I mentioned it! Thought that going to 2 copies of key ones was reasonable. Probablem with Hollywood Grid is rez cost, but San San costs 6 and NBN has been winning with it since the beginning.
yeah, going from 6/5 rez/trash of SanSan to 5/4 of Old Hollywood seems reasonable. they’re both really strong effects.
i’m just happy for more strategies for NBN that don’t heap more onto fast advance.
yeah but OHG is a defensive card whereas SanSan and NBN as a faction are aggressive, IMO. Astrobiotics is still winning games at the highest level; why are people even considering OHG at this point? a naked SanSan is a liability for a Runner; naked OHG is not.
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Yeah, i think NBN ice decks are still going to play 3 astro 3 beale. Being able to make a nicely taxing sansan server is going to be cool, but i don’t think NBN wants to stop running agendas that score themselves.
I’m actually looking at 3 astro 3 beale, 3 quantum 1 15 minute as being the starting spread for D&D decks, with maybe 2 napd/exploda depending on strategy after that. SYNC would just need 1 NAPD to finish the suite.
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I wish somehow Weyland could get Early Premier for less influence. I feel it could be a really enabling card for Gagarin, allowing Weyland to threaten 5/3s from naked face-downs. I will still probably try it, but 9 influence for 3 copies is rough.
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On the note of cards I really wish happened, I really, really wish Constellation Protocol was able to move advancement counters onto any card that can be advanced, not simply ice. It would actually provide advanceable Weyland with a solid never-advance game plan (any installed card in a remote could now be a scored 4/2 or an Atlas with a counter the following turn). They would perhaps have to further bump the influence just to ensure it couldn’t be easily played out of faction (and possibly up the rez cost/lower the trash cost, as the card would actually now be strong), but given that the other factions would also have to splash advanceable cards, I don’t think imbalance would result.
Made this comment about 4 months ago. When I saw Early Premier, I was really saddened because it just further reminded me of what Constellation Protocol could have been. Obviously my version would differ from Early Premier as it would require advanceable ice, but I feel it would have gone a long way to empowering both Weyland’s horizontal game, and the usefulness of their advanceable ice - both of which are in need of considerable help. Sigh, a man can but dream.
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Or tags as they would have to run a raven twice for the steal.
Probably still double or triple up on license acquisition.
But then Weyland might be able to score easily. Can’t have that.
More seriously, I think the big flaw of O&C was that it tried really hard to not break Blue Sun, but with rotation Blue Sun will be going away sooner or later, and what’s left is going to struggle all the harder.
No other faction’s core ID has failed to receive any support in their big box. Weyland’s is the most limited in scope, too, and they are just now getting a seventh influence-free transaction. With two of the others being highly dependent on board state, and the third requiring the runner to get in lots to be worthwhile. Discounting Paywall and Diversified Portfolio they haven’t gotten anything since Second Thoughts.
And Back Channels – while great for certain styles – kinda depends on influence spending to be worthwhile most of the time. In-faction options are limited to Contract Killer and GRNDL Refinery (the latter of which pays out more for just a click), and without influence you only add Plan B and Shattered Remains, the latter of which is at least useful for tag-and-bag except that that also takes influence.
Funnily enough, Constellation Protocol working the way you describe would also allow you to better utilize Back Channels, because you could IAA a Shattered Remains, and then move up to three counters off of rezzed Space Ice or something onto it to grab 15-16 credits on your first click. It’s an involved combo, but almost plausible under those circumstances.
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Totally agreed about O&C. Really, Blue Sun’s ability is just far too much more useful than the other Weyland IDs that it’s inordinately difficult to make Weyland cards that don’t just further elevate BS over the others. Not seeing a single transaction in O&C was emotionally very difficult to accept.
As ‘that one guy’ in his playgroup that pockets an ‘all the traps!’ Weyland deck with Shattered Remains, Ghost Branches, Overwriter and Junebug and Mushin no Shin as Takeover threateners, Back Channels feels like a massive slap in the face. Weyland does not have an in-faction advanceable ambush - I have to bend over backwards, influence-wise, to make my ridiculous deck work. Furthermore, the only in-faction advanceable cards Weyland has - Contract Killer and GRNDL Refinery (as you mentioned) - are not actually traps at all. As such, Back Channels has massive antisynergy with both of them - each has a click ability which trashes itself, one of which gains you more than Back Channels would in the first place! From a psychological standpoint, even in the one deck basically custom-built to leverage over-advanced traps, Back Channels is a card I would be loath to play. Playing that card is tacit acknowledgement to the other player that your bluff failed and that you included a card in your deck to recover from your inevitable mistakes. Feels bad.
