I guess I don’t see the value of 1 less advancement counter the same way given the ‘power’ of the agenda. I don’t think Weyland rush would necessarily play it, especially given what already exists. Atlas does rotate though, sadly.
I consider the ability to Fast Track Install Advance threatening 3 points to be very good. Same goes for drawing into it. I’ve played a ton of Weyland Rush and honestly the IAA needed for a GFI for example can sometimes be tough to manage. Clicks are very tight in Rush IMO which is why I like IPS
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This is true.
I’ve been playing a lot of Weyland rush with 5/3s lately and it’s surprising how often I would have gained a turn if I could have gone “advance, go” or “advance, advance, score” instead of spending two full turns scoring.
If you have any builds, moistloaf, let me know because I want to try 
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I’m expecting to see lots of Palana going forward into MWL2. Any ELITE tips to make the whole experience any easier? Once they get a Nisei scored, the whole thing feels insurmountable. Feels like the days of RP where you have already lost but a smug ass corp makes you play 3 more turns anyway.
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Pol Op. Lots of Pol Op. Especially now Sandburg also exists in the meta.
In terms of gameplay:
-Pressure HQ heavily in the early game to clear out Caprice/Batty and snipe agendas before they’re ready to score.
-Be willing to trust the odds and play psi games. Palana doesn’t minimise your chances to even play them in the way RP did, and as long as it won’t completely ruin your position, running the Caprice remote four times can be a perfectly reasonable turn. Any psi game you win is a big setback for them, and the more you play, the more you will win.
-In a similar vein, don’t wait until their scoring turn to challenge Caprice in a remote. Rezzing all the ice and playing a psi game will cost them enough that it’ll make centrals pretty vulnerable, and that’s often hard for them to swallow if there isn’t an agenda at stake. The earlier you start to challenge the remote, the better, generally.
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If you’re specifically worried about the first Nisei, make them spend the counter on an impactful central run so you can continue to contest the remote. Cards that are good for this exist in all the factions but these come to mind:
- Account Siphon
- Maker’s Eye
- Vamp
Also, Employee Strike is real good versus Foods. The deck anticipates that credit per turn trickle & can really struggle without it, more so than say ETF.
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I’d add Indexing and The Turning Wheel to your high-impact run abilities to bait a Nisei token.
GFI glaciers (both Palana and EtF) want to gain advantage by having to score 3 times when you have to find 4 agendas to win. Freedom Through Equality improves this matchup a lot.
6 Likes
Yeah, I’m currently running Freedom/Indexing/Makers and had a game where I burnt 2 Nesei tokens on just these attempts.
I feel like FTE would be more impactful than Strike, both seem very well positioned in the meta right now.
Anyway, thanks for the input everyone. I half knew these things, it’s just getting them done in a real game!
Any suggestions on this GFI grail deck welcome, and thanks to @Matuszczak for the inspiration)
No Future Perfects because film critic is everywhere. PolOp is obviously annoying, not sure if one crisium for hq and one voter intimidation is enough of a counter.
The Mumbad City Grid is there for fun, I’ve gone from two to one and will probably cut it for a clones are not people - will help with only having to score three agendas rather than four.
Sustainable food - the holy grail
Pālanā Foods: Sustainable Growth
Agenda (9)
3x Corporate Sales Team
2x Global Food Initiative ●●
3x Nisei MK II
1x Philotic Entanglement
Asset (3)
3x Jackson Howard ●●●
Upgrade (9)
3x Caprice Nisei
1x Crisium Grid ●
1x Cyberdex Virus Suite
3x Marcus Batty
1x Mumbad City Grid
Operation (11)
3x Celebrity Gift
3x Hedge Fund
1x Interns
3x Restructure
1x Voter Intimidation
Barrier (4)
3x Galahad ●●●
1x Wall of Static
Code Gate (4)
1x Enigma
3x Merlin ●●●
Sentry (8)
2x Assassin
3x Komainu
3x Lancelot ●●●
Other (1)
1x Excalibur
15 influence spent (max 15, available 0)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Fear the Masses
Deck built on https://netrunnerdb.com.
