It probably does have a bit too much gear check, but I can’t agree that the deck is unable to build a taxing remote, and I’d like you to back that up. To me there are 3 “taxing” ice in that deck, Eli, Tollbooth and Data Raven, which is conveniently one of each type. Eli is in just about every NEH deck that exists, Tollbooth is probably the best “large” piece of ice in the game, and often splashed in glaciers, and Data Raven is taxing for most runners to go through, unless they go tagme, in which case Closed Accounts opens up a big scoring window.
To be honest the deck would probably be improved by adding SanSan grid, but when I made it I forced myself to leave out any fast advance tools apart from Astro, so I didn’t just fall back into the usual (and currently best) gameplan of just fast advancing everything. The deck is actually not a normal NEH deck with caprice and ash tagged on - I wouldn’t be playing bootcamp, Adonis, melange etc normally. What ice do you think would be needed to call the deck a glacier?
I’ve had decent results with the deck against good opposition, so it was at least capable of building a good remote against them. It’s obviously worse than playing NEH fastro atm and probably worse than playing a glacier in another corp, but there’s only so much we can expect.
@hhooo Breaking news isn’t a bad idea. I again left it out because at the time I was determinedly trying to make something different, but it would work well with the closed accounts.
Exactly. This becomes even more obvious when you build decks that try to do other things but still run SanSan and Astroscript. For example Mushin NBN. Some games you Mushin things out but many games you just see a window to SanSan into an Astroscript and close out the game that way.
No deck ever stuck with me as much as that one because it’s so versatile and there always seems like you can find a way to win even when you are behind. It has more ways to win than Glacier, but without the inconsistency of flatline/midseasons decks. This is strictly because of how powerful SanSan and Astroscript are. They force respect from a runner who would otherwise be fine plowing relentlessly into RnD. That’s what makes it a strong deck, and super enjoyable.
I’m not sure how good NBN NA is today, or will be after Clot, but it’s worth a shot. Personally I think the Asset Econ hate is a bigger deal, but maybe you run more burst econ and try to race behind tollbooths (Celeb Gifts without Midseasons?) Maybe you run Chronos Project and try to take out the Clot? Maybe you run Snoop or Snare and try to disrupt?
It makes sense to me that SanSan and Astro’s would stay in pretty much every NBN build anyway. You don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater worrying about a single counter to your strategy.
I expect the best thing for it (once clot is out) is just slight changes like you mention. It may even be as simple as including more taxing ice than early etr and not going into the game with such a focused strategy, but rather just seeing what you’re up against and icing/creating remotes accordingly.
I think this is all probably moot this discussion until we see what NBN is getting through-out the cycle. Pretty much everything has hard-counters available these days. So if it’s that big a deal, I expect the dev’s to have something up there sleeve for the faction.
This is where it gets dicey, though. If you actually just always lose to people playing clot in every NBN build playing SanSan/Astro, you might need to throw out the baby. Or just throw out NBN.
True. I guess what I’m trying to figure out is how often you’ll actually end up facing it. One of’s in Shaper, and more in Noise. Where else?
Would you include 2-3 in MaxX? I dunno… On the other hand if you are seeing it everywhere, how often can they actually pull it off. SanSan and Astro are going to win you games. We know they do. Less after clot, but how much. It’s one of those cards that make me wish there was a mac client for octgn.
I’m feeling like most Maxx builds will have one, just because it’s so easy to include in the deck structure already.
As far as SanSan/Astro, I think Astro has to stay, but SanSan may fall off, or at least be fewer copies. Astro is still extremely good, and allows you to fast advance to a win against a slow, non clot start, and keeps its utility for big Breaking News plays/getting extra points out of Beales/etc. It’s still crazy good, even though Beale and BN will likely be your preferred agendas against Clot. But Maybe there’ll be a deck that runs something like 3 BN, 3 Beale, 3 5/3s, one Astro/NAPD/etc.
I suppose the major inhibitor of slow decks in Netrunner has always been that aside from Future Perfect, no 5/3 has ever had an ability powerful enough to make you actively want to run it. Astro, Breaking News, Nisei, etc all have abilities that are far better than the 5/3s in the game, which makes no fucking sense at all. Scoring a 5/3 should have a higher upside, and it maybe be weird to play them in NBN until one that actively helps you progress the game plan comes out. If License Acquisition had been a 5/3, we might have something to work with. Who knows.
I do think there is some potential to do a Haarpsichord Midseasons build that doesn’t much require Astros… but much as I’d like to try said build, I’ll be trying it with Astro too, because it’s obviously useful.
But I could see Explode-A-Palooza and NAPD as Midseasons-bait with Beale as an overadvanceable wincon, using either Award Bait (and some advance Ice, just in case) or TGTBT (to land Scorches without Midseasons).
