Well done! Good articulation of points, and very little actual snobbery.
Should I do this here? By email?
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Traffic accident seemed to me like they were brainstorming ways to stop fast advance, came up with both ideas and tried them both out. Then just didnât cut one after playtesting.
Eh, Tennin FA was a thing around here for a little while, and I know someone thatâd still be playing it if Clot hadnât loomed up on the horizon.
I think that Clot will have a big surge and then start to die down a little, being a problem to build around but progressively less so. The 3-of lists in Noise or whatever just seem like they wonât last long, doesnât do enough for the deck in other matchups and can still be baited and played around to some extent.
Itâs a serious blow to pure FA builds, but I donât think itâll keep FA as a whole down. Even if you donât end up needing them for Clot-dodging, SfSS is still a solid econ card. Scoring for free with an Astro token, or just for the cost of rezzing that SanSan? Yes, please.
[quote=âvor_lord, post:42, topic:3376â]
I donât get the appeal of Predictive Algorithms. Itâs just a 2c tax that canât even surprise the runner.
Red Herrings and Reversed Accounts are both better at this, have the same influence and life span (one use). And neither one of those gets played much.
[/quote]Not arguing that itâs amazing, but it prevents random accesses more than the others. Red Herrings has to be in the right server and manage to not get trashed for the miniscule amount it costs. PA covers agendas everywhere and is harder to trash⌠but yeah, not solid enough, at all, for major play right now. Whether or not the on-access agendas make the small tax more worth it will have to be seen, but I canât see much use outside Haarpsichord â and there are potential nombos even there where it lets them choose which agenda they can steal, rather than just forcing them to take the first.
[quote=âSimonMoon, post:65, topic:3376, full:trueâ]
Traffic accident seemed to me like they were brainstorming ways to stop fast advance, came up with both ideas and tried them both out. Then just didnât cut one after playtesting.
[/quote]That or they did multiple balancing passes that nerfed it too hard. Not as sure with this one, but Iâm 98% sure thatâs what happened with BlacKat â it was probably 4 strength and/or 3 cost (or cheaper to pump) at first, then the cost got bumped because it was too good, and then the strength got cut⌠but the cost wasnât re-analyzed with the strength cut.
If Traffic Jam previously didnât only affect the same agenda, but hit all agendas, or worked off of ones scored and stolen, or something⌠I could see that being really busted.
I still think it might be decent-ish for Criminal, because it has the potential to slow down/muck with glacier and FA decks both (making it harder for RP to chain Niseis is nice), but it ultimately suffers the same issue as PA â the moment it stops working even one time, itâs gone.
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Cortez is a 1 use, worse than event, this works until scored. Imagine RP where itâs already tough to score agendas. I would say itâs better than Cortez chip, but worse than elp. Still a fair current thoughâŚespecially if you just need something to counter currents.
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Yeah. The issue with it seeing play is that I donât know if itâs better enough than Cerebral Static necessarily if you donât have the influence for ELP. Iâll still be tempted to try it as part of a broader RP Economic Bullying plan, but Iâm not 100% sure on that strategy anyway. (I suppose swapping 2 ELPs for 2 PAs and a Tollbooth might be okay, but ELPâs the right kind of taxation for RP, anyway, since click tax is the real edge it has, not credit tax.)
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Simple way of thinking about predictive algorithms (and why I think itâs bad) is it essentially is a zero cost event that costs the runner 2 money. Corp money is generally better than runner money, and no one plays beanstalk.
I know this is a lot of inferences, but costing the runner two money just isnât strong enough as a card (which is good, this would be an unfun card if it was as strong as it would need to be to see play),
Iâve been playing with PA and itâs meh, and that makes me sad. Itâs no good on itâs own but combined with either Red Herrings or Ash, or both, it sets you up for the turn after against most runners. I would drop an NAPD for the runner to pay 6 plus Ash, plus Red Herrings, then follow that turn with my ârealâ agenda. Yeah, the two credits wasnât huge, but it is a thing in the right deck. Unless they play their own current, youâre always going to get two credits. Itâs meh.
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Itâs probably a better card for crims than Unscheduled Maintenance.
âŚRight?
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Yeah, but itâs mainly a dead card that maybe will turn off a painful ELP or Manhunt, or make a second Nisei MK harder to score.
What about Cortex Lock? What is it, 2 influence? Is this going to be all over the place?
PE kill decks could improve some with it, maybe replaces Komainu to let them save money.
It should be a nice replacemt for Komainu in RP glacier. Better than pup early on a central. Fine to spam assets behind.
Is it worth fitting in Nearpad? Have to give up Eli, probably not worth it.
Could it be a worthwhile splash that gives HB decks some bite? They have lots of influence to play with, and play a lot like RP early.
Boot camp Weyland canât really spare influence for this.
A word about predictive algorithm.
I think if you lay down NBNâs cards and step back to take a look you begin to wonder if NBN is ever going to fit into a traditional glacier style build. the faction does not appear to revolve (note the word revolve) around Big taxing ICE that slow grinds the runner down. Their ICE tends to be pourous and very taxing if you donât want to be tagged. The big guns in NBN (tollbooth and flare) have never been able to carry NBN up north into glacier-land because they are exceptionally weak to femme, which hasnât gone away (flare is also weak to faerie and rich runners).
Whether or not it will end up working it seems one of the angles about NBN is to grind the runners money down using alternative methods. youâre supposed to be constantly threatened by tags, but here-to-date that type of NBN deck has been difficult to make truly competitive because itâs too cumbersome to balance between tagging methods, tag punishment, and ICE.