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I like Fast Track in my Grail Palana deck. I found that a big part of winning these games for me came down to scoring Nisei MkII, and saving the token for a critical moment. I also play an 8-agenda variant (using 1 TFP), so there have also been games when I had a scoring window, but no agenda to score, FT helps with that.
I never used Excalibur in my Grail Palana deck. I can see how powerful it can be with Caprice/Batty or a Nisei token, but I can’t really imagine using it to add a sub to the Grail ICE. Does the Excalibur do a lot of work for you?
I also cut CVS from my list. I don’t often have a lot of problems with viruses, so I accepted that I will have to hard-purge when something does come up. I preferred a card that was more universally useful to my game plan, as opposed to countering a runner strategy that I felt wasn’t particularly strong against my deck.
Finally, I know Ashigaru is expensive, but I really like it. I run 2, and they are my main shut-down ICE. With Caprice/Batty/Nisei, it can be very expensive for a runner to break through more than once in a turn. With less ICE destruction, I believe this card has only become stronger.
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I considered fast track/clones - so far I’ve more often found myself wishing I could score three not four agendas, rather than not having one when I want one, but that may just be anecdotal.
I always install Excalibur - I think with Faust taking a dive and shaper in the rise it’s well-placed. Shaper has no good solutions to it.
I’ll consider cutting cvs though - still waiting to see how much Datasucker parasite and medium remain in the meta.
And I’m seriously thinking about Ashigaru too, but to be honest will probably swap assassins to that new jinteki code gate that’s coming in two packs time.
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In your agenda suite, I think the Clones are not Dudes is a better fit than FT.
I’ve been thinking about Excalibur since I saw it in your list, and I can think of a lot of match-ups and situations where it can be helpful, particularly since there are fewer answers for it in criminal and shaper.
How much work does Komainu do for you? I moved off of it because I had too much high-cost ICE and also dripped Mumbad city grid. I use 2x Cortex Lock as rush ICE, which has caught a couple runners by surprise.
Yes, I like it so much I may even stick another one in. Great on R&D versus these indexing shapers too, and in a pinch on HQ if they’re threatening to PolOp and go for your scoring server in the same turn. And it also helps against a 'run the remote to make them red ice, then hammer R&D strategy. I think I’ve convinced myself to add another!
The komainus were left over from the list I based this on, and I’m not sure what to swap them to yet, but I have felt like three is too many. They can be nice with Mumbad city grid, but as @Matuszczak said in his SHL-winning deck, if you have a good server for them, you are probably winning anyway.
Really not sure what to swap Komainu to though, I’ll consider cortex lock but do you have any other suggestions?
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I’m not really cold on Cortex Lock myself at the moment, but I do like it’s rez cost and rez-to-break ratio.
I am using Cobra, it’s pretty good and another Batty enabler, so you could consider that, While it is notably bad against Mongoose, you can stack it with another sentry to help mitigate that weakness.
I have seen a few people use Crick, but that is even more situational than the Cortex Lock (Crick-Batty was useful against ICE destruction).
Just adding more Enigma and WoS are fine choices, there is a rush element to scoring and those are your stand-alone EtR ICE right now. Hitmitsu Bako is another good choice for a basic EtR.
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So once Rumour Mill is out, do we just stop playing these decks? I can’t help feeling Valencia blackmail spam will be everywhere, and now they’ll have rumour mill instead of PolOp…
I think you wait and see what your meta does, and then respond to the new meta with an appropriate deck. If that is Palana, then play Palana, if not, then play something else that you like.
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dusts off Red Herrings, whispers Your time is now…
Also, that Ambush Upgrade seems pretty cool.
RP, ruhr valley, elp…and stronkbawks
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Like I said: Palana also loves Hokusai Grid. No rumor mill can kill the most notorious research facility at Jinteki.