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[Updated] I for one welcome our new Whizzard Overlord

Netrunner General
#1

I see a lot of nice anarch decks since order and chaos came out but still not that much whizzard.

I dont know what im missing, with the number of assets being played it seems he would do nice on paper.

I ve been trying some of the popular Reina decks I ve seen here and really love them, I couldnt help but think that they would be interesting if whizzard was the ID and some small tweaks were made.

Is he really worse when you actually play him or is he just a bit underrated?

Update: Since the making of this thread it seems that Whizzard has been busy making a name for himself again because reasons, so I now declare him cool again.

#2

He’s just… blank against some IDs (especially Blue Sun or other Weyland IDs) that don’t really play trashable cards.

#3

The main point really is that the ID isn’t as good as Val/MaxX/Reina in faction (MaxX especially) and there aren’t really any matchups he excels in enough to justify his overall lower winrate. As a matter of fact, I can’t really think of any deck I’d rather have Whizzard against over Kate, MaxX, Val, Headlock Reina, Leela, or some Andy deck, and all of those decks have a better winrate overall.

He compares very badly against Valencia in particular, who has an ability that helps trashing assets as well as having access to Blackmail and having use outside of just trashing things.

In the Headlock Reina decks, the Reina ID prevents ICE from being rezzed instead of solely being a tax or whatever, and that’s what makes those decks really powerful. You could swap the ID to Whizzard and change some cards, but it’d be worse. The deck needs the extra one-credit limit to enable the headlock.

#4

I think it’s time Whizzard just started being played to tech against specific decks, ones that are known to play assets heavily, cause he’s great against those decks. A good Whizz deck can be made, you just have to know the field a crazy lot, and accept that he’ll be dead in certain matchups. Just try to achieve neutrality in those matchups, rather than losing them most of the time. Like, make sure you pack a d4v1d against blue sun, maybe plascrete. Just being aware of the current field is what makes Whizzard good in some cases. You don’t NEED a universally crazy ability to win neteunner, it just helps make a cohesive theme.

tl;dr whizzard doesn’t have to be better than anyone, he does his own thing

#5

Having a dead ID ability is more or less a deal-breaker for me; none of the other Anarchs except Kim have an near-dead ability. Valencia with a Scrubber becomes a slightly better Whizzard due to the bad publicity, and even other IDs can get away with playing it and still have a relevant ability.

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#6

True, Valencia kind of overpowered the Whizzard. Maybe wizard with some sort of bp giving theme would be good. But not as good as Val…

#7

I have a soft spot for Whizzard because I love passive econ and sometimes his ability is worth 15 credits a game. With that being said, I take my Whizzard deck and switch it to Val with some Blackmails and Same Olds, and it’s much scarier.

The reason is tutoring, which is second only to econ in importance to runner decks. Top tier Crims and Shapers can tutor effectively.

As for Anarchs, MaxX’s ability allows her to tutor from the heap and go fast enough it’s not an issue. Val can Blackmail until she finds her pieces, and Noise and Reina can be disruptive enough that they don’t have to break ice as often as other builds.

Whizzard (and E.Kim) got nothing but splashed tutors and Anarch econ. That’s just not fast enough to be reliable. Thing is, if Lotus Field didn’t exist, I think it would be. 3x SMC and 3x Clone Chip would allow for a full blown Stimhack/Inject reg breakers build.

#8

So net ready eyes is going to change this you think?

#9

Whizzard and kim really don’t play well with the anarch card pool. They’d be fantastic in shaper, where getting in is not much of a concern and a lot of the issues come from having quick functioning money/doing important things when you get in, but anarch wants to strain the corp, and they both only really do that against very specific corps (IG/Asset spam neh for whiz, weyland scorch for kim). If anarch can get in, you’re pretty fucked regardless of the id, so I’d rather have noise mills (threaten archives), reina’s denial or max’s consistency. Quetzal would be good if her ability were always relevant, but it often isn’t, and e3 is a bad card, not sold on val yet.

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#10

You’re seriously asking why the hardcore gamer isn’t popular?

What, were you homeschooled or something?

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#11

This is my current primary problem with the state of Anarch - Yog is great, I’m okay with warping my deck to deal with Lotus Field, I’m not okay with having to.

NRE looks powerful, but I’m on sure if it fixes the real issue.

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#12

Honestly, the biggest issue with Whizzard isn’t that he’s bad. His ability is great, and while blank against some match-ups, you can tech against those to compensate for it.

The biggest issue is that other Anarchs have better stuff available. Valencia is more generalized and not limited to 3 a turn, and can be used for anything on a run, which is huge. Not to mention Blackmail. Noise disrupts every corp, every game. Like @mediohxcore mentioned in his RA MaxX article, MaxX “deliver[s] an economic boost that surpasses any runner that has been printed to date”.

So it’s less that “Whizzard is bad!” (like, say, the Prof), but more like “Why not use Val/MaxX/Noise?”

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#13

If Corps start using bad pub removal and tormod’s crypt then whiz might become better than val or maxx

#14

Certainly possible. I don’t know Tormod’s Crypt, though BP removal, for the most part, is a bit too niche to have been included in most Corp decks. It is mostly useless in all other match-ups, after all.

#15

It’s either blacklist or chronos project, in magic tormods crypt keeps recursion to a minimum like the aforementioned netrunner cards

#16

Ah, OK. Many thanks! :smile:

I suspect he meant Blacklist. Most agenda suites are already mostly decided in the major decks.

#17

I always want to play chronos project in every deck as a one of. This doesn’t often happen, but when it does, it’s just the best.

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#18

@PeekaySK get him!

1 Like
#19

@PeekaySK Not in the face, not in the face!

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#20

Just wanted to chime in here:
the short answer is that MaxX is anarch’s Andy: her ability is flatly powerful and in almost every case outstrips any other in-faction ID. On top of that whizzard is competing with strong second-bests in Valencia and Reina (not counting noise here, as obviously he is the 4th runner faction).

That said, as a long time (mostly before O&C) whizzard player, the old gripe “he is a blank ID vs…” is a pretty tired argument that I’ve never found holds up. whizzard is pretty much guaranteed to do work against the top 3 corp factions, and even against Weyland you have EBCs, adonis, ash, and crisium grid all over the place.

So, yeah. MaxX is flat better. Val is better in probably 70-90% of situations (though the 5-card difference does matter). Reina is better in the headlock niche where she lives. All that said, if you know your crew is packing those HBFA or NEH decks with mountains of assets and upgrade, go for it, whizzard’ll pull his weight.

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