Even if you’re getting them to rez ICE and then trashing it with cutlery, are you saying that the corp is not re-installing ICE back on that server?
Put another way, when you make a run on the remote (or RnD or wherever), do you ever make non-cutlery runs against servers that have derezzed ICE? If you do, it’s to your benefit to use blackmail. In the case that you plan to come back in and use cutlery later, it’s even more in your benefit to use blackmail now, since you’ll only have to break that ICE one time instead of twice.
Basically, if you’re ever making non-cutlery runs (and you should be, I think), then Blackmail is a great card and will save you credits/cards from your hand and allow you to use them later.
Some people build Val with Blackmail as the most important card; I don’t think it’s that great. However, I can’t imagine a good Val build that isn’t better with Blackmail in it. As I say, if you’re not sure what to cut just cut your least important economy cards (though there’s probably even worse cards lying around that you could cut); you’ll make the savings up on the run.
This is misleading, I think. Blackmail isn’t only useful when there’s no rezzed ICE on the server; it’s useful when there’s any unrezzed ICE on the server. Let’s say you attack the remote early without blackmail in order to clear out an econ asset or a Caprice or whatever. They get to rez an Eli over it and yes, that Eli is safe from being blocked out via blackmail. However, when they go to drop a Tollbooth on that server, you’d very happily play Blackmail on that server and break Eli the normal way, no? Blackmail isn’t only a sniping tool; it’s a cost reduction tool
That’s fair, I think, but I mean that the server is no longer Blackmail to get in, it’s now Blackmail + whatever ICE you rezzed, which is huge.
I ran False Echo Val for a while (DDoS/Blackmail + False Echo is hilarious) and I tended to avoid running unless absolutely necessary because any rezzed ICE made the entire point of the deck pretty unhappy.
That’s certainly one way of playing Blackmail, but @Jamesgrety looks like they’re going for an icebreakers approach to Val which has breakers as a prerequisite anyway. Further, I think Val is better with easier access to breakers to supplement the Blackmail threat, rather than doubling down on trying to keep ICE facedown so that Blackmail can suppress them. There is a limit to the amount of Blackmail you can throw around and, as @Jamesgrety notes, Caprice and Ash will stuff the first blackmail anyway so you’ll need some breakers ultimately.
What I’m trying to argue is that Val + Breakers doesn’t rely on Blackmail to get in, but greatly benefits from actually having blackmail and not just threatening it by being Val. The aforementioned horror story of Ash + Caprice + remote is much scarier if you’re looking at breaking that remote twice the hard way. It’s almost half as cheap if you can use Blackmail on your first run into it (unless you’ve run it before, but then you’re still saving the money/cards it would cost to break any unrezzed ICE on the server during the first run). Even if you don’t use it in that case, you can still profitably use Blackmail to keep mid to late game taxers derezzed and ineffective on runs through secondary economy servers, RnD or HQ.
Why would you not have room for 3 copies of 1 cost, zero influence super inside jobs?
When I played Val this past regional season, a common use was just let people be hesitant and play around them, just actually just horde them in hand for a medium dig turn and play 2-3 copies on R&D all at once after they commit extra ice there. If you find Blackmail to be sub-par card, start using it differently, it’s excellent.
Well, the more i play blackmail with Valencia ( so 99% of the time) the less I find that it wins me games. And I dont’ know, but using 3 copies on a medium run Rd doesnt’ seem to me the best use of the card. It’s good on rnd when you need to sneak out a cyberdex…besides that, to answer your question. Why I dont; have room for 3 copies? Because It’s not as sinergetic to my deck’s strategy as other cards are. I do not think that Blackmail is bad or anything, just not that important for my deck. To my surprise, when I decided to cut it down I didnt’ feel like my deck was weakened by its exclusion. As I said to Linux, probably a combination of blackmail and cutlery is the best but again, I do not know what to cut.
Blackmail isn’t there to win games. It is a card that certainly can hand you a win if the corp isn’t careful though. And that is where the non-econ value of blackmail lies. You fundementally alter how your opponent plays. They have to respect that ability.
Furthermore your deck is 50 minimum cards. If you can’t build a 45 card anarch deck and add 3 blackmail + 2 tech slots, there may be something inherently wrong with the deck. End of the day its fine if iy isn’t in the deck. I just think it’s wasted potential when playing val.
I think I know why he is running val even without blackmail. Desperado isn’t near as good in other anarchs as it is in val and his theme is to run run run.
Bad pub is what makes Val who she is. 40% of that use is the credit each run, the other 60% is blackmail. I refuse to play a 50 card deck without perks.
I think there are 2 ways to play blackmail really. One way is the all-in, where you are planning on hardly ever letting the corp rez ice on the remote, so you have Same Old and Deja to keep playing it. The other way is to use it is kind of like a Super Inside Job. @d1en’s deck from Worlds is in the latter camp, where the threat of it is often better than actually using it. Worth noting that somehow he managed to find room for 1x Memstrips to build a gigantic rig but not Blackmail #3.
