I’ve yet to see any data supporting the claims that the game is imbalanced in favor of Runners right now. Keep in mind I consider 55-45 balanced; anything beyond 60-40 I would say is imbalanced, but we’re not there.
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I’m OK with the meta and think there are solutions to Anarchy that we are just beginning to explore.
HOWEVER, 20% of the players in my meta have a major problem with the state of it and are close to quitting. That makes it a problem for me too.
I think it kills a particular type of fun. It’s hard to make interesting corps work when most ice is blank and you can’t keep up with Wyldside.
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My least favorite thing is that before the MWL things were what they were whereas now there are constant arguments about The State of the Game and What Should Be Done.
Faust should be on the MWL. No, Pancakes should be on the MWL. And Desperado shouldn’t be on it. And Astro should be a 3 influence penalty instead of 1. I’ve done the alchemy - trust me that the meta will be better.
I bet that if they had just left things alone then these discussions wouldn’t be happening.
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I agree that the next MWL list should probably do something to the Faust package if we don’t get something released that helps fight that thing easier. I don’t think that Pancakes is the one to put on MWL, though. It’s mostly run with Wyldside (and not other “lose a click when your turn begins” -cards), but if it’s the free card draw you want to “fix”, why not put Wyldside on the list instead? It has a bigger impact since the consensus seems to be 3x Wyld, 2x Pancakes. I’d rather keep the option of using Pancakes/Beach party/Sunny’s security clearance/something else without breaking the inf bank. The only combo you want to nerf is Wyldcakes, so only nerfing that one seems like a better choice…
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I think player need to spend a bit more time adapting to the meta and less time complaining that Faust makes it easy to break into servers. Anarch ICE destruction is very strong right now so it’s hard to rely on ICE to protect agendas. I’ve taken to playing a more aggressive corp deck that uses midseasons with a variety of tag punishment and that’s given me a very strong corp deck at the moment (if a bit weird and brain intensive).
What I want to know is what the people who are consistently losing to dumblefork doing after they lose. Are they changing decks and trying a new strategy? Or are they trying to double down on a strategy that hasn’t been working? Are they looking for potential weaknesses that could exploit? I’m of the opinion that a big part of the game is deckbuilding and if your deck isn’t working, it’s time to make a new deck.
In short: I don’t think Faust has been oppressive enough for long enough to warrant action; I think it’s best for players to try and beat Faust before the developers intervene.
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A bit of a side comment, but I don’t like how the MWL ends up restricting weaker archetypes. I mostly enjoy deck crafting, and I’ve found that the problem increasingly is I can have a cool idea but because of influence limits I often can’t build a deck that actually makes that idea function. Of course, a weaker archetype will always be weaker–but the problem is not about not about having a strong deck, but having one that is strong enough to support the concept you’re building around. Following through on a concept just to find that you end up with not enough cards to make it work even sometimes is frustrating. So to me, I dislike the MWL not for the meta that has evolved–I’m fine with faust builds–but on the restrictions it places on tier 2 deck building. It was fun when it first came out and shook up the scene a bit, but I think things have settled in a slightly less fun deckbuilding space as a result.
Just as a little bit of handwaving bullshit: there’s likely a strong correlation between “healthy meta” and “healthy tier 2” since tier 2 decks often place a check on tier 1 decks through teching, while at the same time feeding tier 1 decks more wins on average and supporting the competitive ecosystem. So I wonder how much the recent standardization of the tier 1 decks might be related to the weakening of many tier 2 archetypes. As circumstantial evidence, the corp tier 2 decks that have been having breakthrough success are primarily weyland which wasn’t impacted as much by MWL (though as a counter example, yellow deck diversity has maybe increased some? most likely that diversification was already starting with D&D though and it would have continued (maybe even stronger!) without MWL). Essentially the strength gap between tier 1 and tier 2 is likely a bigger influence on “healthy meta” than the absolute strength of each tier. My hypothesis is that the MWL hurt tier 2 more than tier 1, and therefore increased that gap.
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I think Jinteki 1k cuts decks are pretty strong, but seriously under-represented in the current meta. They excel against Faust, and not many Shapers are packing Deus Ex/Feedback Filter. Siphon is the main weakness, but criminals are less prevalent.
I think this Faust meta is very strong against Foodcoats, but for whatever reason the player base is not embracing other corp archetypes that are less vulnerable to the build.
I don’t see a big problem in the meta (I think it’s at least more divers than PPVP Kate), but players seem reluctant to try different decks and playstyles to counter what is currently very common from the runner side.
