemind and a Grimoire, so your Hivemind has 2 tokens? Congrats, you can instantly kill a 3-strength ice with your Parasite. Install a Medium and run? You’ll see 4 cards right away, as opposed to the standard 1. If you’re running Incubator or Virus Breeding Ground, it just gets better, although you’ll almost certainly want to keep it on a Progenitor if you’re doing this.

Progenitor, also known as “the card you host your Hivemind on.” If the preview is right and it costs 0 MU, then that’s actually kind of amazing. If it’s actually 1, then Djinn is probably better solely for tutoring - unless you’re running Hivemind. It will be a Power Shutdown magnet, though. Bring Origami.

Hardware

Archives Interface is super-underwhelming. Then again, hey, what was it supposed to do? It’s not like you need to access extra cards in archives. At least it’s cheaper than the other interfaces. If I somehow got to 44 cards and couldn’t find a 45th, I’d throw in this just to remove trashed Jackson Howards from the game - but I don’t think I’d run out of other, better cards first.

Salvager is super-tempting in Noise, and not just to save six influence and six deck slots. If your economy is ridiculous with Aesop and you could stand to give up a little money for draw, here’s the card for you. (Also if you insist on running the Activist Support/NACH combo, here’s how you shut it off in faction, I guess.)

MemStrips: I really want to run these. I just don’t think I have the deck space. It lets you have your Keyhole-and-a-rig shaped cake and eat it too… with a side of viruses… this analogy just went to hell, sorry. More ways to strengthen Overmind without being shoehorned into Deep Red, though!

Vigil: Definitely one of my new favorite consoles, especially if you’re going the Valencia/BP/protesters max hand size denial route, but given the number of cool Anarch programs (especially viruses) I want to run, my choices seem to be:

Grimoire
Vigil + MemStrips
Ekomind + Origami + Public Sympathy

And I’m not running that last one, because I’m not a crazy person.

Qianju PT: I can’t decide how I feel about this card. For preventing tags from your own actions, it’s pretty crap unless you’re spamming, say, Vamp. For preventing SEA Source or Posted Bounty tags on the corp’s turn, it’s alright, if you know in advance that those are things to be afraid of. I’m not sure it’s worth the deck slots, even in that case.

Resources

Human First: Super underwhelming. Unless your opponent is playing Archer or a forfeitable agenda, or you’re playing Data Dealer or Frame Job, the max you will make off of this is 12 credits, strung across the course of a game. Even in an Anarch Connection deck, a thing I have built and run with minor success, there are better connections.

Investigative Journalism: If you’re Valencia, this effectively says “Spend a turn: Gain a credit for every run I make for the rest of the game.” That’s pretty big. For anyone else, you need the ability to set up the bad pub first, making it pretty combo-wombo-tastic. VE almost certainly wants this in multiples.

Sacrificial Clone: It’s a cute throwback to cards like this from ONR:

but it’s almost certainly going to mean you lose anyway, unless you can rebuild easily. it does explain the glut of virtual resources lately, I suppose.

Stim Dealer: Just play Amped Up instead unless you really want to play a Connections deck. (Weyland players: score Helium-3 Deposit and toss extra power counters on this for maximum lulz.)

Virus Breeding Ground: Part of the Hivemind-Progenitor shenanigans. More reliably than Incubator because it doesn’t take up memory and it produces counters on its own; on the downside, in the event of a total wipe, it can’t help you, and it only moves 1 token at a time. Maybe that’s all you need. Pretty solid card for virus-focused decks.

Data Folding: If it cost 1 or 2 instead of 3, maybe. At least they stack. And if you’re running MemStrips or the Brain with Paper Cranes in a Jar combo, you’ve almost certainly got free memory. Probably a key part of the econ of the janky Sage-o-saurus decks that will emerge here shortly.

PeekaySK · December 1, 2014, 10:49pm

Cool review in general, here’s some random comments:

Au contraire - doesn’t Constellation Protocol essentially turn them into 3-credit clicks for Blue Sun? Stack a bunch of advancement counters, rez that shit for free, move the counters (to another Constellation card), bounce the original back for full. Takes some setup, sure… but it’s not like the combo components are individually worthless.

