Exactly, it creates a much more interesting set of options.
You are truly agenda flooded: you have Pre-emptive Action in hand (sorry I can’t spell it without the hyphen, not with the letter e twice in a row).
Do you ditch some cards brazenly into Archives and hope the Runner doesn’t run? If so, how do you split your agendas: how many do you ditch and how many do you keep in HQ? What is the least risky?
Do you install (or dig for) a single ICE for Archives before you ditch any? Are you going to bluff the ICE even if you think they can get in? Will you do it behind a Pop-up?
Or is touching Archives at all too much of a giveaway? Will you try to bluff it out until HQ has at least one ICE and then try the Archives play?
Those decisions are much more interesting than: “Install Jackson, ditch as many agendas as possible up to a maximum of three. Recycle agendas when they run Archives/Jackson (or immediately if scared of Rumour Mill).”
Agreed. There are now better tools for hiding agendas (sensie) and runner late-game “inevitability” seems high, so if I’m not using the agendas I’m getting then the game is probably looking grim any way.
When I’m sitting down to make a Weyland deck - yes, intentionally - I always go through the “To Jackson or Not to Jackson” question, and never come out with less than two. The card draw (no good choices), recursion (… interns?), and the baiting run value - with 0/3 - always wins out.
The flood mitigation is important, but it is becoming less critical in my view. Even with three, you’re still going to have to play through most opening floods (opening 3 agenda flood of 6, Jackson roughly 16%, 4 /12%). He’s most often there to stop your flood issues mid-game, and I feel like most of my Corp decks have to play so fast that I’m not really seeing it as much.
But for all of those effects? The only reason I dump him is because I must have another influence point. NBN might have some card draw, HB has some recursion, (insert something witty about Jinteki), but Weyland doesn’t have anything decent in those areas, so he keeps finding his way in.
As others have said, we’ve seen lots of cards come out with like, partial Jackson replacement effects. Jackson does so many things for the corporation all at once, and they’ve spread it all out. This card fills the Jackson spot when it comes to one of the most important things he does, recycling economy.
Could’ve been fun if they made ‘experienced’ versions of the personalities like Doomtown. Neutral Jackson because he quit or got fired from NBN or something.
Ok, someone replied funnily to me about special report that it’d be too strong to not be NBN, but he’s right (though he doesn’t realize it). NBN gets all the filtering of the deck, but both it’s noninteractive combos depended on 4 influence splashes (astro/biotic and sea/scorch). I mean, we laugh about weyland now, but give them a neutral influence free card to filter their deck and the pressure on the runner ramps up quickly as they get sea/scorch. They were balanced on having to invest heavily to get this advantage. Get some space, overadvance that Atlas, and they get their advantage. Same for the sort of jinteki who has to accumulate their EMP’s.
NBN, face it, does not have the best in house economy cards. The majority of its ice is porous (basically ignore tollbooth and it’s flimsy compared to the rest). Tagging is a slow way to victory, though now finally you can keep the struggling runner in your net. Sure, that’s their thing. And card control is a thing they do, it’s cool that this is limited to one faction, even if it is a powerful effect. It means you can have more powerful effects and possible combos in other corps, who’ll have to spend influence to get it together more easily.
It’s a bit too easy to look at NBN being strong and take away one of their strengths and make it available for everybody. It would hollow out the concept of factions and make the game poorer as a result.
I’ve come to realize the strength of this statement. I wouldn’t feel bad using it in any deck just to get my money back. Also, glacier is basically getting phased out of the game right now, so it’s less important for Jackson to ensure you don’t lose later in the game, and sometimes you don’t need Jackson for all that. That being said, I’m running 3 of him till he’s rotated out or in the maximum security mwl
I think Howard is too powerful. Both his effects are good and together they form a beast, and he costs nothing to rez. And not only that, he can be used to bait runs, and be installed naked without loosing too much. I would suspect he has much responsibility in why the game is as fast-paced as it has been.
In a meta where everyone is teching hard against Temujin, I’m finding there are less and less free archives runs. And if I run into Archives only to find it empty - well Jackson did his job and got the corps cards that it wanted and slowed the runner down.