He’s got you there Niles. What about that?
Aside from using Genetics Pavilion in a what otherwise appears to be a runner deck that is.
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I’m not sure what’s worse: genetics pavilion in a runner deck or beach party/starlight crusade/game day in a corp deck!
Whoops, Gene Conditioning Shoppe. What’s worse is I think I’ve made that mistake before.
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Can we agree that it’s a falsity that Faust lists cannot be beaten? There are tech cards that aren’t too narrow. I’ve been losing Whizzard games lately due to Elizabeth Mills & Cerebral Static & I credit my opponent’s deck choices, those were brilliant includes (out of faction, mostly). Faust is super powerful, no doubt. You can beat it, no doubt.
We gotta come back to this. Anarch’s were not always on top—they were easily the worst faction at 2015 Worlds! But they got too many good cards in O&C plus the last cycle, and Chronotype+Faust is too much in the present meta.
On the other hand, the people saying “just add some damage cards” are making it way too simple. Spending influence or deck slots on cards that do nothing most of the time is not the answer. Oh, you put a free-to-trash Overwriter in your HB deck to “solve” my Whizzard deck with a Medium win condition? That’s laughable. A best case scenario of 2 brain damage doesn’t even win you the game most of the time. Don’t drop decks slots to cards that don’t fit in your overall strategy. If you want to kill Faust decks, for spaghetti’s sake just play a flatline deck. Psychic Field is one influence. It’s not hard.
Foodcoats is still good because its ICE is wildly good. What taxes stealth also taxes Faust. I just don’t think it’s that hard to figure out the corp equation this meta presents. Play good ICE or go all-in on a flatline deck. Or FA before these slow-ass runner decks set up. Nothing plays worse than a Dumblefork with no Wyldside for two turns.
ADDENDUM: I do not believe reports of 60% runner win percentages. Show me a major tournament where this was true. Even if it was, we’ve seen times when corp win percentages were heavier. It’s not the end of the world if one side has a slight advantage; in fact, disbalance on this level is inevitable.
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How about a Foodcoats deck that never draws its 1x Caprice 
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I’ll still take that draw. Foodcoats can beat an awful lot of decks based on asset economy & Ash alone. Caprice is great to have, but not strictly necessary for victory, otherwise that deck wouldn’t even exist post-MWL. But it’s still top tier even if it takes 10+ turns to find a Caprice.
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There are tech cards, but the question is, why do we have to tech against an icebreaker? Imagine if any other icebreaker was the one that was too good, how easy it would be to beat:
Corroder too good? Play a code gate.
Torch too good? There are sentries that can end the run too.
Mimic too good? Play a sentry with more than 3 strength.
D4v1d too good? Play ice with less than 5 strength.
Overmind + e3 too good? Play multiple ice in one server.
Alias / Breach / Passport too good? Install your agendas in remote servers.
Faust too good? There is literally one ice that can stop it.
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For the record : i’m not the biggest fan of the new Dumblefork meta. Last league night , 5 out of 6 players were packing Faust. 4 dumbleforks and one Leela Drugdealer Faust. I was the idiot not going all in on faust.
That being said :
Swordsmen : Kills AI (yay!). Has the problem of doing only that. The net damage is laughable unless you are Chronos. One Influence is nice. The 2 strength means it most likely dies to instant parasite before you ever get anywhere. Or will get Mimic’ed.
Wraparound : 7strength. Doesn’t die to parasite and the likes. Dumblefork no longer plays a corroder (i think?). So it will tax a D4vid counter every time. And will eventually get knifed.
Turing : Costs them all their clicks. Will get D4vided if installed on a remote. No standard break method in Dumblefork if installed on a central.
Weyland players : Go cry in a corner , still no AI Tech in faction.
I’m honestly still wondering if Will-O-Wisps might be a hidden gem here. Dumblefork has no way to fetch their Faust. There is also no way to shuffle their deck. They only play 2 fausts. If you can get 1 at the bottom of his deck , he is literally digging for the other one. Or emptying his deck if he already pitched his faust.
This paired with Ash or Off the grid or RP, as it forces the runner to run several times on the same server.
The other avenue for me is Batty and program destruction with blacklist. Probably too cluncky.
I don’t think so, Will-o is really expensive, useless on remotes (since you do not want to give them an agenda just to dig for Faust) and the pitiful trash cost makes it a liability in R&D, not only against Whizzard.
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I’m not clear on how you differentiate Overmind and Faust here. Runner handsize is only so big, multiple ICE will make Faust untenable.
The combination of ICE destruction and universal breaker is a challenge, as destroying the things in the way mean you don’t have to repeatedly pay for breaking them, but I don’t see how that applies differently between Overmind and Faust (except OM is on the clock and Faust refreshed its fuel with card draw).
