Happily, given Kitara’s commitment to new mini-faction cards, and R&R’s commitment, we might be looking at mini-faction specific econ options in the future.
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Sure, but if that’s on two servers, you have access to one at a minimum and if it’s on one server, you can simply ignore that server for the time being. The Corp also needs to rez those cards, if they want them to do anything.
For example: say they have one unrezzed ice on each of two servers you want to get into. You can facecheck one, both, or install one of your breakers in hand (assuming you have at least one), then run hoping you installed the right one. You have a lot of choices.
If you have SMC on the board, however, you just run at whichever one you feel like and know that you will have an answer to whatever the corp does.
Looking back on it, I misstated something. SMC doesn’t reduce the number of decisions points, but I still maintain that it does make them less interesting. You either run with SMC and tutor something, or you play something before you run. The latter is more interesting because the runner has to decide based on known information, whereas the former does not require any prior knowledge.
And in your scenario the Corp has to decide based on more known information, so it isn’t as clear cut as you’re making it out to be. Interstingly, the way compile is designed it is also more formulaic than smc is during a run.
But i like compile too. Paying lower cost for flexibility and impermanence is also a hallmark of shaper that makes for cool deckbuilding and thet’s been explored to great effect in Kitara, I’m just saying we shouldn’t treat higher cost flexbility commitment modules like SMC as a stain or choose one playstyle over another.
That’s a burn the NASX won’t recover from that easily! 
I’ve always said it would’ve been fine at 4 influence!
Call it 5 influence, generating 3 credits per run, with 4 charges on it and we can shake hands on it. Whaddyasay? 
/cue The Greatest Showman song that happens in the bar
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It holds distinction as the best Khan card, easily. She had to have one, right?
Poor Khan… Omar is at least a good rebirth target, she’s not even that!
Exactly what CrushU said: an Inside Job that works for one run? Sure, absolutely (which…heyyy, that’s Compile). A permanent Inside Job that builds your rig? Not so much.
Yeah I mean compile is the prefect inside job equivalent for shaper, I’m not gonna dispute that.
You’re right that Street Peddler is well designed, especially for Anarch’s color pie.
What we’re really talking about here is shaper at best getting a slight edge in information for the runner and a click when using a Special Order, at the cost of another credit and 2mu up front. You also get interactions like tutoring out a Clot which I’d argue are also good for the game.
Is it broken to use stimhack credits to build your rig? That’s a fair point but there way i see it 9 credits is 9 credits, the only difference is timing. If you spend regular credits building your rig with slower cards and hold your stimhack to get through ice when you’re poor and have a full rig knowing you’ll spend it breaking ice it all amounts to maybe half a turn of a tempo advantage in the long run? Not the craziest of combos.
My personal opinion is that mid-run program installation ala clone chip and SMC is fine in a rotating card but not an evergreen one. As an evergreen mechanic it closes down the rest of the design space in that area. As a card with a limited lifespan then it defines its era and then goes away as the game moves on.
Every LCG/CCG is at heart a puzzle to be solved. Given the cards available what are the most efficient/fun/thematic decks you can build? If the largest minority of the cards come from evergreen sets then your ability to refresh the puzzle is heavily constrained. Evergreen neutral cards are the worst offenders in this respect.
Interesting to see the comments up thread about FFG deliberately wording rotation so that the deluxe sets would not be seen as evergreen but also not part of routine rotation. Which implies they can rotate them out at will depending on their perception of the game’s needs.
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SMC is incredibly powerful, but it is not very good as an Inside Job alternative. With Inside Job, if you have 2 credits, then you can get into any any single iced server and, if it’s a double iced server, then you can force the corp to rez 1 ice that you will bypass just so you have to hit the 2nd ice (which they also have to pay for), though you would need to have a breaker and money for the 2nd ice.
With SMC, you have to (a) spend a click to install it, (b) have 2 free MU (less of a problem early on, but I have forgotten about this and had to trash an installed card before in order to install the SMC that I had Wu’d out), © pay to install a breaker, (d) pay to break the ice, and (e) if you are running on a double iced remote, you don’t get the advantage of making the Corp debate whether or not to pay the rez cost of the first ice just to make sure you have to interact with the 2nd ice.
All that being said, SMC might be a little broken with Wu, but it isn’t cheap to use (both credit wise in the early game and MU wise later in the game).
