It’s not as good as Desperado in the current meta, but every Whizz player would love to run Desperado. Thankfully for corps it’s almost impossible (inf wise) to have both 3 recurring trash creds and 1 cred per run!
It’s not as good as Desperado in the current meta, but every Whizz player would love to run Desperado. Thankfully for corps it’s almost impossible (inf wise) to have both 3 recurring trash creds and 1 cred per run!
Valenica → Rebirth into Whizzard. Done.
I know that’s not a very productive contribution to the thread, but I just had to say it. 
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this was my prediction when it first came out. it’s a really bullshit strong effect, but it’s just going to reinforce the already really strong archetypes of asset spam, low-mid str ICE with stuff like Lotus Field, Architect, and Magnet seeing lots of play
i saw so many Andy lists with Sifr ‘because it’s the same influence!’
after about 5 games, i never installed it once. went back to Desperado and have no regrets.
Even against Architect Sifr drops the cost of breaking with Mongoose by 2. I’ve found it to be as useful as Desperado at worst and much much much better at best in Criminal. Then there’s the change to your breaker suite that you can make, like dropping the more efficient breakers like Paperclip for Saker. Basically, I don’t know how you’re running or what your meta looks like, but I’ve always been happy to see Sifr.
Saying that you shouldn’t run Sifr because everyone’s avoiding high strength ice seems a bit like not running D4v1d because D4v1d exists and everyone’s gonna play around D4v1d.
Also, I don’t understand the statement that Sifr requires Parasite to be powerful, that it’s somehow “combo material”. I mean, yes, obviously it’s amazing with Parasite, but without it Farchild 3.0 goes from 6 to break to 3. Saving 3 credits on every run through a particular server seems pretty good compared to Desperado to me.
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Desperado is Criminal’s main answer to assets. I often get 8-10 Desperado credits in between times when I interact with an ice. Unless you’re regularly playing against decks with Curtain Walls and Chiyashis and Januses, the Sifr savings just won’t be enough. And if your meta is all huge ice, why not just play anarch with ice destruction?
Isn’t Temujin Contract Criminal’s main answer to assets? Like, I’ve always felt criminal was favoured against horizontal decks given access to run-based economy, but glacier decks are their biggest issue. Go back a year or so and they’d have to run Kati Jones as their solution when Security Testing dried up. Between Sifr and the Contract, I’m running against glacier every turn where good ol’ Kati would leave me waiting for turns at a time.
Temujin isn’t nearly enough to beat asset spam decks. When you have to trash 2 or 3 assets per turn, you only have 1 or 2 clicks to hit the server you put Temujin on. Desperado, on the other hand, is giving you a credit every click.
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did you mean to reply to me?
Sifr is terrible (like no-install tier) against asset Prison, and Desperado is worth like 30 credits. The same is true of basically all the NEH matchups. Against RP Prison as Gabe, I have a lot of turns like run HQ (no rez), run 3 things, gain 6 credits. And I can do this forever, without drawing cards, until they stop me!
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I played a lot of criminal and sifr vs. desperado is an interesting debate.
In short, sifr has much higher upside. Think about paying 5-6 credits to break an archangel, then getting 1 back from desperado, or making it cost 1 to break with sifr. Chiyasi will cost you 7-9 vs. 3; DNA tracker will cost you 7-8 vs. 3; curtain wall will cost you 9-11 vs. 3. The +2 MU is a huge deal for criminals too. It also pairs well with cards like temujin and emergency shutdown, since it can make a server easy to get into and spread the corp’s defenses thin.
But as another poster said, sifr is so good that it immediately warped the game at the deckbuilding phase, so we’re not seeing a lot of big ice – or arguably even decks that rely on ice to achieve their win condition anymore. Against most horizontal decks, desperado is the clearly superior option based on the kinds of decks I’m playing against - with the exception of the RP prison decks that try to plug something big and ugly on every central to make even gaining the ability to run remotes super taxing.
Without desperado, criminals have to just concede the board state against decks like NEH and IG because there are barely enough clicks to even check all the remotes let alone gain money to trash anything, draw cards and build your board.
