The one thing people haven’t touched on much (unless I missed it) is that HB plays the never-advance game and can often tax runners through their scoring server a couple of times with no agenda at the end of it.
On the other hand, whenever Pālāna puts an agenda in their remote it will be obvious because they have to advance it. Despite caprice and batty, I’d still say that’s a small point in HB’s favour.
I said it on the above post that 3/2 agendas is HB’s advantage.I think actually the real advantage here is not Never Advance game,but that you have options to not only play Glacier game but also FA,especially HB has Biotic Labor.It means that Palana can only play the Glacier game where HB can play a hybrid of both Glacier and FA.
true but palana gets up to 6 caprice(cuz batty can be a 1 shot caprice if needed) plus interns and recursion. You can play unfair netrunner until you score out. I was 4-1 with palana rush psigame.dec at the detroit regional yesterday, and I do not have lots of practice with it. Foodcoats, even with nisei would not have done as well.
This is very true. I think there are a few reasons why HB is very strong if your build is optimized to the current meta.
Project Vitruvius - against Noise and Whizzard, I have won a lot of games by getting an early vitruvius counter. Lists that run 2 Vitruvius are just wrong. Imo, a Vitruvius counter makes you have a 90% chance vs noise. I love jamming it behind a Turing right after Noise or Whizzard installs Wyldside but doesn’t have pancakes yet. Free scoring window. Worth the d4v1d gamble every time. After you get that counter you can basically thank noise for drawing your cards for you.
Biotic Labor - it’s insane in the current meta. You can find spots to biotic vs shapers with clot and also vs Noise that has 2 clots, against anyone else it’s live the entire game.
Archived memories - it’s like interns on crack and turns into extra Biotics when you need them. Interns can’t do that.
That said, my current list has 2 Caprice, 2 Biotic, 2 Archived Memories. After adding a 2nd Caprice back in I’m 14-2 with it in tournament play. 2nd Caprice allows you to rush super hard. Eli is a crutch. Architect is still as insane as it always has been.
What’s your ice suite and influence spread looking like, then?
I unfortunately had to cancel my plans and miss the Detroit regionals last minute, but I’m hoping to take my Foodcoats to Chicago in June, so I’m looking for any suggestions on how to adjust to the Anarch heavy meta.
I’m toying around with cutting Eve/BBG for Restructure so I can speed up my games a bit rather than waiting for BBG.
I dropped an Enigma and the 3rd Ash to fit in my 2nd Archived Memories and 2nd Biotic now that Political Operative is out. I think IQ is extremely underrated and better than viper in a lot of cases. I really like Wall of Static over having the Eli’s because it’s a hard ETR which most foodcoats lists don’t have many of these days. My reasoning is the same as the Waldemar HB list from last year not running Eli, plus the influence costs makes that argument even better. Here’s my current list:
Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future (Core Set)
13 influence spent (max 15-2☆=13)
20 agenda points (between 20 and 21)
49 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Business First
You make a pretty compelling arguement… I will be sleeving this up.
I’ve found that Crisium Grid is the best use of influence, does man that I can’t run a caprice since i’m in the camp of running three global food initiative so i can make sure i score one. Does mean that I can run a full set of the good HB ice.
With regards to palana i’ve found that while you can burst up with money early on it has a worse late game than HB.
this sums up the difference pretty well I think. pushing niseis early can quickly createw a sense of an “unbeatable remote,” and the idea is you win before they figure out a way to beat it/you. HB is the tortoise to Palana’s (still glacial) hare: slow and steady, building up an inevitable board state that the runner cannot overcome and then scoring out.
If you’re comparing “who can build a more oppressive or unbeatable board state,” HB wins easily. If you’re comparing “who can win a game of netrunner,” I think they’re very closely matched.
I’m pretty sure that top players will be able to tear apart an HB glacier deck without any PSI threat any day. The unlimited access to Caprice and Batty is what gives Palana an edge in the comparison. I’m in the “Crisium is overrated” camp and would much rather spend the precious influence and deck slots on improving the ICE suite.
Not that I’m a “top” player or anything, but my experience is that pretty much any Shaper who draws Stimhack will beat an HB that doesn’t draw Caprice.
Indeed, Purple is better against Orange but weaker vs Green. Meta callz
But again, the timing of the Stimhack is the questionable thing, because HB isn’t as predictable as Jinteki. Sure, if HB was having to advance all their agendas over two turns like Jinteki, it would be super easy to just play a Stimhack and get it, but how often will players Stimhack an HB server and find it’s just an Adonis or whatever BS HB likes to keep in their scoring server. I’ve seen too many Jinteki games where they lost the first big psi game and their remote gets busted up and they lose their Nisei, and they aren’t as resilient to that happening as HB.
I could agree that HB is better against Anarchs and Jinteki is better against Shapers. But first, Anarchs are the best right now, and make up a huge portion of the meta, and second, I think on the flip side, HB is better at dealing with Shapers than Jinteki is at dealing with Anarchs. Just my two cents.
I haven’t played much shaper in a while, but my Noise deck’s best matchup is Foodcoats. I’d take HB all day over anyone with Snares…
My first round dictates so much of my tournament. If I win, I get to play all the top HB decks, which I can generally manage as Noise (there will be NEH fastro too, but that’s still a tough match). If I’m playing Jinteki, Argus, or Butchershop my matches are much more difficult.
Are players finding a lot of success with HB against Whizzard and Noise?
I know that if I’m going to be playing AGAINST Whizzard or Noise I want to be playing as HB.
I love PE against either of those runners! That’s part of what I really like about Netrunner, different play styles and deck variations can experience greatly different results within the same match-up.
Maybe its just me, but I actually feel like Pup, relevant (non clickable) sentries and nisei counters make Palana better against Anarch.
Also I hate having to defend an economy server in HB against Anarchs. You rez, they eat your ice and you are left with your proverbial pants down while they mangle your hopes and dreams.
Its pretty close overall I think. Cerebral static is pretty damn good.
I think it’s all about playstyle. Strictly speaking of power level, I think Palana is stronger, but personally I do so much better with Foodcoats. It just does what I expect a glacier deck to do, and others have commented on the differences between them.
Yeah, as Noise I find Palana a much harder opponent than HB. Noise relies on early HQ pressure to give him space to set up before the remote is ready, but it’s pretty hard to apply that pressure when there’s a risk of getting your hand wiped by Komainu. That’s a huge tempo hit if you don’t have Wyldside up yet - and even if you do get into HQ, Palana’s ops econ can let them ignore Lamprey for a turn while they score out Nisei, whereas HB almost always has to react to Lamprey right now.
I certainly may be playing Noise wrong against Palana, but I’ve practiced the matchup a lot and it still feels harder than HB. The Whizz matchup may be better for HB, as he’s more about the Medium lategame - which is strong against Palana’s generally lower strength and more Parasite-able ice - and has Turntable to help with Nisei. But I’ve much less experience with that one, so I’m speculating.
Well, I personally don’t concern myself with too much as far as economy servers go. I think people are too rigid in their idea of what HB should be with Breaker Bay and Eve’s and stuff, when right now I think you’re better off with only Adonis and operation economy out of HB. So maybe I just play it different than many, so my experiences are different.
I know that with my MaxX deck I would 100 percent rather play Palana, even if they are guaranteed to get a credit against me each turn from my ability. I just find them folding more than HB, especially if they lose a psi game or get wrecked by Turntable.
Edit: Again, I think both are good and they are two of my favorite corp ID’s. If I somehow wasn’t able to play ETF anymore, I’d be ok with Palana.