Ugh. After looking at them more, I realize that Cyber Threat lets the Corp pick the Ice, so if there’s anything you can’t break, that’ll be it. Useful if you don’t WANT to be running there, but letting them choose a tiny ETR to stop your run without giving anything away is unfortunate.
I’m hoping Lamprey will be decent, with how big the drawback is. I think it will, at least for Noise, but…
I also feel that Lotus Field hurts Anarch more than Andy. Maybe a three-of, at the very least it’ll draw a Femme token, but once Femme’d, YogSucker keeps rolling. Hopefully it’ll be the edge to at least knock “the Deck” from the slot it currently occupies), but with Femme and Inside Job (and even Feint) available… I don’t think it’ll change as much as I’d like.
Will help the Big Efficient Breaker Andy some, at least.
As a three-of, I think it’s debatable, but I think it’ll be a staple one-of. You never really want to play more than one of them, but scoring one out of hand (for only one in ETF) seems too good to pass up.
It’s got its pros and cons in Noise. Yeah, it does mill a card, and it has effects without needing to build counters - both good! - but against Noise, you’ve probably got other viruses out and I’m probably going to purge more often against Noise than any other runner.
I actually think it might be useful in Gabe. Not a lot of other viruses, so it becomes a “spend your next turn saving your economy while I run rampant” play. With a Desperado or Security Testing, it’s even more ridiculous. All of them together make a 6 credit swing… and since Gabe’s already running Sneakdoor and trying to access HQ anyway…
If you’re not taking collateral when they wipe it, it really might be worth it. I’ll definitely be giving Glamprey a try, I think.
EDIT: @stoppableforce, the other thing it might let Noise do is force more concurrent wipes. You just wiped? I’ll play and use Lamprey. Now either I get to do more of this next turn, or you lose another to wiping. Works best if can be paired with Account Siphon, I imagine.
Side note: How does Priority work with Same Old Thing?
I was just thinking that Mass Install might be fun with Lamprey. Anarch has the potential for ridiculous bursty turns, with 3 or 4 medium/nerve agent runs. If the first click of that is “Mass Install: Nerve Agent, Lamprey, Lamprey”, it gets even more ridiculous.
Obviously that’s a “stars align” sort of thing, but maybe with a deck built around Duggars and tricks to force accesses?
You’re forgetting Deja Vu. If you’ve seen a pair of Lampreys go by already, you can snatch them up for 2credits. I’d also rather undervalued how much more painful multiples are in favour of the idea of having one out to keep a small drain going. But your suggestion, on first click, would RUIN many corps, if you can get in even twice, with Grimoire. See most of their hand and cost them 4credits, and their next turn dealing with it.
Add in Cache, when it comes out, as the best money card around, and Noise’ll be having a grand old time. (Mass Install 3 Caches, take the money between clicks, install a Lamprey, trash the Caches for future Deja Vus, run on HQ.)
Mass Install seems to me to be the way to go with Noise, coming up.
Anarch has knight, which breaks this for 2. So I don’t see this having that negative of an impact on Anarch. Plus, Anarch is the faction that is least dependent on breakers anyway. This is just going to cause Yog/Sucker to be imported less often.
I couldnt disagree more. Lotus field is the best thing to happen to netrunner, and its something we’ve needed desperately for 2 years. It nerfs Yog, Datasucker, and Parasite, which are three problem cards in netrunner.
Anarch didnt play Yog all that much. Criminal played Yog. Its actually criminal that this hurts.
Okay, looks like Lotus Field is not a fake. Indirectly confirmed by Lukas responding to my comment on twitter about how much I hate it. Lotus Field hurts anarchs disproportionately more than other factions. It also nerfs Yog.0, Datasuckers, Parasite, Ice Carver, and Atman (forcing a 4 str Atman).
