Originally published at: Reign and Reverie Community Review and Meta Predictions (Corp) - StimHack
Discuss the latest article here.
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I think best practices in writing these reviews is to leave at least one reference to John Cena unmentioned so as to give the reader something they can feel clever about.
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Man, I gotta feel for The Outfit. There must’ve been more cards dealing with bad pub in the pipeline, waiting for the next cycle, but we’ll never see them, leaving The Outfit stuck as the bad pub ID where that is ruinously bad.
Secretly I am hoping that they do a draft set at worlds with all those cards that made it through development, but didn’t make it to the R&R cutting room floor.
It would be quite an extra gift.
I dunno, between Elizabeth Mills, Too Big to Fail, Hostile Takeover, Illegal Arms Factory, and Illicit Sales, I think they might have enough to work with.
I don’t entirely get the plan for the Magnum Opus Community Card Design, but that might be what they have in mind.
One thing that perhaps didn’t need to be said in the Lady Liberty discussion: Improved Protein Source is still a terrible card.
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I think you are underestimating the craziness that is Jumon. Saraswati and Mushin will make it playable. Junebugs, Overwriters, and Obokatas will be a nightmare.
I think for Jinteki, scoring one of these will be very much like Mandatory Upgrades - you should be hard pressed to lose once this is scored. Oddly enough, scoring a second one is pretty easy after the first.
I will be slotting three of these in Saraswati and having some fun!
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Oh, and count me in the “Not that impressed by Acme” camp. It turns on UCF and Henry Phillips, and it makes two good barriers better (plus one sentry slightly better, and one bad barrier less bad), and…that’s about it.
That said, I will play this ID nonstop until I know the unbridled joy of Kitsuneing into QPM.
Higgs and RJayz both mention Mushin and/or Saraswati to get this scored, and did not say it was not good like the others.
I didn’t have anything to say about Jumon at the time. But, since this comment, I have given it more thought. It definitely plays into the bluff wheelhouse that a lot of long time Jinteki players seems to enjoy. So, once you score it (with Mushin and/or Saraswati), what do you get? You definitely get free advancement counters, which is really good and efficient, but you cannot score the card because all your score action windows are done for that turn when you place the counters. It seems to give you a Mushin on a stick that doesn’t have a “new remote” limitation. That’s not bad, but Mushin decks have been around for a while and they haven’t really dominated. And, now the meta has significantly more expose, which is a pretty strong counter to trap decks.
Now, not having the Mushin limitation and just the click-free counters tempo boost is enough to make it much better than those decks have been in the past. Maybe building a huge remote, and having NGO and Gene Splicer, and small agendas with this scored is really strong. But, will it compensate for having to score a 2/6 agenda early? It seems like a tough ask, but definitely worth testing.
The strength of Mushin play has always been the increased risk factor of so many counters. Jumon cranks this up a notch.
Hitting a five advanced card is a huge risk, and I think Saraswati can capitalize on that risk. A mix of Overwriters, Junebugs, and Gene Splicers can provide proper threat. I’ll probably slot a Back Channels or two to bank on failed or exposed traps - free counters from Jumon will pay crazy amounts.
I don’t claim it will dominate tournaments, but I think a scored Jumon will have a massive snowball effect on decks built to take advantage of it - something Jinteki certainly can do.
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Sariswati’s pretty cool. Right now I’m playing “Vanity or Bust” rush and it’s either hilarious or awful.
I was super hyped for Acme but non of my weird builds are sticking. I’ve settled into a sort of midrange tempo deck that uses uniques like Amani Senai, Clyde Van Rite, and Victoria Jenkins(!) to harass the runner behind annoying ICE.
Sportsmetal is pretty cool but kinda boring, not much to do except lots of agendas and FA tools.
The Outfit has made me get over GRNDLs death.
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I disagree with lots of reviews there. I’ll make a point tonight, as I’m Hard At Work rigth now.
Gatekeeper is a super bad card. As a runner, I’ll spam runs on it. oh. “up to”. Totally banana then.
Sportsmetal is the ID that I would want to use to teach a new player. Lots of scoring on both sides and often a climatic ending.
As the games biggest Mushin fan, Sariswati was really interesting to me, but I haven’t felt that it was nearly as good as Life Imagined (the flippy ID) for playing trap games. In practice, it’s strength has been more boringly as a tempo tool for rushing and reloading. More Arelle than Mushin. Cool I guess but what Mushin people really want is a way to prevent expose.
I feel lik the reviews panned The Outfit but in my experience so far, Weyland with an insane amount of money really fast and HHN/Boom! is pretty nasty. Maybe high variance but I think it’s more interesting than a lot of people seemed to.
Fly on the Wall has been the single most annoying card to come out of R&R. NBN was deadly enough without being able to tag you even when you don’t run.
God bless every low-hand size Gnat deck that people are trying too.
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