The problem is, I think one could argue that it’s a little broken with Wu, and a little broken with Stimhack, and a little broken with Magnum Opus, and a little broken with Test Run…
The lesson I took from the introduction of the revised core is that removing “staple” cards won’t lead to the huge disaster people tend to predict. It’s not without downsides, and it does require FFG to have planned for it in new releases, but it’s definitely not the end of the world. So with that experience/knowledge, I’m not convinced that “some of those cards are staples” is a good reason for them to save any product.
Maybe that was the wrong lesson to learn, though, I dunno.
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I’m not sure it needs to be removed (I’m still way too new to be comfortable talking about a card being too OP or gamebreaking), but I definitely agree that the game would survive without SMC.
But until then, I’ll just be sitting here thinking about how badly I want the next datapack to come out so I can try out this Wu/Flame-Out/SMC deck that I think will be very powerful.
OtOH, if you’ve gotten into a remote with SMC, and it turned out it wasn’t an agenda, at least you’ve advanced your board state by installing a breaker you know you’ll need anyway. But if you’ve used an Inside Job to get in and it was an NGO or an Adonis, you’re a card and 2 credits down. Sure you can use them to do the same thing, but SMC builds momentum whereas Inside Job expends momentum, which is exactly how Shaper vs Criminal should be.
i don’t think this is the right line of thinking.
the wording from the original article was that the latest versions of these releases would never rotate. it is very possible we could get a C&C revised that sheds some cards deemed problematic and keeps other cards that have or might eventually rotate
so in that sense, dirty laundry and daily casts could easily stay. same old thing might be on the chopping block though, but they could easily keep all of these cards they’d want to preserve from rotating
It hadn’t occurred to me but I bet you’re right. To be precise I bet what they do is that they use a C&C 2.0 to reprint cards from Lunar and San San when they rotate out alongside some of the C&C originals. If they did this with each deluxe as rotation happens then they get to refresh the card pool without needing to design new cards. They could then print new deluxes (like R&R) in non-rotating years if they feel so inclined.
If they did this then I think we would see a format change. R&R is 57 cards split among all factions. A C&C 2.0 might be roughly that number with a bias towards Shaper and HB. For example R&R has 3*49 cards plus 9 singletons. That might translate into 9 IDs and something like:
Shaper and HB get 13 cards each; other 5 factions get 3 cards each and 4 neutrals on each side.
For example the corp IDs might be:
- HB: CI and NEXT design
- Jinteki: IG
- NBN: NEH
- Weyland: Blue sun
For example I could see Weyland keeping: Hollywood or Oaktown Renovation, Executive Bootcamp and possibly Paywall Implementation.
The Runner IDs
- Shaper - Kit and Hayley
- Criminal - Leela (Geist would be a loss but he could always come back in a H&P 2.0 no reason a deluxe 2.0 can’t take cards from any rotated-out cycle.)
- Anarch - Quetzal (slim pickings but keeps a G-Mod for the DJ)
Neutral runner cards: the obvious 4 are - Dirty Laundry, Daily Casts, Same old Thing, Earthrise Hotel.
I don’t know but I think if I were running Netrunner in FFG then this would look like the best approach from a business perspective. Core 2.0 seems to have done really well so there’s a good chance that doing something similar with the deluxes would also work.
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Ultimately it’s a matter of marketing psychology more than anything intrinsic to the game, but I would like four deluxes condensed into a single Greatest Hits box, I’d tolerate a brand new deluxe that saved a few classic cards, and I would friggin’ hate C&C 2.0.
I think FFG learned its lesson from the outcry over the original core, and was very careful in creating a Core 2.0 that provides lot of value to various kinds of players while inconveniencing nobody, and in making a case for why it was a necessary change to the game instead of just some cash grab. But if they keep selling us CI and Daily Casts and so on in new boxes just for the sake of keeping them around while getting rid of Tyr’s Hand, it’s just going to get harder and harder to make that case.
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Yeah I’d be happy with a “rotation check in” product every year and a half or so when packs rotate. In many ways it allows people getting into the game to have a fresher standard core into deluxe box experience that celebrates the history of the game in a positive manner. You can print staple cards like Diversion of Funds in data packs while having a mechanism to evergreen them, and not be afraid to print cards like parasite because you can get rid of them when it turns out later the design space is to big for it. (In addition to the ban/restrict/errata methods we already have in place)
As long as new deluxes like RnR keep getting printed at about the same rate, potentially on their own longer timetable of rotation.