Underway Set Review

[Jander]

Muertos only 1? It seems top tier against Blue Sun.

[spags]

@Nordicstrike

There was a Hayley deck in Berkeley ANRPC tournament that pulled off 15 or 16 card mill on turn 7 with DLR and Hyperdrivers, so that card definitely has some combo potential

Yeah, I turned this into a Hayley version, as well.

Hypershitfucker · NetrunnerDB

[higgs_bozo]

Spiderweb is like a Barrier version of Tsurugi.

I guess there’re other reasons why Tsurugi has fallen out of favor (Switchblade, 6-rez), but I feel like the Parasite vulnerability is a big one. So I wouldn’t just be all SHUT UP DOOM BLADE GUY IT’S AWESOME.

There’s “can be killed with Parasite plus several turns’ accumulation of sucker counters” and there’s “can be killed, this turn, by a runner whose rig consists of a single clone chip, unless you have all 3 centrals iced”. Wraparound, Fire Wall, and Changeling are all better includes in decks that want to skimp on central protection in order to make early remote plays (e.g. GRNDL).

The assessment of Street Peddler is spot on, IMO. I think a lot of people have been over-rating it (it’s basically Diesel! - not it isn’t, not unless 2 of those cards were dead draws).

[Andremodt]

Yeah, but if it gets you one agenda before it dies to a parasite it has done its job. If the runner stops, then parasite it you’ve won. Tsurugi is not that great for RP because it plays a long game. A lot of weyland IDs don’t. Weyland usually needs to score agendas to keep their tempo up. So I’m not sure the comparison to tsurugi is fair.

[higgs_bozo]

@Andremodt

Yeah, but if it gets you one agenda before it dies to a parasite it has done its job.

That’s what I’m saying, an S2 ice often won’t get you an Agenda before it dies to a Parasite because of all the tricky 1-turn Parasucker plays Anarch decks can pull off if you leave a central open. I’ve been burned by this a few times in the GRNDL / Anarch matchup.

Strength is really important in gear-check ice because it doesn’t let Anarchs substitute Parasite (of which they typically have 3) for a breaker (of which they typically … don’t). If you’re Glacier and intend to win via tax (and especially if you’re Blue Sun), I can see playing this. But I wouldn’t slot this into e.g. Supermodernism.

[Nobo715]

@Badeesh

I’m not sure Muertos is a 1. I think there is a very competitive forced rez/derez idea around now and someone just needs to crack it (I’m trying my best). Can’t fault the score at time of writing though.

I appreciate the last sentence. There are a ton of things in every pack that could end up being really cool, but I tried my best to think in terms of “if I had to bring this to a tournament tomorrow.” I would love an awesome Crim. derez deck, kind of like Headlock. I remember trying to make Blackguard work for like 2 months…

@Xavi

Also 4 on contract killer seems a little off base, I don’t see it anywhere near Marcus Battys level…

I didn’t say Contract Killer was more powerful than Batty, I said based on my scale it earned a 4.

1. It slots over similar “light” meat damage and/or plascrete removal, including Vulcan Coverup, Posted Bounty, Dedicated Response Team, Taurus, Powergrid Overload, and probably even Traffic Accident out of Weyland. Again, I’m not saying Contract Killer is “more powerful” than any of those cards, I’m saying it’s more generically useful in the archetype.
2. It helps Weyland Scorched in a significant way, and bumping a major archetype (especially one that has been under represented ) influences the whole game.

Batty is going to see more play than Contract Killer, Psi-games are easier to pull off than meat damage right now, and I would Pack1, Pick1 Batty over Contract Killer in a cube draft any day. But Contract Killer still earned a 4 based on my scale.

@erinrockabitch

Basically I’d like to see more of the reviews where you delve a little deeper into a card rather than merely rate it.

Yeah, that was definitely what I was trying to avoid. I hope you didn’t feel like I wasn’t giving anything enough thought. I actually cut a huge amount of writing just because I didn’t want it to get boring. I had also proof read it so many times that I didn’t have any sense of how long or short any of it should be, so hopefully I can work on that going forward. Bad author, decent Netrunner player.

Here is how I got to the statements you mention.

1. Drive By. I actually thought I explained why I didn’t rate this higher pretty well, so let me know if there is a specific area I was unclear about.

2. Geist. The reason why Geist got a blanket statement if because I didn’t want there to be a ton of overlap, like between Shiv and Geist or Forger and Geist. But that was incorrect of me, I should have just written it out twice. Again, I thought people would get bored. I originally wrote like three times as much as I had for Geist, then I cut it down.