Also, said pocket deck, originally a BABW deck, is horrible out of anything except Blue Sun (ice and economy problems - yay, Weyland) - how often have you heard that before? Hence the OMGWTF single extra credit one would make by playing BABW is completely irrelevant. Whenever I hear people tout Back Channels as ‘BABW support’, I feel my already-tortured soul just fragmenting ever further. Back Channels is as much BABW support as Diversified Portfolio is - which is to say that they both have the keyword ‘transaction’ on them, and neither of them should ever be played in BABW.
Anyhow, while this is indeed on-topic with SanSan spoilers, I shall stop the Back Channels ‘hate train’ now before my grief sets in too deeply or this thread degenerates into yet another ‘why does Weyland suck so hard?’ tirade. I shall remain cautiously optimistic that Lukas is able to put in a few choice words to Damon about the W needing major help.
On a more positive note and on the topic of SanSan spoilers and Weyland, Public Support actually looks very playable to me. Personally, I’m quite pleased to see Weyland getting new, effective ways to bait runs on ‘scoring remotes’ that provide no upside to the Runner forced to deal with them.
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But bluffs are supposed to fail half the time. Having a card to turn the loss that happens 50% of the time into a win is awesome. If I mushin and advance again a cerebral overwriter and the opponent doesn’t fall for it, I back channels netting 11 credits for 3 cards and 4 clicks, that’s as good as going hedge fund and 2x beanstalk royalties and clicking for a credit.
If I push the bluff further to pretend I’m trying to score a government takeover or a massive grndl refinery and the runner still doesn’t fall for it, every click I spend is worth 2 credits with the only drawback being that I need the credits to advance up front.
Sometimes make it an actual govt takeover. Then if they steal it, punitive them. Thanks to back channels you can’t lose no matter what you install or whether they run it or not.
Thanks for the deck idea (-:
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And a way to maybe play Archer without Bad Pub!
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to me this card reads like Cache for Weyland- it’s not really a weyland card, it’s just in weyland so it can cost the other factions influence to splash it.
very excited to splash this card in Cybernetics, IG, and more; honestly I think it might even have a place in some NBN midseasons decks…
In weyland though? yeah, it’s garbage. I don’t cry over core set weyland at all (it’s boring; If Kate or Andy became obsolete I also wouldn’t care) but I’d like to see more support for Titan, gagarin, BWBI, and Argus (actually, argus might like back channels…)
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Public support has the same problem as Offer you can’t refuse and domestic sleepers. Most decks want less slots for agendas not more. You’re giving up a slot that could be used for your main agenda gameplan (which you need to score some no matter what). 1-pt also is not impactful enough
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Domestic Sleepers + Archer can be pretty potent.
Also, Public Support looks pretty good in the 6-agenda murderball. It means you can win with 2 agendas or Takeover while the runner needs takeover +1 or 3 agendas to win. It also sort of allows that deck to play Archer (maybe, probably not). That said, the 6-agenda Weyland deck is miserable, so shouldn’t be supported 
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Well I was right about my assumptions about Casting Call. Get the fuck out Snare!, Weyland Scorched Rush has a new player in town.
Absolutely amazing, punishes sandbaggers (my loose cardgaming term for people who hold tricks/tools until scoring attempts), and gives crazy tempo. I have been playing with it in Titan, Argus, and Blue Sun, and it’s absolutely phenomenal. I haven’t even begun to fathom the implications of it in faction. Imagine its turn 2-3, and NBN goes Data Raven, Casting Call Breaking News, advance. “Good luck, I just spent 5 credits for all of that.”
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What do you put it on in Weyland? Oaktown?
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Atlas priority. I don’t see the reasoning in keeping it on Publics only. If the runner can’t get in by click 2, they can’t get it. And it’s often the case when you just installed an Archer or any unknown ice over your remote.
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Been fiddling with a Casting Call Argus build, will put it up after more testing. Lost the first two games with it against Faust Valencia, but they were both close and largely due to misplays on my part.
Deck itself aside, being able to threaten a score that the runner can’t then recover from is huge. Data Raven into Casting Call’d Oaktown early game let me get it up to 8 advancements before scoring it and I probably could’ve gone to 11. They just couldn’t afford to spend the whole turn dealing with tags, and forgot that Parasite wouldn’t prevent the on-encounter part if they had to datasucker it down.
Sure, the Renos have obvious synergy, but it’s not as though you can’t take advantage of that with an Atlas – though it’s a much more important target for the runner since the benefit can still be more heavily denied.
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Argus seems the right call for importing it into weyland. I’m not sure what is the right call for absorbing that 4th click though. Raven seems obvious but could be Ash, ELP, or something else works good too.
6 credits and 3 clicks is the cost to steal a casting called agenda in Argus, not including the 2 meat damage from the id, with a Data Raven over it. If you put an ash over it, that’s 10 credits minus link. If you put an old Hollywood grid, well that’s just tragic on the runners part
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