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Back on the actual topic, and not simply discussions about the MWL…
the straw poll seems to be having interesting results related to this. The “competitive” poll is almost a dead heat (which might as well be “no data”) but the "casual poll is pretty heavily skewed (at time of posting) towards “worse.”
IMO this points to some significant corp-side NPE that especially effect new and casual players. The common adage “faust has counters, just play them” is basically null advice to a new player or someone without deep cardpool and archetype knowledge. Some main counters are tight play, highly streamlined builds only, specific silver bullets and counter-plays, and intrinsic knowledge of wildly different runner archetypes: none of which are even remotely accessible to a new or part-time player.
I really don’t think the MWL has shit to do with any of this, frankly. just a critical mass of strong cards in a single faction upending many of the basic building blocks of the game.
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I f@cking love netrunner.
Isn’t Thousand Cuts terrible at the moment because everyone packs Levy?
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Is everyone packing Levy because the are planning on not using it? There is still ICE, and the runners are still using Faust to break, so the candle is burning at both ends. Levy will be used, but it is still possible to deck the runner (twice I guess).
I’m not 100% on the lingo, so 1k cuts may not be the most accurate name for my style of deck. I may be closer to a Cambridge PE deck, where I set up a field of advanced cards with a mix a agendas ready to score and traps. I will feel the game and score some of the agendas as needed to pressure the runner to check old remotes. I ICE HQ and R&D, but only rarely remotes. I try to use HoK to damage the runner immediately before access to improve the chances of a flatline if they hit a Snare.
Most wins end in a flatline, either from the runner hitting a trap, or from scoring agendas/Neural EMP. I haven’t had much luck with Ronin, it comes in and out of my list.
I am not claiming that this deck is auto-win against Faust, but it certainly is not hindered by Faust, and it is a lot of fun to play.
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Good 1k cuts decks can cut through multiple Levy’s.
Isn’t Netrunner, by it’s very nature, a changing game? We aren’t playing the same decks we played a year or two ago. Even if everyone loved where the game was now, it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Right now, Anarchs are the strongest they’ve been, but it won’t last forever.
It’s one of the things I like about this game. We always have to adapt to new cards and the strategies that emerge with them.
I do understand the frustration of a new player sitting down against Whiz-cakes. But what is really different from a new player sitting down against NEH Astrobiotics or Andysucker back in the day?
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To echo Benjen, I agree that learning to play runner across from an Astrobiotics player is easily more NPE than learning corp and sitting across from Whizzcakes.
One of my most NPE early experiences as a player, years ago, was sitting down across from Anarch, not icing R&D, and having them drop Keyhole turn one, whereby I proceeded to lose and to never interact with the runner during that game. The guy who did that was an asshole, as he knew I was a new player, but even then it didn’t make me dislike Netrunner.
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The only reason why I’m sure that wasn’t me is I wouldn’t have been running anarch
@JaredRules It wasn’t you. It was someone at Card Kingdom who was braying on about the state of the cardpool being too limiting: incidentally, a pretty shitty thing to say to a new player who really loves the game. I’m not sure what his name was.
Feels like this could spin off into a whole other thread about welcoming new players to meet-up nights.
“I haven’t seen you around; are you new to Netrunner?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard great things about it, figured I’d try it out.”
“Awesome! Click one, I’ll install DDoS. Click two, I’ll Siphon. Click 3 I’ll install Keyhole. Click 4 I’ll Amped Up. Click 5 I’ll Keyhole, Keyhole again. Keyhole one more time. So what are your thoughts about Netrunner so far?”
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I can only speak for myself, but in the interests of making sure a new player has a good time I quite specifically don’t play T1 decks against new players.
certainly; that’s actually exactly what I’m saying. You really can’t teach with T1 decks because they almost all rely on way deeper knowledge than “get money, install icebreakers, run for agendas.” The issue is, new players eventually want to start playing “real” netrunner, and I believe the gap/learning curve/whatever you want to call it between “I’m playing these decks because you’re new” and “this is what people actually bring when they show up to play netrunner” has never been wider.
Part of this is just the growing cardpool- there’s more to learn than ever before and the burden of knowlege is pretty big. My view is that the faust/d4 suite that completely upends the core mechanics of which ice are good and bad and how much is needed to keep a runner out (and not in a “cute” way like Nasir or endless hunger…) is another major contributing factor to this disconnect.
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