But corp decks aren’t just meant to be generic reactive good-stuff. Corp decks should be allowed to be proactive, and Faust is preventing that. You can’t just chuck a trio of Snare!s into a fast advance deck.
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While true on both counts, there are flex spots, and if the meta calls for their use, then they should be used.
I think we should really start talking about the elephant in the room. Fantasy Flight Games should seriously consider adding Sure Gamble to the MWL.
1: It is by far the most commonly used card in all the top Runner decks of competitive Netrunner. The fact that there are virtually no tournament winning decks that don’t run it (let alone less than 3 copies) itself seems to imply that the card is problematic. A card that is represented in 90% of the field is not healthy for the game as it stands.
2: It severely limits the design space of other burst economy cards. Many burst economy cards are compared to the raw power of Sure Gamble. Hell, many Anarch decks do not play any burst economy cards in their own faction, and yet always include seem to include this. Attaching an influence to the card would allow Anarchs to more consider other burst economy cards in their faction.
3: The runner has a huge advantage early on when they draw this card in their opening hand. At least with other economy cards like Day Job or Magnum Opus the runner must make a meaningful choice about whether it is worth playing the card immediately or waiting until a better opportunity. Where is the decision with Sure Gamble? Forcing the runners to consider other economy options would make economic decisions more meaningful.
4: The closest comparison to this card is Lucky Find, which has the downside of costing 2 clicks to play, and costs a whopping 2 influence. Or Easy Mark, which only gives 3 credits, compared to 4 (even influence-free in the criminal faction, the choice between them is obvious). Why would any runner even consider such a card when an influence-free alternative like Sure Gamble exists?
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I think at this point it is a bit overboard. But you do have some good points there.
This is obviously satire, but I’ll answer it seriously. Sure Gamble and Hedge Fund were always intended to be part of the game, like the basic lands in Magic: the Gathering, so it’s not a sign that something is wrong when everyone plays three of them (by the way, there have been top runner decks without sure gamble, though not top corp decks without hedge fund). The point of Lucky Find is that everyone gets three Sure Gambles for free, but if you want three more of them then you have to pay influence (also Lucky Find is more powerful). Since no one wants to use only three econ cards in their deck, it doesn’t limit design space since everyone will always be looking for the next best econ card after sure gamble. (Compare this to Lady; decks only need one fracter usually, so Lady does effectively obsolete other fracters).
Only your third point is meaningful. It does add variance to the game. However, that is probably intentional. Luck can be a fun thing in card games and can give less experienced players a chance to win.
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…most of which are low-strength Killers, which is what the Mimic is for. Coincidentally, Mimic is also an Anarch card…
Anything that is “AI hate” that can’t be simply Mimicked through can mostly be handled by David… which is, by pure coincidence, also an Anarch card…
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isn’t it funny how all the cards folks tend to bring up off-handedly as faust counters are all completely crushed by always-include anarch basics like mimic, d4, and parasite?
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It’s almost like they don’t realize Anarch has literally everything it needs in-faction…
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That’s why you have to work with Faust. In otherwords, Palana Foods.
But my post was about the non-AI-hate you can add to your decks. That being said, it is rather sad that Anarch has all the tools to deal with all of the AI-hate (Mimic for Swordsman, David for Wrap and remote Turing, Yog for central Turing). Perhaps the developers were thinking they needed that because they were the “AI-faction”, but damn…
You are a true community treasure sir
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My personal hope is that the Most Wanted List is used more as stop-gaps to address issues that cannot be addressed otherwise in a timely manner due to the developmental cycle.
For example, I hope rather than balancing agendas to be on par with a 1 influence NAPD, they balance the new agendas to be as good as a 0 influence NAPD and at that point NAPD is removed from the MWL.
RE: the article
I don’t have an issue with Wyldeside/Chronotype. It’s good, but it’s 2 cards that you generally don’t want to install until you have both, and it takes a few turns to become worthwhile. IMO, it’s about as good as Magnum Opus, in that it’s costly, takes time to become worthwhile, but dominates the late game, and like Magnum is not even an auto-include in faction.
I don’t think Faust is that big of a problem, and ultimately I think is fine. It’s a little strong, but only given specific ICE meta. So long as it’s low subroutine, low strength ICE, it’ll be amazing… but in general I think that is the core of the issue. I would put it on par with Atman. Faust is capitalizing heavily on non-adjustment, but can be significantly impacted by ICE choices.
Medium? Nah.
RE: the actual list.
I think the MWL was pretty solid, but would have made the following changes:
- Eli
- Architect (maybe)
- Accelerated Beta Test
- Niesei MK II (maybe)
Eli is a great piece of ICE that helps out a lot of decks, and I feel like the extra influence is just removing a great tool from the game. Imo, it’s just that HB gets them for free (just like NBN gets Astro/SanSan for free). It’s a fairly vanilla card, and gameplay-wise is actually more fun than other barriers, because it provides the runner with another set of options.
Adding ABT to the MWL does mostly the same thing that for HB and since you rarely ever want to fire it off, it ends up being a completely boring and gameplay-wise isn’t missed.
Caprice is a hit neither RP or HB need that’s nonsense, especially if NBN stays the same.
Hitting the wyldside engine AND faust is basically hitting the same thing twice, which is just overkill IMO even if it needed nerfing in the first place.
Medium…is a but random. Short opinion: no.