Well, yes. But all the same arguments raised against Inject here, were also brought out when discussing Noise. Sometimes they still are.
Thatās fair. The arguments for leaving Inject at home in Reina are certainly a lot more convincing than those that advocate leaving it out of Noise.
Comparing Apple and Orange. Noise play 3 dĆ©jĆ vu and most of the time, the dĆ©jĆ vu will bring 2 cards back and not 1. Also, Noise really need to grab his Aesop before anything else, which isnāt the case here since you got so many vector of attack and econs option. And it doesnāt really matters for noise how many time he will install a given programs since most of the time, just installing a virus is good enough to put pressure with him.
Here, you really want to have your Crescentus / Knight / Eater and in a less extend your Lamprey and Parasite in your hand so you can potentially play them twice. Every derezz / parasited ICE count on your gameplan and you canāt really waste your recursion by being forced to use one them to play those cards from the bin because they got trashed by Inject.
Yeah I totally agree with you. The two are not the same at all, and Iām a lot more convinced by the arguments advocating leaving Inject out of Reina than I was before.
1 Like
The main difference I see between Inject in Noise and Inject in Reina is that Noise leans really hard on seeing Aesopās Pawnshop in a timely fashion, whereas Reina can function pretty well without any specific non-program being drawn.
3 Likes
I still think itās important to remember that any worry about taxing/wasting your recursion not being able to play cards as many times etc. only applies when youāve drawn your whole deck. Otherwise theyāre just cards you donāt see. The difference being now you know youāre not going to see them unless you pay to recur them. Inject is way better than it looks, even in decks like this where it doesnāt look quite right. I understand why people donāt like the look of inject. I just think theyāre wrong.
Like I said earlier, IHW might be better here, Iāll try it. Itās probably quite hard to tell the difference to be honest.
When I was playing Inject in Reg Ass, I noticed I was going through my deck the first time a whole lot more often without being able to set up a full rig, (which can suck against decks like NEH AstroBiotics where you really donāt want to be Levying if you can help it). While this is certainly somewhat of a Maxx-specific problem, I think if you were making a direct swap between IHW and Inject in Reina, youād be able to tell which is better by judging how often you are losing games because you didnāt see enough programs in general, (or a specific program in particular). I think that not-enough-crecentus is probably less of a problem than not-enough-knights-fast-enough-to-kill-drip.
3 Likes
No vamp when thereās a clear vamp opportunity hurts a lot.
The difference is that Inject only digs you to 1 extra non-program vs IHW whereas IHW digs you 3 whole programs deeper than Inject. If youāre swapping them one-for-one, your ability to find any non-program is affected very little compared to your ability to find a program.
3 Likes
So I think the inject argument is pretty pointless and not productive. A more productive discussion would be to quantify when the deck works (ie headlocks), what cards get you there as quickly as possible, and what cards you can play to counter the corpās way out of headlock. I propose mapping out an ideal first 2 or 3 turns with the most ideal card draw and go from there. For me it would be as such:
Opening hand:
Eater, Crescentus, Vamp, Sure Gamble, Liberated
Turn 1:
-Sure Gamble
-Liberated
-Click Liberated
-Click Liberated
Turn 2:
-Click Liberated
-Install Eater
-Install Crescentus
-Vamp (if possible)
Basically, the cards I would like to see early are Money, Ai Breaker, Vamp, and a fluff card (lamprey or crescentus).
The thing is, there seem to be more vamp opportunities overall when youāre able to see more copies of parasite/crecsentus/knight. Maybe itās how I play, but situations where I need to draw a program are much more common than those where I need to draw a vamp (or any non-program not named Kati Jones, for that matter).
In practice, this kind of opening is pretty rubish because even if you vamped your opponent, you donāt have much to fall back into.
What you really want in your opening hand is one or two econ cards, some draw and anything who can force the corp to rez something like a desperado or a lamprey.
You want to build a dominant board position and keep the corp poor and the cred differential between the corp and you as high as possible in your favor while still improving your own boardstate.
Iāll rather have anything who will put me on a menacing position as fast as possible like having a desperado, a kati jones or an Earthrise Hotel than being able to vamp the corp by turn 2.
4 Likes
Fair point. Iād agree with that. So a more ideal opener maybe would be:
Sure gamble, lamprey/desperado, Iāve had worse, Liberated, clone chip?
I think the best opening is probably Gamble Hotel Kati or Gamble Hotel Liberated. Pretty much all the openings with both card draw and money are great, as long as you arenāt click 1 for credit to play Liberated, which is fine but certainly not ideal. I would also like to see Xanadu as soon as possible.
If I had to say the specific best hand, itās probably Xanadu Liberated Kati Hotel Gamble. Parasite and Knight early are also nice, but itās less important that theyāre actually in the opener.
Iāll probably replace the Xanadu for either a Lamprey or a Desperado.
Reason behind is that corp wonāt rez most of the time for single access if you donāt gain / they have something to lose and running naked with a Xanadu on board make the decision not rezzing even easier. But having Xanadu in your first 10-12 cards is really strong, I agree. Just not on your starting hand.
Once they rez it which cards would your want to see then? Parasite, ai breaker + crescentus Iām thinking?
Depending on the ice and the position of the ice, a mix between crescentus, parasite, knight or eater.
So based on that info what do you think about this shell?
Headlock Reina V1.0
Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter
Event (11)
3x Dirty Laundry
3x Iāve Had Worse
3x Sure Gamble
2x Vamp
Hardware (5)
3x Clone Chip ā¢ā¢ā¢ā¢ā¢ ā¢
2x Desperado ā¢ā¢ā¢ā¢ā¢ ā¢
Resource (9)
3x Earthrise Hotel
2x Kati Jones
3x Liberated Account
1x Xanadu
Icebreaker (5)
3x Eater
2x Knight
Program (12)
3x Crescentus ā¢ā¢ā¢
1x D4v1d
2x Imp
1x Keyhole
3x Lamprey
2x Parasite
15 influence spent (max 15)
42 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Order and Chaos
Deck built on http://netrunnerdb.com.
Imp, lamprey, and desperado provide early threats. Dirty Laundry, Sure Gamble give you starter money. Iāve had worse and earthrise is the draw. Parasites, knight, eater and crescentus give you ice answers.
Iām not positive I like dropping casts for DL, but with desperado it is probably fine.
You will want 2 eater and 3 knight though, that much has pretty much been ironed out as far as I can tell.
1 Like
There is still 3 flex slots. So tossing in Daily Casts is definitely and option.