I felt that Datasuckers were already becoming less prevalent with MU consuming utility programs (Sneakdoor, Magnum Opus, Keyhole, Cloak, Hemorrhage, etc.). I also felt Datasuckers were really fun and interesting to play with and against.
The problem I have with this isn’t how difficult it is for Anarch to handle in absolute terms, but in how it’s a relative nerf to them. Here’s my reasoning.
First, let’s consider the in-faction ways of handling Lotus Field for the runner factions:
Shaper: Cyber-Cypher, Torch, Gordian, Atman at 4, Tinkering, possibly Escher. If you consider even 1 influence point, we get Yog + {Personal Touch, Dinosaurus, Helpful AI or LLDS Processor} and Test Run/Femme. You’ll notice that most of these solutions incorporate things you already play in Shaper decks, so you don’t even have to go out of your way, and Lotus Field is mostly a non-issue for you
Criminal: Femme Fatale, Inside Job, Emergency Shutdown. Passport while on a central. Again, most of these are already in virtually every single criminal deck ever. AndySuckers suffer more than other decks, which is totally fine
Anarch: Force of Nature or Knight. That’s it, those are your only options. One is on par with Peacock, which says a lot, and the other takes a MU, two actions, and only solves that one instance of Lotus Field. If you want to spend 1 influence, Retrieval Run + Femme opens up as a solution (sorta). Anything else will require more influence, with added influence used for consistency/ease of access. So Lotus Field means that if I want to play the fixed strength suite, I have to add at least two Knights, and keep one spare at all times for the inevitable Lotus Field on a scoring remote. Once that happens, I’m most likely letting an agenda slide before I can get to it (because the only way I’m getting in is: Run and bounce, Install Knight, move Knight, Run again. God forbid I need to do some other prep or the Lotus Field is at the base of the server)
From this it really shouldn’t be that hard to see why Anarchs got handed the short end of the stick.
Are you sure about that? Taking the 14 tournament-winning Anarchs in the Double Time period from Stimhack’s archive, 11 played at least one copy of Yog, with several running up to 3 copies. In the H&P period, 2 out of 3 didn’t play any, granted… but that’s such a small sample that your claim seems dubious at best.
I don’t contest the statement that Criminals play a lot of Yog, sure - I’m just being quite skeptical about saying it doesn’t matter for Anarch.
Which is actually why I think it’s a good thing. Perhaps I’m burning too many bones trying to decipher smoke signals here, but I think we’re starting to see a lot of signs that Anarchs are about to get a huge boost. Otherwise, I’d agree they’re being arbitrarily hurt here, but I’d like to give FFG the benefit of the doubt, especially considering Anarch will be in the next deluxe expansion.
It’s a shame it’ll take as long as it has (and possibly a bit longer), but in the grand scheme of things considering how long Magic has been popular, it’ll be well worth the wait.
Let’s not be overly broad in our definition of “problem cards”. If those three are “problem cards”, then anything I’d consider to be “a good runner card” would be a “problem card” :D.
But maybe I’m in the minority in my position that the game doesn’t need to be slowed down any further.
I agree that these need to be toned down, and most of the shaper and criminal decksin my meta will need a new rig because of it. It’ll be pretty interesting to see what the way around will be, but I think this just means Knight goes back to being really good and anarch goes back to praying for knight in their opener rather than just parasiting everything
Yeah, the only hope for anarchs is waiting for the deluxe now. Goodbye yog.0, parasite, datasucker, and ice carver as reliable cards to specialize decks on. Also throwing in atman as a card getting also nerfed by this (as it inflexibly forces a 4 str atman).
Datasucker = fun and interesting to play with and against
Account Siphon = getting boring to play with, always been frustrating to play against
Keep in mind that Yog.0 is supposed to be a bad card. Anarchs are meant to have weak Decoders, not the best ones in the game! Finally we’re seeing cards that will make that the case.
Similarly, Parasite/Datasucker spam is boring. My only objection to Lotus Field is that IMO it should be neutral, like Guard.
