[Updated] I for one welcome our new Whizzard Overlord

I disagree with this sentiment. I’m a pretty keen Ed Kim player and I played Whizzard a bit before O&C. You don’t need to import an awful lot to make an anarch deck function. So if you want to be ‘good stuff anarch’ you can bring Clone Chips and SMC - then you’re a shaper with Anarch breakers or Special Order and Desperado then you’re like a criminal with all the anarch toys.

Whizzard is really upsetting to a lot of Corps. It either makes their assets pretty poor or spreads their ICE really thin. 3 credits a turn is the most money offered by any ID by a really wide margin. It also makes your Imp/Medium/Nerve Agent a lot stronger. There are a lot of really good Anarch IDs that play slightly different decks. I think the anarch cardpool is now strong enough that they’re all starting to shine.

Whizzard could have done with 1 link though.

  • grumble grumble about ID link *
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If you’re going to play Anarch, you can just put 3x Imp in your deck, and you won’t need Whizzard’s ability. If your Whizzard, are you NOT going to put the 3x Imp in? No, of course you’ll put them in. So what do you really need Whizzard’s ability for?

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Deckslots! There is som much utility and good stuff (been like that for a while now) that one simple can’t find room for all the cards one wishes to play. A good example is that many Kate decks have gone over the 45 card limit, same goes for MaxX (allthough the case is a whole discussion in of itself). Many popular Valencia decks, even with the 50 card minumum, don’t have room to slot Imps.

I have been working on a Whizzard deck and trying to make it work, it has been pretty good in random OCTGN games (allthough random games on OCTGN rarely say much, has been my experience). I agree with @MasterAir that Whizzard would have needed that link, it would have made a whole lot of difference for me, as I am chosing between Whizzard and Val for Regionals.

The problem, like everyone else said, is that the other anarchs tend to do things they do better. Val’s BP is like 1 of Whizzards recurring credits, if you only make one trashing run per turn. If you trash during multiple runs, it comes closer and in extreme cases becomes better, add Desperado to Val and you have a better effect than Whizzard does for trashing more than once per turn. Not to mention the BP does work before the run is even successful and the Desperad helps even when there is nothing to trash (though Desperado is not a good argument as Whizzard can play it just as easily as Val, though my Whizzard deck does not Desperado while my Val does.)

I might go Whizzard in Regionals for one good reason though, opponents will be confounded to figure out what my deck actually is going for. Is it Anatomy style? Is it Regass/good stuff? Is it big-dig combo (?). Is it jank? OH it must be jank, who plays Whizzard, good I can relax, I let my gurad down, oh look what is happening over at that table…what, how did Whizzard get all my agendas into his score area???

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whizzard is tier 1. if people around u dont play it, your meta is not competitive enough.

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Imp is better in Whizzard than it is anywhere else because you get to use it for what it’s really good for: trashing things like Scorched/Biotic/Midseasons/ICE. I can’t find space for 3 imps in any of my lists, sad but true.

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I’ve run Whizzard and liked him a lot, the awkwardness now is largely that the deck I find best (Desperado + Sec Testing for economy, efficient breakers and more draw than tutoring) is better in Val.

His ability is often useful against any high-level deck (BS often runs at least Adonis, bootcamp, jackson, crisium, ash, etc, EtF runs the 'bots and Ash and now sometimes Brain Taping and other things, RP and NEH both run a fair few assets/upgrades you can trash and to some extent count on you hurting your own economy to keep them down), but there are more generally-good options still due to the huge draw gains in MaxX or the smaller-but-more-enabling-and-easier-to-use BP of Val’s, etc.

Same as why you should run Imp in Kim, the ability lets you squeeze more from your Imps on multiaccess.

Also, because Imping an Ash before running in again is much less useful/likely than just trashing it for free.

Has anyone tried Gravedigger? Is it worth it?

I use one Gravedigger in mill Noise with Grimoire. It gets two mills in two clicks if Grimoire is out. After that, if you happen to Parasite or trash a card on the table, you can get one more mill. Otherwise you can Aesop’s it. I can’t imagine it being that useful in another kind of deck, though.

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whizzard is never a ‘blank’ ID. He has, in essence, a static ability that manifests before a game is even played. The whole point of Whizzard is that you save card-slots otherwise dedicated to pressuring remotes.

Whether or not that is considered valuable I supposed depends on how many cards an individual dedicates toward this purpose.

Sometimes I think there is a bias towards him because he came out ( I think, as it was before i could get out the house to tourney) when supermodernism ( or at least burst econ scorched decks) was rampant. So yeah, whizzard would suck a great deal if that’s all over the place. The game is pretty diverse now.

For me personally I tend to agree with those in that he rises and falls with what corps are popular. I feel like I just disagree with how far those distances are.