3. Forger + Underworld. You’re totally right, I should have gone into it. Forger + Underworld is a promising way to build your Geist deck. Recurring credits on the runner side have been a long time coming, and I think Forger does double duty with Geist’s ability and activating Underworld. This combo is cool because you don’t take a huge tempo hit setting up the recurring, and you are essentially banking a card when you play Forger. Why? Because you when you draw your multiples you can sack the one on the board for a card. You are still always paying one click for a card, but you are essentially banking it in such a way that your second and third slots do work (unlike Desperado) and you are still activating Underworld all the while.

   Does that make Geist great? Well, It still draws comparisons to the modular rig of Desperado, Security Testing, Datasucker, Dirty Laundry, John Masanori, etc. That rig is powerful because it’s made up of pieces that you can stack on as you draw them, and it rewards you for doing something you are going to do anyways: Make runs. Every runner is going to make runs, so if we’re thinking competitively, if you take away discount runs you have to replace it with something of equal or greater power. I don’t think Forger + Underworld is going to make more money than the standard Crim. rig, and I don’t think the two extra cards it will draw you is enough to warrant the switch. Unfortunately, that is a check in the box against Geist (in my book).

4. Clouds. I don’t think that are effective for two reasons. The first is that the idea behind them seems shaky to me. You want lots of them on the board, so they have high strength, but you have to spend them to use them. So which is it? Save them for high strength ice? They start at strength 0, so you are already fighting an uphill battle. I think the effectiveness of an ice breaker is mostly defined by its base strength, and you can’t go lower than 0. So are you using them for cheap, early runs? This also seems contradictory because they are one time use. If you are making cheap, early runs wouldn’t you want to try and make a lot of them?

   Those issues are not really why I think the Clouds are ineffective, because I’m sure you could come up with similar lines of argument for a lot of different ice breakers. The main reason I think they are ineffective is because they don’t correspond well to frequently played ice. I mean that literally; what are you breaking with them? More specifically, what are you breaking with them that something else can’t break more frequently and/or more efficiently. It’s not a loaded question, if there is something I missed I would be happy for the Clouds to be meta relevant. But when they released David we thought Curtain Wall. When they released Lady we thought Eli. What are the Clouds breaking?

[cspieker]

Nice article. I liked the rating scale especially. I think you kept the article at a good length and I’m sure that required cutting a lot. If people want you to expand upon your thoughts, you can respond in this thread. Good usage of the medium!

minor quibble:

@Nobo715

Forger. Why? Because you when you draw your multiples you can sack the one on the board for a card.

This makes some sense but assumes that you will have tags. I don’t think you can use Forger’s trash ability if there’s no tag to prevent/remove. Similar to the ruling in the new FAQ that you can’t spend a credit to break an ICE subroutine if you don’t have any subs to break.

[Nobo715]

@spags

Finished it. Biggest beef, outside of dismissing the B&Es outright, is Spiderweb. I think it’s more of a 3. Solid card for Weyland. It’s Parasite bait? What ICE isn’t nowadays, outside of Architect and Lotus?

This seems to be the most back and forth rating. For what it’s worth, it started as a 3 .

I still think my statement stands. If you want an advantage on Kate then Spiderweb might be a nice way to do it, but you are risking Parasite. I didn’t say Parasite makes it unplayable, I just said there are similar pieces of ice in the same cost and tax range that don’t get Parasite’d quite as easily. However, if the Kate advantage is really that prominent, than maybe it should be a 3. I wouldn’t worry too much about the number.

@DJhedgehog

Thanks for the review! Love to see someone posting, hopefully the discussion strays away from “what I like/don’t like about the article” toward discussion of the cards.

Thanks! I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If a player read my review then came here and saw arguments for the contrary, that player just got twice as much information than they would have if everyone had just agreed. Mission Accomplished .

If you guys want to see a fascinating bit of Netrunner history, I would highly recommend checking out AlexFrog’s Future Proof Set Review. Crypsis and Melange are his example of 5/5’s, while Faerie gets a 2.5, and Indexing gets 3.5. This may look funny now, but I’m sure he was more or less right for the time (He nailed Eli and RDI).

In Netrunner, since there is no rarity and packs are not designed for drafting or “limited formats” it’s entirely possible for every card in the pack to be a 5/5.