But that requires 5 datapacks to come out, all of which might make Astro better again/more worse than now. So, we’ll see. Either way, it’s far from an immediate “ditch your astros”.
Aaand as mentioned above, not like they become useless. Even if the runner can keep you from making full use of them for FA they let you score with a click left in your turn from a NA start, and with two (or a Biotic and one) that Beale becomes a three-pointed without warning.
The disadvantage you have playing 1 Clot in MaxX is that it takes on average 7 turns to find it. The train has usually left the station by then. That said MaxX without clot seems ok(ish) against NBN FA so maybe that’s ok.
I think all three of the Fragments are quite strong, probably best 5/3 abilities. I haven’t been playing decks that want them, but scoring the “free ice install” one in ETF seems pretty bonkers. Free credit along with your 4th-stacked ice server.
Restructured Datapool is pretty obnoxious. The advantage to playing 5/3 is that you only need to score 3 agendas. Problem being that the same is often true for the runner. Market Research may well see play in midseasons decks when the standard 11 card NBN agenda suite is not automatic. (If that ever happens)
Even if you don’t find it fast, it does a pretty good job of stopping the train once it gets going, and you have to remember that the NBN decks of next month are probably going to slow down a significant amount. And you’re right, the matchup was good for Maxx anyway, (RegAss). I’m probably going to play one.
If nothing changes except for every Shaper, Noise, and Maxx deck adds 1 Clot, Astrobiotics will instantly drop from Tier 1/S to Tier 2.5. It’s obviously a blank card in some matchups, though, and not every deck can play it, so the best option for NBN might just be to wait until shapers skimp on Clot.
This is true if we define Astrobiotics as the 49 cards people are playing before the valley is released. I think people are overthinking and overstating clot’s effect. I’m in the wait and see camp. Yellow cards are typically silly. I think there’s probably going to be a good deck that plays Astroscript and Biotic labour even post clot.
Anecdotal, but the (very few) times I’ve scored a Datapool it’s put the runner in a world of hurt. Infinite, unconditional Sea Source. It helps being Making News of course.
What are these silly cards everyone keeps referring to? If you mean SanSan and Astro, then yeah, they are ridiculous… up until Clot hits, which is the subject of this conversation.
The way I see it, NBN has to go out of faction for ICE, and probably for econ if they want to actually rez big ICE. Now they are being forced out of faction for cards that let them score safely too (read Ash or Carprice). They still get good utility like Jackson or DBS influence free, but it’s not like all the other corps were struggling to play that stuff anyway. Good Corp decks are made up primarily of three things: ICE, Econ, and Ways To Actually Win. Before, NBN was weak on ICE and Econ because they were so strong when it came to Ways to Actually Win. Now that they’ve printed a very good counter to our Way To Actually Win that will be in a lot of decks, NBN gets shafted.
Of NBN’s cards that are truely their own, Breaking News (with closed accounts) is the only one that I can think of that will continue to give it a competative advantage over other corps. But that kind of play still requires a more glacier type of infrastructure that I’m not sure is there. That or we’re not thinking outside the box enough.
I’m fairly certain making news will be better for a slower nbn. Even just the extra 2 credits on Ash traces is pretty powerful. Not to mention it opens up some different ice choices to make taxing servers with. You won’t want to be flying through your deck like current NEH does anyway.
I think you’re underestimating the power of Sweeps Week. It’s the best Hedge 4-6 in the game. Wraparound is great rush Ice. Tollbooth and Raven are taxing as hell. Midseasons is great. Red Herrings isn’t the worst Ash replacement (though it would have been more expensive to trash if it had come later). We all saw how good +2 inf was when NEH came out. NBN all have +3 inf because Jackson is inf free. Pop up is decent econ. DBS is almost as good as Jackson Howard.
Even in a game with Clot I think NBN is the strongest 0 influence faction (HB being very close, maybe marginally better). Making News makes a lot of middling ice like Draco, caduceus and viper pretty good. TWIY* plays a really good Grail game. NEH asset hell is probably still good. Information Overload is distressing, as is Universal Connectivity Fee if you’re trying to tag the runner. RSVP is pretty strong too.
Are you hoping to make them go tag-me with Data Raven? Breaking News is your only way to push tags on your turn and Data Raven, while taxing, almost never gets someone to float tags in my experience. I’d suggest fitting Manhunt in there somewhere, since it can put the tag threat on all of your servers and they can’t just bounce off of Data Raven to hit a different server until they’ve got a better threat.
EDIT: Oh, I missed Restructured Datapool as another method to lay tags down. Doesn’t combo with Shoot the Moon too well though since it’s slow. I think Shoot the Moon and subsequently Curtain wall are both out of place here unless you pack more encouragement for the runner to stay tagged.
As a thought, Big Brother would combo very well with Restructured Datapool.