That’s always been one of my pet peeves about desperado being on the MWL. While it was probably the best console before sifr, I think desperado is the backbone of the entire criminal economy suite and is one of the few non-whizzard cards that keeps asset spam in check. Meanwhile, criminal breakers are less efficient than other factions, so it’s a way for them to recover some of the loss on using them.
With Femme and Shutdown in faction, I’m really not hard-up for solutions to Chiyashi / Tracker / Crouton / etc.
Archangel and Archives Crick are a bear, though. Shutdown is a meh solution to FC3, but … so is Sifr actually.
What kinda (higgs) bozo plays shutdown when they could play Exploit? 
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In criminal, desperado and sifr are both econ cards. The comparison is similar to casts vs tapwrm, one is consistent and doesnt need any further setup the other isn’t. Sifr can have a higher payoff but in other games its totally useless. Against spam you want desperado and desperado synergises so well with all the run based triggers you already have.
The only place i can see sifr being better than desperado in criminal is for geist, to complement his breaker suite.
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True, though it depends on why you’re playing Geist. In the Los Angeles / San Diego area, Geist won 2 store Champs in a row due to his ability to avoid tags and beat traces. NEH Railgun can kill through either Forger OR On the Lam, but it’s very difficult to kill through both. If you’re bringing Geist cause there’s going to be a lot of tag based kill, keep the forger.
geist is good vs glacier/kill and poor vs spam/combo
I think Sifr will probably make you money than Desperado in most games. However, I think it is when it makes you the money is the big difference. An early Desperado will make you money for things that you are going to be doing anyway. This allows you to get setup quicker and accelerate your early game. An early Sifr will not do anything for you as you still need to get a breaker for it to do anything.
So if you are playing an early aggressive Criminal like Andy or Gabe, Desperado would be best. If you want to play for the late game like Geist or Leela then Sifr might be the better option.
This might be why the builds I have seen run three Desperado to make sure you get it early but only two Sifr because you don’t want it until mid game.
Leela is often ‘late game’ when it comes to scoring points*, but you still have to be aggressive in the early game to contest remotes. The only runner than can ignore the corp’s board state and have a chance at winning is Dyper - they’re just no way Leela focusing on putting out resources is gonna be worth it if it means Sensies and Bankers and Bio Ethics and such left unchecked.
*though it’s worth checking R&D early on just to see if you can steal an agenda, bounce HQ ice and siphon - Leela can practically wrap the game up in the first few turns if this happens.
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I totally agree that an early agenda steal into bouncing HQ ICE followed by Siphon is game changing. I was more thinking of the builds that were using Logos and play more passively early on.
Whether you are using Desperado, Sifr or Logos, I agree that you have to check remotes to trash those must-trash asests - Dyper, as you said, is the only runner that does not need to do this. There have been Leela builds (most notably Endless Waltz) that run Desperado specifically because of this.
My comment was more on whether you want to be making money in early game by using Desperado or saving money in the mid to late game by using Sifr. I guess it is more a play style choice than a hard and fast ID choice.
The runner doesn’t get to dictate this playstyle though - the corp does. If the corp puts out must trash assets like Sensie, Sansan, or Bio Ethics, the runner simply has to trash them. If you’re a criminal who doesn’t run Desperado, you need some other answer like scrubber. Personally, I haven’t seen a crim list that very looks like it could handle the popular corp decks without Desperado or Forger (which has link, helping you against CtM). Logos has never been good, and Sifr Crim doesn’t seem good for the current meta.
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NASX is OP in… a Weyland 1 that plays lots of operations, no ? Ok Weyland1.
But :
- you rez that NASX for 2-1 = 1
- you play that sure gamble winning 9c for 5-1c and activate NASX for 2c to put 9 counters on NASX
- clic / trash for 18c.
Total:
- 3 click
- 2 cards
- barrier level 6-7c
=> +20c, or +19c if you install NASX in the SG turn. (-1 if not Weyland 1)
I’m wondering is there a better way to make money which somehow low condition level like 3 click / 2 cards starting with 6c in the corporation side ?
-edit- nvm 