I’ve seen/heard the same incorrect analysis a lot since this card has been released:
Heritage Committee is almost always not good card draw. Unless the card you’re looking for is the 3rd card, it’s no better than clicking to draw. Let’s say you have 5 cards in HQ, and you mandatory draw HC and use click 1 to play it. Now you have 5 original cards and A, B, and C, but you have to put one of those 8 on top of R&D, so after click 1 you have 7 cards in HQ. Now, if you didn’t have HC in your deck and wanted to dig, you would mandatory draw X, if you spend click 1 to draw (Y), and you have 7 cards in HQ. In both cases you have 2 clicks left and with HC you have 5 original cards and “saw” A, B, and C. Without HC, you have 5 original cards and seen X and Y.
If the third card is the one you wanted to see, HC is great. But if not, (let’s say it’s the 4th card or beyond). In both cases you would have to draw at least 2 more cards:
With HC: draw the card you had to put on top of R&D, then draw again for the 4th card
Without HC: draw card Z, then draw for the 4th card
Heritage Committee is nice for Mutate, ABT, or AD tricks, or likely scaring the runner from checking R&D next turn. But, it’s not any better than clicking to draw for deep digging (for Jackson, economy, ice or agenda, unless that card is exactly the third card you draw with HC), nor getting card quantity (Celebrity Gift, Reuse), nor (most of the time) getting past R&D lock.
I think your analysis is erroneous, since somehow in your example with HC the corp did not get a mandatory draw for some reason? or does the corp mysteriously have a smaller deck without HC?
If we compare HC to Anonymous Tip starting with 5 cards in HQ, HC has the advantage of not forcing a discard, since it places one card back on R&D. Any card of the corp’s choosing.
The mind games of putting a card on top of R&D are quite nice, since it all but guarantees the runner won’t want to access it. I’ve had a couple runners check; they did not find the experience enriching.
I think the error is you switch from mandatory draw getting HC, to skipping any card in that slot and mandatory drawing card A in your example without HC. If you wanted to substitute Anonymous Tip for HC, then the analysis would be a bit better, but I don’t think HC really looks that much worse in comparison.
Yes, the card on top of R&D is a big advantage and the main reason to play HC, but it also provides cards draw in a faction that doesn’t have a lot of other card draw options.
The point is if you don’t have Heritage Committee in your deck, you have to draw some other card (I’ll edit my example to not use the same letters, to not imply that you’re drawing the same cards sooner without HC). What I’m trying to show is that if you don’t draw the card you’re looking for as the third card from HC, it’s not any better than not having HC in your deck and clicking for drawing. There’s a penalty to draw the 4th card, because you have to re-draw one of the cards you’ve already seen.
HC is a fine card if you primarily take advantage placing cards back on top of R&D. And it’s has a chance to show you a card you may want to see a more efficiently then just clicking to draw. And maybe that’s how you’re using it.
I agree that the dead draw (the card placed on top by HC) is a downside, since it typically cancels my next mandatory draw without giving a new card.
But picking a card to put on top of R&D is great. If you put a Snare there, it is a great way to punish a runner. If the runner is scared off of R&D by your HC play, then it’s a way to stash an agenda away from the runner (who will probably check HQ instead), so long as you’re brave.
I play PE, but quite a different list than is being discussed in the article. I am enjoying some decent success, however, as Net Damage is real strong in our Temüjin meta.
Hey, i’d experiment with an additional Salem’s Hospitality to hard-counter the anarch scourge at the moment, that is kind of what forces all the NBN stuff into the deck. When (if) this stale meta shifts (hopefully post-MWL, trusting you Damon…) i would experiment with going back towards a more traditional Punitive build.
I would like to see people’s variations on PE/PU deck grindout as well, since w now have a hard-counter to Levy. This is not that kind of deck however, if you start throwing in 1-pointers you might be better served trying out a grinder with Ark Lockdown (or chronos).
I took PE to Worlds thinking it would do well against Temujin Whiz, but I ran into some bad matchups like Val and siphon Anarch. I definitely made a mistake not running any crisium in my list.
Went 4-0 @ SC yesterday, super fun playing pe, didn’t need to much money. Survived one siphon spam. Lot of clicking for credits but stay at 4 and have great chance of keeping them afraid. Employee strike stinks but clone retirement can take care of it well enough. Three games scored out, 1 kill.
I got killed at Worlds by a guy who was on PE with Project Kusanagi and 24/7 Philotic.
It probably doesn’t do well against the current popular tagme-Siphon-Obelus Anarchs going around though. Hard to land that kill when they have handsize 10+. If you goal is to mill them out there (they don’t run Levy) you’re probably better off in PU than PE…
I’ve found PE to be quite effective at milling runners out, actually. Deal ~1 net damage per turn (through scores, steals, ICE (Aiki is the bees knees) mindtrix ect.) and they will lose their deck painfully fast. Keep Ark Lockdown to snipe Levy.
The problem with PU, as I see it, is that it’s hard to actually land the damage. I haven’t found a list that works yet, though I’d love one. Know any good lists?
I don’t personally know any good PU lists, I’ve been on Mushin+traps in Palana for a while now (score out with two agendas! Be rich so you can always afford to fire traps, nobody expects the agriculture inquisition, etc).
It seems to use Snares (obv), House of Knives, Shocks, Hokusai Grids, and Neural EMPs (actually firing them periodically not to land kill but just to put two cards at a time in the heap).
