Crims desperately need a good burst draw card or two. Shapers get Diesel and Quality Time, Anarchs get Inject and I’ve Had Worse, and Criminals get… Lawyer Up and Express Delivery? Yikes.
Meanwhile at last Regional in Paris, the top 2 played Andromeda and Gabriel, Gabriel won the event 
Criminals feels weak now because they are a lot less played, Andysucker can still trounce RP or any corp decks, Blue Sun is a bad matchup tho 
1 Like
It’s not really supposed to be their territory, For a long time Anarch got all the best programs, shaper got ways to find shit, and Crim got to be the only faction worth playing. It seems like everyone is getting their version of every card now though and they’re just scrapping the color pie except for only Anarchs get to trash Ice still.
2 Likes
Going to chime in with my 0.01 cents.
- Siphon Spam isn’t as effective anymore. Said plenty of times by others.
- Literally zero competitive new cards. Said before as well.
- Shit draw, fixed in last data pack.
And now for my own more unique points:
- Criminal’s HQ pressure isn’t impactful enough to make up for their complete lack of R&D, Archives, and Remote asset pressure. Security Testing isn’t some catch-all umbrella, there should be more options that don’t get invalidated by Pop-up on Archives/Remote. Currently all Criminals can do is Siphon, Reveal All Cards in HQ, Shutdown (essentially a double), and access lots of cards, usually 3.
It’s not too hard to flavor a burst draw card for Crims the way they did for Anarch. Make a 1-cost run event that draws three cards if unsuccessful or something, I don’t know. Burst draw isn’t flavor so much as an integral part of almost any competitive deck.
What corp won’t love getting to draw 3 cards? I suppose if you time it right when you know they will AAA score next turn to force some trashes.
Time to put my Foundry/Twins/Ashigaru/Research Station deck back together!
When they’re at max hand size, under pressure, facing a Corp draw, possibly a Fisk draw, possibly a Leela bounce, and Howard’s too drunk to help.
13 Likes
It also makes you see new cards with RnD Interface / Medium and makes Legwork better. I like the card.
3 Likes
As the weird guy to go against the grain on this, I would actually prefer them to add more weird tricks for criminal rather than things to make them feel more like a Shaper or Anarch deck. I think Fisk Investment Seminar is great for that, as to me it seems more like a control card where playing it to draw 3 yourself without thinking of the corp will almost always be wrong.
If you know the corp wants to spend the next turn advancing 2-3 times to score, that is a lot more awkward with 3 extra cards. If it also draws you into multi-access (or Inside Job), you can pressure their money on top of that by making an event run on unrezzed ICE. If you land multi-access Leela can bounce the agenda or Fisk can make them draw a card, ending with +4 cards and a mandatory draw next turn. Even if you don’t get what they are trying to score, the corp is in a pretty awkward spot opening a turn with 8-9 cards in hand when they want to spend that turn advancing.
Also, in a weird sort of way, I think you can save influence on Maker’s Eye because of this. Legwork after a turn where the corp had to discard because they drew 3-4 off R&D during the runner turn seems a lot better.
4 Likes
I’m blanking… what card are you referring to?
Loads of times playing Leela when I’m starting to choke in the mid game and need breakers now, the corp goes for a remote play. Making them draw off RnD (possibly helping my medium see more) giving me possibly and inside job or sure gamble and then either pressuring a central, the remote or just building state for a power turn seems awesome. The corp has so much to do and be prepared for on their next turn which they thought was a scoring turn, and suddenly them having 3 more cards to care about plus possibly the bounce… I mean, i wouldn’t want to be the corp there.
On the flip side, i think it would be bad to play in the early game because the last thing i want as Leela is for the corp to draw into what they need to stop my early aggression.
Not as universally friendly as diesel, but i think in the right moments it could add more pressure to the corp just when Leela needs to.
2 Likes
I just can’t get behind Fisk seminar, because for every time it hurts the corp their will be a time it just shovels the exact cards they need into HQ. I just don’t think it’s as good as John Masanori or Visage but we’ll see. I guess my main complaint is that they have basically given anarchs and shapers exactly what they were missing in O&C and the last couple of packs. As someone who plays criminals exclusively I haven’t actually bought a datapack since the end of spin.
The one Spags posted a lovely picture of above.
2 Likes
I think the problem is, as others have said, that criminals need to spend too much influence in basics like breakers and R&D pressure, so it leaves too little to get more tricks, or just try forma different strategies, so crims end up with so few options that you can’t really do something different.
Fisk is just another crim that attempts to pressure HQ above other servers. They have HQ interface and legwork in faction, a card that turns archives into HQ and his investment seminar get’s agenda’s out of RnD and into the server he seems to want to put pressure on, while giving him options. I think it’s another noble attempt, but HQ lock is not something I see lots of people trying to win games with. I think in general it’s just a bad idea.
I do remember @bblum mentioning more than once that HQ accesses were worth their weight in gold in his write-up of regionals. If peeps can figure out how to turn HQ pressure into wins, there are a lot of crim cards that support the idea I think.
1 Like
Your Corp deck must be terrible.
9 Likes
I thought by “fixed last pack” he meant Chrome City, and I *really didn’t see any Criminal card draw in that pack…
My fault, it was poorly worded. Lunch breaks bring out the worst in my grammar.