Red Herring failed (if you will) because NBN struggles to create a truly taxing server to stop the 2nd run. Red herring is only threatening behind Data Raven as it forces the runner to contemplate taking a second tag, but that type of punishment is difficult for NBN to capitalize on without creating an environment that is slow to defend itâs servers (see above).
Midway station grid âfailedâ because NBN doesnât live in a world where ICE averages more than one subroutine, save for muckraker, which is built as nasty face-check ICE. Unfortunately for Muckraker face-check ICE is strong early game and who wants to give bad-pub early game to something thatâs easily handled by Mimic? And if they go tag-me?..uff-da. You want to make Yog pay 2 creds enigma? thereâs some satisfaction in that I wager but it wonât stop them. It is easy to import eli and viper among others so perhaps there has just been a lack of effort on this, maybe someone will give it a shot.
So i would say predictive algorithm should be looked at as a ICE/bluff/taxâŚcard.
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you have a scoring remote. the runner knows they need 2 creds to steal the possible agenda. no different than if you had a revealed piece of ICE there. ICE
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you have a scoring remote. You install and advance once. The runner has limited money and now has to divine whether that really is a NAPD or an astro. Bluff
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the runner hits you with a makers eye on your RnD with a data raven on it. They wanted to do it earlier but they had to make sure they saved up the 4 creds to deal with Predictive algorithm and the Raven tag they donât want. Tax (which basically just equates to tempo).
Does that make it a good card? I find it difficult to judge without creating an experience but I donât think itâs as simple as just looking at it in a vacuum.
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one more thing before this easter business. I also think itâs a good exercise to contemplate the recent NBN cards as to how they relate to Universal Connectivity, and how much better they may be if there were more âUniversal Connectivityâ options in faction. Iâm curious if the faction is looking to further establish this type of play in future packs.
data raven into universal connectivity is a really strong positional ICE game, there just arenât enough cards to expand on that to make it worth truly investing in at this time.
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Iâm predicting an NBN I.D. that gives a tag whenever an agenda is scored or stolen and hopefully more tag punishment. Now that agenda cost a click to steal, 2 credits to steal, and a click and 2 credits to remove the tag. Would a runner pay four credits and two clicks to steal? Of course, so itâs not the same level of fear weyland can provide when an agenda is stolen, but itâs something, and maybe itâs enough of a deterrent against stealing a second agenda.
If you are really curious the guys over at /tg/ already spoiled the NBN IDs. I wonât post them here for anyone who doesnât want to see, but the Four is Flatline blog on BGG has everything collected.
indeed, there is a spoiled NBN ID for the upcoming cycle that has this base covered.
Read the spoilers. Cool stuff; Predictive algorithm probably isnât very good still.
After coming in here and reading 70 posts in one bunch, all I can say is âThank you @Xaviâ - your post gives me hope Stimhack wonât die to pacifism 
Just one note to @xiebelvoule - Iâve written two articles for Stimhack so far, and despite wanting to do more (at this very instant, I have outlines for three more installments of the Anarch Cookbook and an article about The Prof just in need of a second editing pass), I havenât published anything for a while. Hereâs a couple reasons:
- Itâs time-consuming - for me personally, an article takes about a weekâs worth of my spare time to write, review, edit and polish to the level I am happy with it. Thatâs usually two weeks of essentially having a second job, coming at the expense of relaxation, family time, or sleep (most commonly).
- It has specific timing windows - this depends on the subject, naturally, but some articles just age too fast, especially where the card pool or the meta is concerned. This, coupled with my point #1 means Iâll probably never do a front-page set review, simply because it would take me two weeks after release to get one out, at which point everyone would be like âwtf thatâs old newsâ. Another example is the Prof article - believe it or not, but my winrate with him is currently very high, because people simply underestimate the ID. As a result, I really didnât want to publish before the SC season was over because I didnât know how many tournaments Iâd be taking him to, and not having my decklist (and all tricks) be common knowledge holds some value. When I publish the primer, I want it to be as full of knowledge as I can possibly make it (because Iâm a firm believer of âinformation wants to be free and knowledge must be spreadâ). Which brings me to my next point:
- At the end of the day, youâre working your ass off to give something for free to people who might very well end up giving you shit for it - this happens most with set reviews, but not just. For instance, it is just plain soul-crushing when you spend two weeks on 4 hours of sleep a day to get an article written, and then you get crap for a small something you put in there during the second editing pass to make the process at least a little fun for yourself.
Donât know about the other authors, but these points in combination make it very hard for me to get motivated to publish something. Whenever I have the itch, my brain just goes âYou wonât get to play anything with anybody for a week, youâll be exhausted, and in the end somebodyâs just going to bitch about how youâre âdiluting the front-page article qualityâ or some shit. Why bother?â⌠and then I go off to spend the week tinkering with some thinking-outside-the-box deck instead.
tl;dr Write and submit a meaningful front-page article, then bitch. Or donât. Either way, lose the attitude. Thanks.
Just a side note, but⌠ever played against a Grail TWIY? Ever letting them get enough spare change to rez a Midway Station Grid makes your life a living hell, essentially (unless youâre Anarch and either blow up their HQ or completely dismantle their scoring server, one piece of ICE at a time).
13 Likes
Iâm writing some material right now for a friend to read. Perhaps Iâll refine it and submit it.
I ran midway in TWIY with grail early as many did. It seems to work sometimes. Grail is great early ICE but once theyâre rig is out it seems to fall apart. I didnât find midway to solve the late-game issues consistently enough. Perhaps I could have built it better though, maybe Iâll try again sometime.
My problem with that Midway TWIY deck is that Midway only lets you tax the Runner out of one server. Sure, maybe R&D costs a boatload to run, but theyâll just find some other server to lockdown.