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They don’t only play two Fausts. At least, not the sensible lists.
It’s a key, mission critical part of the dark. People should play three.
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The difference between Overmind and Faust is that Faust’s ammo gets reloaded every turn for free by Wyldcakes, and Overmind’s goes away after a few ice. And Overmind costs 1 more and has 2 less strength on top of that. Overmind only compares with Faust when you’re playing Adam and have 8 MU plus a multithreader out.
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Why is it wrong to need to tech against an icebreaker? Breaker suites are built with specific ICE in mind. Dumblefork has answers for Swordsman, Turing, & Wraparound because it’s a well-designed deck. There are lots of powerful cards in Netrunner. Some are events, agendas, operations, assets. I don’t think it’s awful that one is a breaker.
I’m aware of the technical differences between the two as indicated in my post above.
My challenge to the poster was that multiple ICE on one server is a barrier to Faust as much as it is to Overmind + E3. Stating that solution of multiple stacked ICE works for Overmind but not acknowledging that would also work at a similar level to stop Faust seems odd.
Actually you’re both wrong. Whizzcakes that draws half its deck with no resource economy or Faust plays even worse 
. The deck can give you some really poor RNG that makes for difficult and frustrating games. This is something that no one seems to mention. I’ve played many games where you have plenty of draw and no money and the first time through your deck ends up being really suboptimal. Thanks to Levy you still have a chance but those games aren’t easy.
Anarchs may have powerful draw but we have no tutors. You can rarely keep Shapers out even on the first turn; Criminals can get in if they need to on turn 1 or 2 with Special Order. Yes I realize these aren’t AIs. Faust is Anarch’s current solution; it just happens to pair well with cutlery. Trust me; if you play aggressively in the early game against Whizzcakes, the probabilities are in your favor. You should also take every opportunity when you notice the Runner is fumbling in any stage of their set-up or board building. The Whizzcakes has a very oppressive late game, but it can’t mount serious pressure in the early game without sacrificing lots of tempo and it’s mid-game power (without insanely lucky draws, anyway).
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People were running Wraparounds and Turing before Dumblefork was a thing. Dumblefork having answers to all of those means it counters its silver bullets. You can’t find real answers against Dumblefork, you can only make it harder to follow its gameplan, so you run Rainbows and Viktor 1.0s.
This is not a situation like the Scorch days where you pack 2 Plascretes so you destroy one of the corp’s gameplans.
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Without any special effects the runner can draw up to a hand size of eight before running with Faust. An eight-deep server is unrealistic. But yeah I guess I didn’t mention the other way of dealing with Overmind: let them make a couple successful runs and then the overmind is gone.
[quote=“magaruis, post:550, topic:6806”]
That being said :
[/quote]Wraparound and Turing are both beatable by Faust. Eli may be an efficient tax on Corroder, but I wouldn’t call it an answer to corroder.
[quote=“phette23, post:555, topic:6806”]
Why is it wrong to need to tech against an icebreaker? Breaker suites are built with specific ICE in mind.
[/quote]But at the moment ice suites are being built with a specific breaker in mind. I get that it’s not all one way, but the corp’s ice is meant to be a puzzle that the runner is trying to solve. There shouldn’t be one answer that works to any puzzle, just like there shouldn’t be one puzzle that beats any answer. But you would expect that there could be an ice that not many breakers could easily answer, but it has a high cost (eg. Archer) and the runner has to decide if they want to risk coming against it and just go in unprepared, or bring an answer. You wouldn’t expect the other way around.
Breakers are the bread and butter of the runner deck. Needing an answer to an icebreaker is like needing an answer to Island in Magic: the Gathering. Blue decks are hard to beat, but you beat them by fighting against their spells. If we could beat Faust decks just by fighting against the D4v1ds and Parasites it would be fine. But it’s not like that. If you don’t bring swordsman, Faust can beat you without any other cards.
Why would you need an 8-deep server? You just need a combination of strength and subroutines to blow 8 cards. e.g. 2x Ichi 1.0, 2x Viper + Architect etc.
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Just occurred to me: has anyone tried out Midori as a counter to ICE destruction?
She turns off “Parasite, run and Datasucker to death” plays (although not “insta-Parasite” sadly), and if you avoid doubling up ICE types she can waste a cutlery run.
Yes, she only works on one server, but what if that server is R&D versus Medium dig? And yes, Faust can get in and trash her, but for a zero-cost card to trade with a cutlery event, a Parasite, or even an “honest” Faust run to clear her before using the toys, does that have any mileage?
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I have no idea if that works well or not, but I would love to see people’s faces if you do that.
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