I’d be happy if any of my ratings, especially the lower ones, ended up being wrong. They are not supposed to be predictions, they are supposed to be an analysis of the playability of the card as we understand it in our current context.

[Arkhon]

I think the article is exactly right in identifying that Spiderweb is designed to tax dog counters and that other options are superior vs. Corroder. If Kate with Lady is popular in your area then Spiderweb is a good shout because Kate is realistically only packing one Parasite, usually won’t SMC for it and often has no Datasucker backup. In an Anarach-heavy meta though it will clearly get eaten pretty quickly.

[linuxmaier]

@Nobo715

They start at strength 0, so you are already fighting an uphill battle. I think the effectiveness of an ice breaker is mostly defined by its base strength, and you can’t go lower than 0.

This is wrong: they start at 1 strength (they boost themselves). This is actually crucial for their viability since you just need 2 breakers (not both need to be B&E) to get to 2 strength, which is when you start seeing benefits against a wider range of ICE that can be annoying to break with a breaker (saving 3 credits breaking Enigma/Datapike vs Zu is solid) and you can quickly get them up to 4 strength to start hitting taxers like Eli and Lotus.

[Shango]

I’m curious about your Drive-By assessment. It’s true the corp can just rez Caprice/Adonis/etc. before the runner turn starts, but isn’t this a fairly sizable disadvantage? If you play against a Criminal player, would you rez anything that might be hit with Drive-By?

I wonder if people really will play around it. If they do, most Corp decks give up info and tax their credit pools with assets like Eve and Adonis, as well as losing the ability to bluff an agenda. You also risk gaining nothing if the runner finds a way into your remote. That’s not nothing, especially if the runner doesn’t actually have Drive By.

If we live in a world where people don’t play around it, how much better do you think it gets?

[Danwarr]

I don’t think people understand how easy it is to get to Str 4 with these.

[Zebadiah]

On the “Dies to Doom Blade/Parasite” question, let’s just all agree that trashable ice from 0-1 strength are vulnerable to parasite because that practically covers 95% of use cases.

[linuxmaier]

@Zebadiah

On the “Dies to Doom Blade/Parasite” question, let’s just all agree that trashable ice from 0-1 strength are vulnerable to parasite because that practically covers 95% of use cases.

No one has even addressed how all the creature ice in the game (Viper, Caduceus, Draco, Fenris, Komainu, etc) actually dies to Doom Blade, too. Next level tech, there.

[voltorocks]

[quote=“spags, post:11, topic:4477”]
Finished it. Biggest beef, outside of dismissing the B&Es outright, is Spiderweb. I think it’s more of a 3. Solid card for Weyland. It’s Parasite bait? What ICE isn’t nowadays, outside of Architect and Lotus?[/quote]
I agree with this completely. It’s also worth noting that it’s in the blue sun faction, and is thus inherently far more parasite resistant that it would be elsewhere.

[quote=“higgs_bozo, post:23, topic:4477”]
The assessment of Street Peddler is spot on, IMO. I think a lot of people have been over-rating it (it’s basically Diesel! - not it isn’t, not unless 2 of those cards were dead draws).[/quote]
I agree that it’s not the same as diesel, but your point about dead cards is moot unless you are playing a deck that often draws empty. It digs through 3 cards in your deck and earns you a credit for no clicks (assuming you don’t hit triple events, which shouldn’t happen in most of the decks playing this) which doesn’t even bring up the surprise instant install factor.

[kenobob]

Peddler is easily a full step ahead of Diesel in terms of impact. It is a Diesel, an install, a credit discount, and a Personal Workshop all in one card, with only slight drawbacks to each of these abilities. And it has a surprise factor thrown in for good measure. Could have been ranked a 4.5, and then generously rounded up to a 5.

[JTG81]

So far, I’m really liking Muertos Gang member. I built a thematic gang deck and they are definitely useful early game. Then when most stuff is rezzed the trash to draw is nice.

[Gmtiberus]

Test Ground si mean to use with Adonis Campaign and Eve Campaign. Rez then, take all the crédit exempt the last one. Derez then and restart from new.

[Larry_Witte]

Thanks, Noah! Congrats on your Northern California regional win. I wish I read your review before playing a tournament yesterday.

[StingHP]

Thank you for the link. That was an interesting read and a glimpse of what the game was like.

In his last few paragraphs, he mentions wanting an operation to gain money for a horizontal deck. Lo and behold we get that card later in diversified portfolio.