But Markus also has an etr and a mostly not irrelevant sub. Typically if the runner does not have a fracter it will cost them a click to avoid the face check.
If it was not compared to Eli, it would actually be a pretty great piece of ice, but probably just for HB or maybe RP.
When Eli rotates, it will likely see a bit more play in foodcoats, if the archetype is still viable.
Early game: it’s 1 more for an Enigma (that you can click through)
Mid game: it’s probably a Bastion (that you can click through)
Late game: it’s 1 more for a Wall of Static (that you can click through)
Markus 1.0 costs 4 credits and for a good chunk of the game has the stopping power of Troll. Being able to turn into Bastion later is little consolation, it’s simply not a very great card, IMHO.
This is true, yes. But the same argument could be made for astrolabe (in high majority of tournament decks), but I don’t think anyone would argue it should be on the MWL. Criminals just didn’t need the further beating. If anything just give them a 4-influence console that’s as good as desperado (or maybe even a bit better). They’d get a pump, more consoles would be played, variety, variety.
Though I agree that the MWL could be a slippery slope as some people have argued, I’m personally not too worried about it. The cards on the MWL right now weren’t added because people were complaining about them, but were added because FFG had some design issues that they wanted to address (like killing PPVP Kate, making Fastro slightly worse, making Foodcoats slightly worse, etc.). I really don’t think FFG is going to add cards left and right to the MWL like some of you are suggesting.
MWL really wasn’t about particular faction balance or “killing PPVP Kate”. I think Damon’s interview was very enlightening and worth listening to. Many of the decision decisions were explicitly about expanding design space (i.e. what’s the point of printing low strength ice with Parasite/Clone Chip so easy to access? How do you print good events with PPVP so much more powerful than was originally realised? How do you print sub-str 3 code gates with Yog.0 a mere 1 influence? How do you encourage any NBN strategy beyond Fast Advance when Astroscript and SanSan can be run at no opportunity cost in faction? How can Crim run any other console with Desperado available?). I expect a lot of these decisions were made with upcoming Mumbad cards in consideration, too.
Given Damon’s (admitted) lack of knowledge about the current balance of factions, I’m quite relieved none of the reasons given were about faction ‘balance’ at all.
So when it comes to the article suggesting adding things like Caprice (particularly with Political Operative on the horizon at last), that just seems mistaken as to what the MWL is for. It’s for the designers. It’s not for us.
I really hope you are correct.
I hate the idea of FFG swinging the MWL around as a ‘nerf bat’ that so many commentators here are clamoring for.
I’d expect Faust to be flat out banned before it’s added to the MWL. If it’s really such a problem, an influence here or there won’t do much. MWL seems the wrong tool for balance tweaking, and I don’t think such balance tweaking is easy or desired by FFG.
MWL does not solve inbalance, it solves stagnation. In that regard it should be a resounding success.
It is a living card game and the list gives it more life on a periodic basis. It will never prevent a new winner emerging. Faust has a crazy weakness in that you are using your life force to break ice, just get creative and look for solutions that will break it rather than complaining that tried and tested corp archetypes fail to it.
The attraction of the game is that evolves through time, and just like in evolutionary theory those who adapt the quickest come out the winners.
Isn’t one of the potential takeaways there that this is not necessarily an issue of card balance, but one of meta stagnation? In other words, if one can successfully tech against Faust and people continue to play it over other options, that suggests the problem isn’t Faust or the lines of counterplay available, but groupthink.
Unless, of course, “teching against Faust” is also a superior setup against non-Faust decks. (Ichi 1.0, for example, is relatively sturdy/efficient against Faust, but is also a great, taxing piece of ice against most common setups.) If this is the case – and I don’t think that it is, but I mention the possibility because some have made the claim – that still doesn’t suggest a problem with Faust as much as it suggests a problem with a set of clearly dominant strategies for corps to follow. Removing or nerfing Faust doesn’t alter what those dominant strategies are, it just removes the best option for runners to respond to them with.
Excepting Datasuckers or Ice Carvers, Markus costs Faust exactly the same to get through as Eli does most of the time (sure, the runner can eat the trash sub for a small discount, but one way or another that very likely cost them a (deferred) click at the absolute minimum). In a thread dominated by discussion about the ubiquity of Faust, that’s probably worth noting.
(Full disclosure: I absolutely made the switch to Markus over Eli for influence reasons in Foodcoats after the MWL. Would I rather be running Eli? Of course. Is Markus garbage? Not at all – I run 2 and a Wall of Static right now, but the only time I’m generally happier to see the Static is in the first turn or two, and only then if I’m worried about Siphon spam.)
The entire point of factions is that cards are available to you at no opportunity cost.
And of course Fast Advance is the best strategy is the best strategy when the main goal of the game is to score 7 points.
Kill decks are an alternative, but the problem with NBN kill decks now is that they can’t apply additional pressure on the Runner by threatening to score since the fast-advance tools got nerfed. They now can’t afford the influence for both kill cards AND FA cards, so the end result is simply sticking to a fast-advance deck - meaning Damon accomplished nothing.
Yeah, they’d have to come up with a new rule to change that or something.
Why? The faction is built around it. That’s why their ice mostly sucks and there’s other cards like DBS to support it. It wasn’t the winning-est deck before the MWL, it was just easy to play. The MWL changes were made so that you had to commit to Buchershop OR FA, and that only kind of worked.
This isn’t true. I won a 27 player SC with a FA/Butcher NEH deck.
I’m aware of your deck. That’s why I said it only kind of worked. You’re still down a scorch courtesy of the MWL and the Whizzard/Turntable matchup is bad.
I’m down a Sckrch, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It’s not as consistent, but is still able to operate at an optimal level.
So you’re saying it’s worse but just as good? I don’t see it. I’ve tested plenty of games with your list because I like -insertnamehere-shop variants. The Whizzard/Turntable matchup is awful, and according to your SC report you didn’t play any. Sometimes NEH rolls on people but that’s true of literally any yellow deck that sees the right cards in the right order.
Your FA plan is entirely based on having a SanSan for a turn, which Whizzard will never let you do. Turntable takes your Astro counters and BNs away. You’re not Haarp so Medium digs happen, and with only two Scorches getting one Imp’d is the worst thing ever.
I’m not saying it’s a bad deck or that you didn’t earn your wins. I’m saying that the archetype was severely affected by the MWL, and that the runners currently in vogue are going to drag it behind the woodshed and give it the Old Yeller treatment.
To be fair, selecting yellow at all conveys and expectation you’re not going to fight Whizzard. Unless you play Sync or something.
What’s good about Glass Shop is that a Clot campy Shaper doesn’t poop on you. You lose against Whizzard just a little bit harder for a matchup where you were gonna lose anyway (imping biotic is like a slightly lower risk in that you can play it earlier to keep it from getting Imped), but your Shaper matchup gets waaaay better when they’re on 3 clone chips and a clot but just one Plascrete, if that.
I think what’s more of an open question is if you are expecting a variety of non-whizzard anarch, whether scorch or FA is better when there’s 3 IHW and some imps. I think it’s pretty close, and goes to scorch if you have surprise factor and FA if you don’t.
Don’t get your hopes up. Whizz dumps on SYNC too.
yeah I was just trying to be generous.