Seems like it’s come to that. Game plan – score all 3 accelerated and get 2 ice each time – seems reasonable 
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New meta plan: ABT Wotan, Janus, Curtain Wall every game!
You have neglected to take into consideration how much your console costs, as well as recursion for D4s/parasites (deja or cc). The credit totals are actually much closer than you have posted.
Console I did miss yes but in HB matchup and with <4 mem in programs it is arguable if you even install it. I placed the ice destruction at 2.15 per destruction factoring in 1 cost knifes and clone chips. But if we count the turntable and 2 clone chips uses without any balancing knives, the differential is 22 and not 26 which I’m not sure changes things much.
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Good point.
What do those numbers look like for a stealth breaker suite?
Probably still pay more money overtime. Also set up time.
If we’re talking Stealth Kate with Switchblades its probably going to be Whizz Faust amount plus 15 or more credits. And if we take into consideration asset trashing, installing RDI and utilizing SMCs to find missing parts.
If we’re talking Stealth Andy then you have to factor in how much you will pay for using your Corroders over time.
Stealth requires WAY more setup than just dropping one card on the table.
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It’s a valid comparison. I would say an equivalent setup would be 3 breakers (6), 2 cloaks (2), 1 lockpick (1), astrolabe (1), 2 RDI (8) and a ghost runner (1) for a total of 19 as well. However, as noted, that is alot more cards for just breaking ice plus stealth has very little (usually no) ice destruction so barriers and most sentries (ichi’s, assassin, vikram vs. dagger) will start to cost significant credits as the game goes on. A typical HB R&D by mid-game is going to cost 4 - 8 real credits on each run and will only grow as the game goes by as the ice piles up. As a long time stealth player, I won’t disagree that stealth gets powerful but it is vulnerable to stacked ice of the same type and just piling on the ice. Without the ice destruction, the HB player could get away with install just 4 usually permanent ice on R&D for the game and really tax the real credits of the stealth rig for 20-ish credit investment. Daunting by not that hard.
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But outside of the credit application stealth cant apply immediate pressure like Faust allows. Stealth is meant to be efficient but it trades setup time and early pressure for efficiency, Faust just says, once I’m on the table none of your servers or ice are safe. Stealth still runs the standard game of needing the proper breaker to break ice.
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I appreciate your analysis, but this is really a dramatic simplification of how Faust actually works. Faust does not break things for free. For example:
- Your scenario of 2 ice on RnD. Let’s say they are both Ichi 1.0. That costs 8 cards for faust to break through without spending clicks. To get 3 medium counters, that’s 24 cards (or > 25% of your entire available card pool, counting a Levy).
That’s really expensive, and probably untenable, which is why Dumblefork runs ice destruction and why Foodcoats runs many ice that are comparable in card-cost to Ichi. But the point stands. You can’t even run that more than once a turn, as the card cost is so high.
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Have we forgotten that Foodcoats runs multiple Caprice and Ash? Good luck getting into those remotes more than once a turn with your Faust, and I hope you brought plenty of d4vid counters.
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Your counts for “non-running clicks” – where is this number coming from? Are you assuming the runner gets to start with a wyldside, sure gamble, and chronotype in his hand every game? And that he will never need to spend clicks to draw cards – aka fuel Faust?
Herein lies my problem with criticism of Faust. You can’t just put a cortex lock and a pup on a server and expect to win the game. Use better ice. Foodcoats is actually a horrible matchup for Faust players, as the deck is chock-full of ice that Faust just doesn’t want to see.
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No one is spending that many card to break Ichi. Ichi is really only good the first time its rezzed. Most of the time its 1 data sucker and 3 credits or at worse its 3 clicks 2 credits and a forked or 4 suckers and a parasite etc etc. You cant discount this decks ability to trash things they feel are annoying. Now I as the corp are down the rez cost of that ice and the new cost of replacing it with something else. So its cost a HUGE amount of tempo for me as a corp every time my ice gets trashed, which vs a good pilot will happen ALOT. Most games you spent all your time putting new ice over RnD. Obviously this deck isn’t auto win but when runner win rates are well over 60% and corp winrates are topping out around 40% it doesn’t make a fun environment to play in.
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But if you’re breaking Ichi for a Datasucker token and three credits, then we’re well out of “Faust is so broken because you only need to see three cards to win the game” territory, aren’t we? It’s an argument for ‘normal’ (credit-based) icebreakers, Mimic in this case!
Yeah but Faust decks don’t NEED to if they don’t want. Ichi might keep them out temporarily but that ichi wont last there very long.
But if it is a sucker and 3 credits you have to add the 3 credits for the Mimic install, which wasnt even mentioned in the first post. “The ideal DF rig is Faust, DS, 2 D4, medium.” And what program are you dropping to install Mimic?
3+ R&D accesses/turn each turn is untenable. No remote pressure gives Foodcoats free campaigns and even if it was, you cannot get that many accesses just due to tossing your whole hand to Faust means you cannot run R&D next turn. 2 card hand means no faust power.
Besides, who tosses their whole hand to Faust anyway? There are way too many good cards in DF to be trashing your entire grip for 2 cards off of R&D one turn.
But that’s nothing to do with Faust. It’s cutlery runs, which you can do with Eater and a different economic engine, or Parasite, which has existed since the game has.
Faust is the AI that is generally the most efficient at getting into single-iced servers, outside of Eater or Knight with their downsides. How you keep ICE levels down to start with isn’t a Faust problem per se.
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There nothing wrong with pitching your hand. If pitching my hand scores me an agenda, Fine by me, if pitching my hand means I can see 4 new cards in RnD cause of my Medium that’s also fine. Part of playing this deck is realizing that you’re never going to be able to play everything. The cards in it ARE good but sometimes pitching them is worth more than playing them and you can’t be afraid to do that.
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If that were true we would have seem cutlery played in more Eater decks, but when you have to spend credits to use it, its suddenly REALLY expensive. Plus Eater doesnt give me access unless its with Keyhole like Faust does which means I have to cutlery, then jack out then keyhole. Faust says I can trash that ice AND access cards. Eater doesnt get me into remotes so I can still rush thing, Faust does. Faust warps the early game by allowing access everywhere and enabling all my cutlery with cards instead of credits so my econ becomes secondary.
To be fair, I think that even though Cutlery is WAY better with Faust, I think it was probably a significant community oversight to not play with more Cutlery.
Cutlery is some of the most insane event economy in the game. If you Knife an Eli it’s almost like playing a Sure Gamble every time you run that server for the rest of the game. I think they were a set of cards that the community gave up on WAY too fast.
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I think the problem was that Parasite/Datasucker (+ Clone Chip) are just flat-out superior in every respect. You already had your rig that was based off Datasucker (Mimic, Yog, even Atman), Deja Vu lets you pull two Parasites back if you want, Parasite + Datasucker meant you spent 0 credits to trash ice instead of event cost + break cost… it just felt superfluous. The Anarch rig, when set up, could trivialize most ice anyway. Doing it with Eater was cost-prohibitive.
Cut to Faust, when suddenly you’re seeing a lot less of Corroder and Yog. Now cutlery starts to look really really good: the slots are there, and the rig that trivializes ice isn’t there, it’s been traded for a rig that can get accesses almost anywhere, if the price is right.
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I think this argument is coming back to this: the problem is the collective Anarch card pool and Faust is just the crown jewel.
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