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Uses for NeoTokyo Grid

Netrunner General
#1

I really want to like this card, but the fact it doesn’t work with ICE is really annoying. However, lately I have been thinking of incorporating it in my RP deck. My logic is this: Usually RP decks (as well as mine) play 4 economy cards: Sundew, Mental Health Climic, Celebrity Gift and Hedge Fund. After lots of plays I’ve found Celebrity Gift isn’t that great in the deck (just my experience) so I thought of replacing it with PAD Campaign, which isn’t conditional like Gift and also synergizes better with RP. But then it hit me: why play PAD when I can play NeoYokyo Grid? sounds crazy, right? well think about it: it’s 1 more to trash and it guarantees 2 credits for every agenda you score (as you never score agendas in less than 2 turns). Sure, overall it’s less money than PAD, and it doesn’t stack, but the higher trash cost has to count for something, right? right?

I think it can also work nicely in a Tennin deck, but I haven’t played one of those in a while. Anyway what are your thoughts? am I crazy? should I just run PAD instead? should I stick to Celebrity Gift?

#2

I… think that if you want economy out of a standard JRP deck that wants to score 3 agendas you’re really going to want to play something else here. PAD / Mental Health Clinic is certainly going to pay you more. #bearerOfBadNews #sorry

Tennin is an interesting idea, but tennin + remotes seems really tricky right now.

1 Like
#3

never even noticed the use of “in” here. just had to assume it was at least 1% playable. i was wrong, #GARBO

2 Likes
#4

I think you can come up with a few cases how this card would make a barely reasonable return-on-investment–but–I think there is a better card for any such case.

It’s one saving grace would seem to be that it’s an upgrade, but since it has to be in a remote, under something being advanced, AND only once per turn, I just don’t see it.

I guess maybe in a BWBI deck that uses GRNDL recursion as its only income might take it.

#5

I saw it used marginally well in a weird Tennin deck that sat something on top of it and kept advancing it, using that and Gila Hands as its main Econ engine. I was too afraid to run it as it had a stupid amount of advancements on it, he hadn’t popped/scored it, and there was a decently taxing server in front of it. I did finally end up running it and it turned out to be Thomas Haas so he made more money and taxed my money in doing so. I still wouldn’t call it a good card or even a mediocre card though.

2 Likes
#6

Think about it like this.

If you’re putting the card in your deck, it costs a deck slot. It’s hard to put numbers to how much consistency of deck slots is worth in terms of credits, but let’s call it worth the 1 click it takes to draw it (= 1 credit; clicks are worth slightly more but I’m lowballing). Then to install it costs another click (credit), and 2 cred to rez. That’s 4 credits just to get this thing online.

To make that 4 cred back and just break even, compared to clicking for credits 1-for-1, you gotta have this thing online to score 2 agendas (out of 3 total that you need to win).

If you get this thing early enough that you can get maximum value out of all your agendas, you can potentially get 2 extra credits compared to clicking for cred – the same rate as hedge fund. Except it takes forever to make the money. So… are you gonna play 3 copies to make sure you can get the first one early enough to be equivalent to a really slow hedge fund, accepting that duplicate draws of it are blank? Or are you gonna play 1, and have a bad hedge fund in half your games and a totally blank card in the other half?

Just play interns with the card slot you’d spend on this and bring back your sundews.

Also, beside my point, but celebrity gift is the best burst econ operation in the game, and RP is the best equipped corp to not care about the reveal downside. I’d cut a hedge from RP before I cut a giraffe.

6 Likes
#7

Port Anson Grid is better than this card.

When did Tokyo become such a crappy grid. Poor guys.

4 Likes
#8

NeoTokyo Grid is an absolutely embarrassingly bad card that has zero competitive applications; the end.

2 Likes
#9

I’m going to be laughing when someone combos this card in a cycle and its suddenly the strongest economy card.

