It’s not my deck, so Calimsha could probably sum up things better, but I’ll give my 2 cents after playing a few games with the deck today.
So far I think I like Wormhole. With Grim and Archer in the deck, I’ve found it usually becomes another program trasher, but one that reads “code gate, bitch.” With a strength of 7, it is a very real threat.
As for advancing it, for me it’s depended on my situation at the time. If I’m super good on cash, then paying 9 to trash a key breaker or stop a key run is fine with me. Plus if you are advancing it, it can telegraph what it could be, which allows the runner to play around it better. There are other times when I have advanced it because I knew I needed to be able to rez it this turn, and this was my only way of doing so. This has the fringe benefit of allowing you to advance an Ice Wall to bluff another Wormhole in a situation where the runner could simply break it, although, as you said, it can be a tempo hit to do so. I haven’t had to do it yet, but I suppose the possibility exists out there somewhere.
While double ToL is better than double SanSan, if you have a active SanSan several turns you win the game (it’s a must trash instantly for the runner).
My decklist is focused on scoring the first Atlas that starts the train and for that a SanSan behind a Hive during the first turns of the game is very good.
If I decide to take Titan to a Store Championship I will likely tighten up the decklist even more since there are some questionable card choices in my list. For me what’s held me back from the deck is that it’s unreliable that you get a early Atlas and the deck doesn’t really work if you don’t get one early.
I got a prototype list I will be trying out in the next few days for a Titan Pure Glacier. I am just making use of the influence for good things, and I plan to just glacier up and either score safely behind Ash and OTG… or use the 1 pointers and GRNDL to bait runs. Seems like a more stable version of a old HB style deck I did… so I am excited to try it out.
That’s one of the Intern’s role : ToL is better sooner than Sansan in my deck, that’s why I made it like this
As you said, it’s a must trash. I’d rather have a must trash middle game than behind a Hive (aka 13cr to score with a minimal sense of security).
That way, I can FA something quick to start my train, keeping the creds to defends the centrals and slowly building a scoring remote for end game.
For me Titan + Sansan build is strictly inferior to NBN’s fast advance and thus not worth experimenting with. Seems cool at first, but then when you look at the assembled list you spot all those weaknesses that NEH (or even Making News) doesn’t have.
Quantity over Quality debates always makes me smile.
The runner vs NEH must choose quantity, the runner vs Titan must choose quality.
Could you tutor a Sansan in NEH ?
Could you trash a program OR/AND make the runner caring about meat damage ?
Could you score from R&D something around 3 points per game in NEH ?
Do you have to be experimented to win a game with your deck ?
I think “strictly inferior” is not the classification I would use.
While I agree that what you mentioned are weaknesses it could be argued that Titan has the following strengths:
Stronger taxing ICE earlygame (Mostly Hive but also cards like Wormhole and Archer could be included here)
Many surprise options in faction (with higher impact-value) that the runner needs to take into account
Less influence needed for flatline option
A stronger 2/1 agenda
Faster continuation of the agenda-train once you score the first Atlas
Easier to score the first agenda without fast-advance
These might not make the deck stronger than NEH (at least I decided to run another ID when I participated in a Store Championship), but it’s still worth playtesting.
Similar build out of NEH leaves 11 influence after splashing 2xToL. With that you can do taxing ICE also if you really want, still leveraging the upsides I’ve mentioned above.
Don’t see it as a game changer. You mean Scorched? Runners need to take this into account against NEH also.
True, but after splashing all of your FA how is that much different from NEH splashing Scorched?
Although early BP sucks, I agree here.
Agreed, but this can’t be better then an Astro token! (regardless of the build)
Same as in the first bullet, with 11 inf to spare you can do it anyway.
So I feel while there are some trade offs, none of them justify not running Astro in a similar build, I think.
A 3/2 Atlas with a token is bonkers. Though I agree probably not better than an actual Astro token if FA is your primary plan. I think Titan FA will have a stronger backup plan once clot comes out to piss in NEH’s chips. Having only 3 3/2 agendas hurts much more than the Atlas token being not quite as good as an Astro token for the fast advance plan (It’s pretty close to as good and much more flexible though).
I’m still eager to see just how bad clot is for FA (and what the actual text on the card says).
Most of these points are about influence and while NEH can go most of these routes you often telegraph your decklist quite early. Against Titan (Weyland) it takes longer to discount singletons since the dangerous cards don’t take much influence and they can include few copies and access them with great precision using Atlas tokens.
Also I consider a Atlas-token stronger than a Astro-token since it can find fast-advance if you have a agenda or a agenda if you got fast-advance while threatening flatline combos.
I agree but Astro tokens are strong just because of NBN’s pool : Astro and Beal being both 3/2.
Beal would be the actual problem of NBN’s balance to me, not Astro.
When it works, it works like crazy. It makes remotes that are just ridiculous. It makes centrals that are too. And Ash/OTG makes it so much worse.
You never run out of money. Never. Unless you get abused… which was the issue. The good testing games I had were vs a controlling MaxX deck with Siphons and Eater. I fell behind early and she snagged 5-6 points right off the bat off early Keyhole. Getting a early Crisium helps. Gettings more ice than Agendas helps too. The games I played just dealt me some weird hands.
But I always felt like “Give me 1 turn, and I can lock this up and recover”
I never got that turn. Its a little rough to play from behind with the 3 pointers going so early. So outside that variance though… whats the deal?
Well, you have a lot of good ice. Almost all of it is taxing. Almost all of it can ETR. You make a lot of money… you have a lot of potential Mark Yale bucks, which is glorious in that deck. Once you get bunkered in and plan for the OTG or Ash play… its back breaking into your economy to stop it as the runner. Outside of David recursion… and Knight to a lesser extent.
I think I need to tweak it to endure the brutal Anarch of today… but it did great vs a Gabe Knight deck… and it looks sharp vs a Shaper deck since you have GRNDL and 1 pointers to bait the runner into taxing runs.
I will work on this more. Seems like a fun twist on glacier.
That is my experience with most non-RP glacier decks I play. I find myself losing too much early on (and it doens’t matter how much @Nordrunner says “trust your R&D” it feels like I always see four agendas in my first 10-15 cards) to catch up when there’s no hard lock like a Nisei token availible to see the game out.
