We all know Netrunner’s power level is relatively flat thus far - a lot of the all stars of the tournament meta are still from the Core Set. Core-only decks are obviously weaker than all-cards-ever decks and I think a lot of that is due to influence limits - Core may have a lot of good cards but a lot of them are faction-restricted - for example needing to splash Beanstalk in TWIY-biotics if you don’t have Sweeps Week and so on, needing Anarch influence to recur things in the absence of Same Old Thing, and the list goes on.
So as a fun thought experiment, what if you could use, say, 20 or 22 influence instead of 15 in exchange for only using Core Set cards in your deck. Do you think you could be competitive with that?
Gabe core only deck with 15 influense is tottally competitive till now imho. All other faction miss a lot. Not enough virus for noise to flood archives over jackson, not enough draw/tutor for fast rig setup in shapers.
Every corp is weaker due to PR and PSF. You cannot build 20 ap deck without neutral agenda in core. Weyland is most close one to competitive level, still needs restructures, howards and caduceus.
Second pick is Noise, with 20 influence you may at least spam the most overpowered cards, namely Account Siphon and Parasite. Knight will be missed to land those Siphons, but maybe Special Order would find the needed breaker.
Your agendas make up a big part of your deck. Being able to score agendas and put pressure on your opponents is what makes people run against you, turning on your sea source.
You don’t have access to NAPD contract , Future Perfect, Project Atlas, other key cards. Your agendas are extremely weak when scored, (PSF), and you don’t have any options when deck building.
In HB you have no choice other than to run 21 agenda points(3 PSF, 3 PR, 3 ABT)
Yeah Corporation would suck…
At least on runner side you get desperado, anarch suite, parasites, and r&d and HQ pressure with gabe. it’s not the best deck ever but it would be playable.