2 Likes
#10

hey, it gives 2 creds to grndl refinery !
And it combo nicely with Simone Diego !

18 creds out of a 4 advancement grndl refinery !

2 Likes
#11

Cards which synergise with NeoTokyo Grid:
Advanceable ambushes
Reversed Accounts
GRNDL Refinery
Ronin
Toshiyuki Sakai
Haas Arcology AI
Thomas Haas
Agendas (special shout-out to Government Takeover where you should gain at least 3 credits from NeoTokyo)

Cards that sort of synergise with NeoTokyo Grid: Matrix Analyzer
Shipment from SanSan
Shipment from Kaguya
Simone Diego
Tennin ID ability
Trick of Light

Not a very stellar list of complementary cards. I’m guessing for now it’s best for advancing an advanceable ambush slowly as a Trick of Light token bank.

Or if you want to go janky, combine with Simone Diego to advance Government Takeover credit-free!

#12

I always thought its use was to be used as a battery in Tennin. As in they don’t make a successful run, you advance Neotokyo and gain 1c. You could put Neotokyo on a Central, or in your one remote. That and very slowly advancing things.

#13

I’d think it’s probably better to advance something advanceable that you’d want advanced, rather than the Neotokyo. Since advancing costs a click and a credit, and it’s something you’d want to advance anyhow, you still gain a credit (since you never have to spend one), and also don’t have to click for the advancement.

Technically, it might not really save you a click, since sometimes you’re just advancing something you might not otherwise spend time advancing in order to get a token that you’re just planning on swapping to something else with a Trick of Light (such as an Ice Wall), but it’s still going to be a free credit, since the idea is that the advancement token will be used in some fashion, whether through Trick of Light or just to tax the runner through ice strength.

Either way, though, as a worst case scenario, you’re still gaining a dollar by advancing something useful, so it’s better to play something like that than Neotokyo, which literally does nothing but accumulates counters and spit a coin out.

#14

The part that really kills NeoTokyo is “The first time…”. If it fired with every advancement, it would be at least be interesting in an ambush-heavy PE.

3 Likes
#15

Don’t you think that would be too insane though? It means you could score out agendas with just 1 credit. Or make Psychographics pseudo-free.

#16

shipment from sansan is not overpowered.

agree with every advancement. feels like just another case of an interesting card concept thwarted by the random “should this card be insane or nerfed into the ground” playtesting spinner. the rez/trash would be great if the effect were anything I’d be willing to put in my deck instead of clicking for credits.

3 Likes
#17

Not at all. It’s still costing you 2 credits, card slots and the “region” slot in your scoring server. The Psycho play requires copious amounts of influence and a decently-sized bank to begin with.

But still: if you were a designer and worried about the things you mention, you could still make it a good card for the Ambush archetype without making it as completely fucking useless as it is now. Observe:

Whenever an advancement token is a placed on a card in this server, you may gain 1 credit. If you do, you cannot score or rez that card until your next turn begins.

Limit 1 region per server.

Was that so hard?

1 Like
#18

Forget about every advancement, I’d be perfectly happy with the card if it read “The first time an advancement token is a placed on a card in or protecting this server each turn, gain 1c.” Not only would it be great in Jinteki decks using advanceable ICE and ToL, I’d actually splash it in BWBI.

4 Likes
#19

while i would never say neo tokyo is a great card i did find it really annoying playing against a slow advance PE deck. the server was semi taxing and when i finally worked myself all the way to end the last thing i want to do was pay 5 credits to trash it so the guy kept slow advancing stuff on it lol.

i do want to try it out in IG with space camps as a 1-of but its pretty far down the list of things i want to test right now.

1 Like
#20

While I do agree with this, keep in mind we had similar thoughts about Data Dealer some time ago.

And that one actually got some gameplay at high level events once some cards got released that make it happen.

Soooo… Maybe at some point? :smile:

Can we make a card that would actually break NeoTokyo grid? Or at least make it playable?