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I would argue it’s not bad pub removal that is the anti-val tech but Executive Boot Camp which is a generally useful card that sees a fair amount of play. She still has her re-occurring credit for runs for sure, but the blackmails become much less useful cards.

In Whizzard it’s more easy to stack the counter. We playtested it locally, and it seemed fine.

I disagree - Kim’s ability has major consequences even against a ops light opponent like RP. A bit to chaotic for the taste of some, for sure, but ditching stuff out of R&D has a significant impact.

I agree with the sentiment about Whiz and Kim clashing with Imp. It’s one of the best Anarch cards. Sure, you can get value out of Whizzard in almost every game and still make decent use of Imp, but it’s certainly worse than it is in other Anarch IDs.

Your lack of consistency is going to bite you in the ass. Reina can be consistent by forcing your opponents to be too poor to rez ICE regardless of whether you can break it all, Noise destroys ICE and forces you to worry about another server and still suffers from early consistency issues, Val can Blackmail into servers early, and Maxx obviously solves the consistency issue full stop.

I don’t think Whiz is bad, but I don’t think he’s the best choice.

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In the few games I 've had with Whizzard, what I loved the most about him was apart from the slots that he saves you, you can threaten assets from turn 1. You dont have to build an economy or wait to draw an imp or something similar.

It seems to me that you should build a deck around that, maintaining that pressure throughout the game. Personally I dont mind if he is tier 1 or tier 2, it just feels wrong that there doesn’t seem to be a way to make something out of his ID.

You can certainly build a tier 2 or 1.5 whizzard deck. Just be prepared for people lightly protecting their assets with a popup or something to undo your ID ability and rushing out agendas behind mediocre ice that you probably can’t get to consistently without splashing special order or something.

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IDs like Ed, Whizzard, Gabe, Silhouette make accesses slightly better. Almost all the other IDs make accesses slightly easier to come by. I don’t think this small group of IDs is inherently worse, I just think the decks you have to build for them are sufficiently different that just making the same deck you would for a ‘faster’ ID that many players feel they are worse and stop experimenting with them.

Often, using Whizzard’s ability on central accesses is better than going after protected remotes - you get more accesses using your improved accesses. The corp lightly icing their asset econ, that they would have otherwise happily leave undefended is a positive effect on the game. It isn’t blanking your ability. There is only so much ice to go around. You’re an Anarch, there should be less ice than usual.

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Seems fine to me.

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I like it: reg-ass Anarch. Should cut something for 3x Inject I think though. Got to make up for not being MaxX somehow. Maybe the second Kati or the 3rd Sucker and the 2 Visages.

Also, how often and in what situations did he install Atman? Seems unnecessary with Netready and D4v1ds for dayz.

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AYFKM? F Inject. You have 6 cards that draw 27 cards, AND Visage.

Wooley built the deck. He had 2 Atman, which allows for early aggro. I preferred NRE, which works with Atman, too. Against, RP, I usually set her at 5 or 6. Sorry, Crick/Booth/Susan/Turing/Heimdall. (saw all out of RP)

Honestly, “reg ass” (hate that fucking name) is solid in Anarch, period. This makes up for MaxX’s ability with tons of draw cards, inherently wrex many Corps, is waaaay more Chronos/Blacklist resilient, and he’s a goddamn gamer!

Hail the return of the nerd!

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World Champ didn’t consult with his marketing team before naming the deck. I mounted a meager rebranding campaign but it fell flat. Grannies of the world will remain offended.

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I agree with most of the community that the name “reg-ass” is deeply unfortunate, but mildly infectious.

Inject is a happy-dance card early. It gets your breakers in the heap and Clone Chips/ econ in your hand. Too good not to play, especially with 3 Clone Chips.

As for your Atman examples, the only Ice not worth D4v1ding is Heimdall, which I’d rather Corrode or click through than install Atman. Crazy RP decks you played against, just can’t think they’re the norm.

Here’s a list I play. Has Legwork.

Whizzard Netready Career

Whizzard: Master Gamer (What Lies Ahead)

Event (14)
3x Career Fair (Breaker Bay) •••
1x Déjà Vu (Core Set)
3x I’ve Had Worse (Order and Chaos)
3x Inject (Up and Over)
1x Legwork (Honor and Profit) ••
3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)

Hardware (7)
3x Clone Chip (Creation and Control)••••• •
2x Grimoire (Core Set)
2x Net-Ready Eyes (Chrome City)••••

Resource (10)
3x Daily Casts (Creation and Control)
3x Earthrise Hotel (The Source)
1x Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow)
3x Liberated Account (Trace Amount)

Icebreaker (6)
2x Corroder (Core Set)
2x Mimic (Core Set)
2x Yog.0 (Core Set)

Program (8)
2x D4v1d (The Spaces Between)
2x Datasucker (Core Set)
2x Medium (Core Set)
2x Parasite (Core Set)
15 influence spent (max 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to Chrome City

Deck built on NetrunnerDB.

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