It looks like due to lag someone was able to snag two cards out of the same pack, which threw things off.
I’ve put a fix in to prevent it from happening again. Cheers.
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Is there any ETA for the cube list with Order and Chaos updates? Thanks!
I should have updates for both Order and Chaos and The Valley out in the next two days.
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Thanks very much! Will the update represent the addition of both sets, or will you be posting an interstitial order and chaos list, then one with the valley?
I ask because I am interested in using the most recent list + order and chaos. I am uncertain whether I wish to continue purchasing netrunner products in the san san cycle. I could be persuaded to pick up data packs from the san san cycle if it seems indispensable to a well run cube though…
The latest version of my cube (based on stim cube but more heavy on synergy/combo) is up to O&C, no sansan. You can find em here: http://netrunner.meteor.com/draftinfo/
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Thanks for the link! Now that I’m looking through the san san spoilers though, the more interested I am in the cycle after all…
Damn netrunner! Everytime I try and jack out, they preview cards and setting materials that make me want to stick with the game. I wanted to quit after the spin cycle, but the lunar and space cards from cycle 3 were too damn compelling to leave behind!
Apologies if this information is present elsewhere - how many cards are recommended to give each player for a “sealed” draft? The primary cube partner and I are very rusty, so I’m interested in playing a bunch of sealed games to refresh ourselves before we dive into actual pack drafting.
Alternatively, how many rounds of a grid draft are recommended to build up a good card pool for each player?
Thanks!
Sure, I will actually post separate lists for OaC, Valley, and Breaker Bay. (I plan on catching all the way up)
I have been slightly busier than anticipated, so it will be sometime this weekend.
60 cards should work. (I would playtest this number a bit)
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In general, do folks like or dislike draft starter kits (ie. starting with crypisis, armitage, priority req, etc)? Do cubes tend to cover their economic/agenda bases better than the draft packs, precluding the need for starters? Or does the decision to run or not run them more relate to not wanting to devote in-cube slots to generic enconomy/agenda cards? I purchased a number of the cyber war and overdrive starters back when I first contemplated building a cube, but I am uncertain whether I want to deal with the added logistics of maintaining starters. Thanks!
Not a massive fan of Crypsis as it warps the draft a lot. Everyone having Crypsis does (in my opinion, not everybody else’s necessarily) negative things to both sides of the draft. Crypsis is a card that my group found to be extremely strong and closed some interesting drafting decisions, and I don’t have it in my cube (Crypsis + Opus was a strategy in and of itself, and we didn’t like it). However, this could just be a personal opinion, and some people may love Crypsis as a starter.
The Aurora + Pipeline + Force Of Nature choice is a tonne better I think. The decisions to pick breakers that aren’t those three isn’t removed, and remains an interesting decision (especially for grid drafts, where you know their ICE), and I think it’s currently the best Runner starting breaker suite. I’ll be honest, I haven’t tried a different three but they’re hard to beat in terms of suitability.
Armitage and PriReq are definitely good starter cards though. PriReq ensures you can have a legal deck (and yeah, has interesting drafting decisions regarding agendas). Armitage is just enough econ I think. Agendas being a part of the draft is a very interesting part of Netrunner drafts, you don’t do it because you need to, you do it because you want to.
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Thanks for the detailed reply. Do you run a starter suite yourself? If purchasing redundant packs wasn’t a constraint, what would be your fantasy for each player’s starter?
Because my group and I are basically having to refresh ourselves via the cube, i would like to use starters as training wheels, but the prospect of having to pick up a redundant data pack solely for extra copies of force of nature is a bit of a pain.
Cube Drafting: 101 - StimHack has now been updated for:
- Order and Chas
- The Valley
- Breaker Bay
You can use the Crypsis starters, but the experience will be superior with the crappy breaker starters. You could try and asking locals for their force of natures etc, they will probably part with them for free or at low cost.
I bring just my 3 copies of FoN, aurora, pipeline and have never had a draft where players collectively needed more than 3 of any. I don’t think I’ve even had a draft where more than 1 among all 9 of those cards were used.
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They’re also well, usable? That’s the thing with Crypsis - it’s all sorts of clunky, but the bad breakers are merely inefficient, and by variable degrees.
Well, Crypsis is just really good because it breaks everything by itself. There’s a reason people like AI breakers, it’s because there are no nasty surprises when running into ICE - you can handle whatever gets thrown at you (save the random Swordsman). Yeah, you have to click for viruses, but in draft, you can expect clicks to be less efficient than in a constructed deck, so it’s not as much a problem.
I’ve never even considered playing FoN, and haven’t seriously considered Aurora or Pipeline since the first data cycle. They’re really bad, and clearly worse than Crypsis. Crypsis is still played today. I would be stunned to find a runner playing any of those other 3. This (particularly in one-on-one), allows for some strategy when drafting. Pass over the Kati Jones/MO/LF for a Corroder or Femme Fatale? Or ride with Pipeline and hope no-one rezzes Tollbooth? Maybe your econ is so good you can afford to use the shitty breakers? Maybe you draft Wyrm because your economy is better than constructed and you want to show-off? XD
I think giving each side the absolute “basic” cards is a really smart call.
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Crypsis is more than usable in draft. During our first few drafts, the runner deck archetype we found won the most was just Crypsis + Opus that outmoneys the Corp.
Yeah, the Stimhack starter suite is the best one that I know of. For the issue of needing >3 of cards in starters, just tell everyone who has them to bring them to the draft, and I’d be surprised if more than that many were used in final decks probably the case that you won’t use more than two of them
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In general I think Overmind is a much better starting breaker than Crypsis.
Having Crypsis in your starter you don’t have to draft any breakers unless you see good breakers which makes the runner draft much less interesting. Also it makes ICE such as Rototurret much worse and mostly makes you focus on taxing as corp which is also not as fun as it could be.
This is a reasonable position to take. Overmind has a limit, and unless you can recur it, you can’t rely on it for the game. I think I prefer relying on the 3-suite though, to guarantee you’re never just completely locked out. But Overmind is a reasonable compromise.
I think Overmind (or any AI in the game) is still a suboptimal breaker to be given as a starter for a few reasons:
Overmind still requires you to choose breakers over other things, you can’t really rely on it. The shitty breaker suite means you don’t need more breakers, but an upgrade is extremely beneficial. I think it strengthens drafting strategy a great deal to consider to not have your breaker choice be forced. Usually, you want to take breakers with pretty high priority, but if something can contest its position with Corroder or whatever, now that’s one of the interesting decisions that makes draft work.
As you say, it also means that people can never get completely locked out, and arguably more importantly, means you have to deliberately draft against scary sentries.
Overmind can be used as (part of) an archetype in a cube (with Sage, E3 and friends), but having it as a starter removes some of the interesting draft decisions for that archetype. Indeed, it means that it becomes less of a decision to draft around and reduces the overall impact that trying to draft that strategy has. Enabling (and making fun) unique archetypes is an important part of cube design to me.
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I totally agree this point of view. I think the types of Ices (Barrier, Code Gate, Sentry) and finding the good breakers are the heart of ANR, so giving AI breakers to the Runner kills the fun of the game. The Runner must fear to facecheck Ices, its fun !
How many copies of breakers to you give in your starter ? 1 of each breaker or 3 of each ?