Hades Shard. Yagura. Daily Fucking Business Fucking Show.
(so what that it’s conditional. It’s an Anarch event, that should have tipped you off anyway)

I think it’s best in tag-me Anarch decks - you can stop the corp from recurring their Scorcheds and slowly killing you through multiple Carapaces and Steelskins. As a side effect, decent vs. all of Shock, Space Camp and Cyberdex Suite.

So far, the only reasonable application I’ve found was “Run Rachel, still be able to Vamp occasionally”. Of course, the problem is that Rachel dies to Snares, so that plan is sorta blegh in the first place.

hauptmann_jawohl · December 1, 2014, 10:53pm

I am really hoping that finally we will have the opportunity to see viable PrePaid Anarch archetype. With that much in-faction + neutral draw (inject, steelskin, earthrise hotel) I think we could spend the influence for other important parts

Myriad · December 2, 2014, 12:24am

I know it isn’t probably the BEST use for it, but I think running Government Takeover and all 1 pointers with the Board and maybe Shi-Kyu is what the designers had in mind?

With a the board out, all 1 pointers don’t count for them at all in terms of points and government only counts for 5 for them, but 6 for you on the Punitive.

Not sayings its good. Just maybe that is the deck style the designers envisioned.

sgjuxta · December 2, 2014, 1:32am

Sub Boost could be interesting out of Jinteki, as they have a lot of multi-sub ICE that doesn’t end the run naturally. Really, I think that is the card’s niche, with ICE that might have a lot of subroutines (Ichi, Janus, Tsurugi, Komainu, Shinobu, etc.) but don’t end the run. Also could be nice with things like Data Raven and Hunter, as while, yes, they get to break them with Corroder, they now actually HAVE to break them.

Basoon · December 2, 2014, 1:52am

This and Bioroids are the best things to use it on I think. I’m kind of excited to run NBN Pyscho decks again with Sub boost since it helps cut down on the whole “your ICE is crap once they actually take tags”.

sgjuxta · December 2, 2014, 2:02am

The Ichi series loves Sub Boost, but I’m most exciting to try it with Sherlock, as that becomes one hell of a taxing piece of ICE there in either clicks or credits.

stoppableforce · December 2, 2014, 2:41pm

True, if you’re running Trick of Light or Constellation Protocol to move them around. I was evaluating them in a vacuum, which is a bad, bad thing to do. (Or, more accurately, I was evaluating them on the thought process that I’m probably not putting ToL or CP into my BS deck. Too biased.)

striatic · December 2, 2014, 11:18pm

I want to try Sub Boost with Gemini in Jinteki.

bblum · December 8, 2014, 10:39am

Okay, hear me out. Have grimoire and 2 SMCs against NBN. Get hivemind, get chakana.

There’s no way this is actually good, right?

MasterAir · December 8, 2014, 11:50am

You’re right, this isn’t good.

I mean, it’s a good play. But I can’t think of a good deck that supports it. Also, having 2 unused SMCs/clonechips on the table seems a little far fetched most of the time vs NBN.

Almotasim · December 8, 2014, 12:19pm

Or how about waiting a pack for Clot?

spags · December 12, 2014, 6:40pm

New article, if one cares. http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5262

Dragar · December 12, 2014, 6:43pm

At least I believe they’re real now!

spags · December 12, 2014, 6:45pm

Was there doubt?

Dragar · December 12, 2014, 6:49pm

‘Spooned’ was pushing it for me. I’d have bet on them being real if you’d put a gun to my head, but I did wonder occasionally.

Span_Argoman · December 12, 2014, 6:50pm

The new article also verified that Amped Up’s damage cannot be prevented. Significant difference imo. Sure am looking forward to O&C!

captain_frisk · December 12, 2014, 6:57pm

I demand an eater playmat.

shatner · December 12, 2014, 7:49pm

Make the playmat double as a bib for true excellence.