The Foodcoats matchup felt to me like it’s in Val’s favour with that particular decklist, assuming she wins at least some of the psi games and doesn’t faceplant into Ichi+CVS without being able to click it. The late game Anarch rig is pretty scary for the corp to deal with and being able to break Turing with Yog + Suckers as well as D4v1d + Clone Chips seems good. It’s possible that I just haven’t found the best corp lines against the deck yet though.
NBN Astrobiotics seems like a tougher matchup just because it takes a while to get set up, hence the inclusion of Clot and Turntable to shore up that side of things and hopefully win in the late game.
I’d rather have test run than SMC in this build. Far better for the deck; the mu isn’t there for smc all of the time, and voicepad works better, but having drawn through the entire deck in a game, I’d rather have the levy at this point
So, what are your thoughts on reg Val post NAPD Most Wanted? It seems to me that Desperado Val is pretty unplayable, while the version with Grimoire or Turntable + Memstrips remains pretty strong ( just swap 2 clone chips for 2 deja, or just 1 clone chip and cut the yog and the parasites for some cutlery)
This is what I came up with. I had to remove a clone chip and a Self-modifying code (which means that Clot became a lot worse, might need to do something about it, and might also need to drop a plascrete for something else) and added a Daily Casts and a Faust (because you’re not going to see your breakers as often any more).This is what I came up with, editing Dien’s Val.
The choice between the second clone chip and the second smc is the toughest one. Personally I prefer the second SMC as I can play deja for recursion, but I see how you can cut to only 1 SMC and play Faust
I’ve been working on a Valencia list that essentially never lets the corporation rez ICE, using 3x each of Blackmail & Run Amok with tons of recursion. I’ve seen @chuftbot playing something similar. You remote lock the corporation and win off of single accesses (mostly on HQ). It’s done surprisingly well for me though I’ve only been playing it casually. And the fast advance/asset spam matchups are pretty terrible.
There’s a bunch of tech because you’re Valencia and also the core of the deck doesn’t take up too many slots:
Frame Job: for News Team & Shi.Kyu
Investigate Journalism: for Weyland, in case Lizzie Mills scrubs the bad pub
Political Operative: this, more so than the addition of Run Amok, makes the deck possible because no defensive upgrades can keep you out (trashes Caprice/Ash, Marcus Batty has no targets because there’s no rezzed ICE)
Hades Shard: might seem weird without Keyhole or DLR but between remote lock & Pol Op trashing Jackson, it puts the Corp in a strange position of being unable to stash agendas anywhere
The Source: slows down fast & never advance
Hacktivist Meeting: screw assets, also synergy with Hades Shard
Other card slots are economy or card draw. I went with burst card draw to try something other than Wyldcakes and it’s nice to suddenly grab a Blackmail or—should something awful happen and the corp actually manage to rez ICE—use Faust to break into even a heavily protected server. I tried some weird multi-access previously (Medium/Nerve Agent with Surge, so you can Blackmail → Surge → Same Old Blackmail to get 4 accesses in a turn) but it didn’t work well or feel necessary.
Currently, I think mitigating The Source’s downside is the easiest way to improve the list. Probably cutting from Career Fair and Quality Time for 2 Film Critic (or Dr. Lovegood?). Vamp isn’t useful and can be cut. I’ve only played Levy once in about a dozen games, too. Other thoughts/suggestions appreciated.
Here’s the Val deck I got 2nd at regionals with, only lost one game with the deck. The game I lost I couldn’t find a Wyldside as per usual anarch problems and if I hadn’t wiffed a 4 card medium dig.
Gignerbread is kind of a oddball card, but it helped when I needed it. FtE helped tremendously, especially when most Corps are running all 2-pointers. It really throws off a Corps’ timing.
Swordsman was a non-problem, as usual, as its strength is weak enough to die to parasite and there’s enough recursion to get your Faust back or find another one.
Siphon only helped a few times, but it definitely played a part against a Harpsichord money-war.
Scrubber + bad pub makes for a better Wizzard than Wizzard, had zero problems with asset spam.
Blackmail was really where it was at, it should be stated: Unless you have ways to pre-rez Ice, most of which is contained to Blue Sun or not great/worth deck slots, there really isn’t much you can do against it that I saw.
I actually took a pretty different approach built around enormous Medium digs. It’s non-interactive as hell and if it gets a decent start it’s super hard to stop. Remotes get locked, R&D gets slammed, you poke HQ occasionally. Mimic is for Architect because it’s the only piece of ice that will ever get rezzed and not die vs Run Amok. Loses to YOLO ABT, which I’m fine with.
Run-R.&.D.
Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe
Event (23)
3x Blackmail
3x Drive By ••••• •
3x Déjà Vu
2x Employee Strike ••
3x I’ve Had Worse
2x Inject
1x Levy AR Lab Access •••
3x Run Amok
3x Sure Gamble
I do see a lot of similarities in the lists, obviously the Blackmail/Run Amok recursion & Political Operative to handle upgrades. I’ve struggled against ABT too (played a couple times against a NEXT Design list with Bifrost Array that’s just meant to trigger as many ABTs as possible throughout the game) but that’s where Faust & Hades Shard come in. What is Employee Strike there for? Trying to win the IG matchup?
