I wanted to discuss Planned Attack in a new topic, because I am rather gloomy about the effect it will have on the meta, but I’m still a fairly new player and I’d be interested in hearing what the more experienced players here think about it. However, the forum said “no” so I’ll put my thoughts here instead.
For the record, the card is:
Geplanter Angriff / Planned Attack #36
2c Event Double
As an additional cost, pay click
Search your stack for a Run Event and play it (paying it’s cost), ignoring additional costs. Shuffle your stack.
2 inf
I think it will do three things to the environment.
For the most part I think people will run it as three more Siphons in faction or an extra Siphon out of faction (possibly dropping the third actual Siphon to run two of these, because it’s more flexible). I can also see it being used to support an early Maker’s Eye/Leg Work rush (and also Blackmail, but that’s a totally different deck). So I think the first thing it will do is seriously punish corps that can’t either secure HQ (and to a lesser extent R&D) from the first turn, or at least have a way of dumping cash and then recovering (e.g. Eve Campaign).
The other way that I think it will get used is to support a tool box approach to events that are powerful but either situational or have a high influence cost (Inside Job, Stimhack, Demolition Run, Vamp etc). Bottom line here is that remote servers become even less secure because the runner only needs to be running one Inside Job or Stimhack but can still effectively have four copies in the deck. So the second effect I think will be that Fast Advance becomes more prevalent because the scoring windows you used to get when the runner was broke have just become much riskier.
The third thing, which I think follows from the above but which I hope I am wrong about, is that the two impacts above will cancel out much of the fun Jinteki stuff. The way I generally beat Jinteki at the moment is Siphon/Vamp them (because they struggle to secure HQ early) and then go to town whilst they are broke and can’t use their traps or psi-games. Whilst they get a lot of good things in this set (especially the agendas which were badly needed) I don’t really see anything to change that fundamental dynamic except the PSI Identity. And the discussion is already mostly about fast advance Jinteki, which feels like an attempt to turn them into NBN/HB in a shade of red.
(In passing, I should say that Fast Track doesn’t fill me with joy either, but I think it is less of a problem since deck space is tighter in corp builds and you have to tip your hand to the runner by playing it, giving them the chance to respond.)