Where is the MWL? - As of August 20th, 2018 - MWL 2.2 is here (effective 2018.09.06)

If tapwrm is a problem maybe corps will start purging multiple turns in a row or using Executive Boot Camp

I do purge like that.
Lately I even used Biotic to purge, and won.

Not sure Tapcon, without Clot, is better than 6x econ cards, but I’m not the runner there.

ARE there 6 other economy cards not on the MWL that they could have included instead though? would they have put in Easy Marks? :stuck_out_tongue: Tapcon was so popular because they knew they would also need the sac cons for Clot

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That’s just matchup-dependent. You know if you’re gonna need your clot or Tappy more. (Unless it’s CI which could be either just as well, but that’s a separate problem :stuck_out_tongue:) If they’re a mostly fast advance deck, they tend not to be very rich, so tapwrm won’t make you much money. From watchng Worlds videos, it seems the top players were willing to occasionally use sac con to protect taps even against fast-advancing CI decks though. I guess making them spend 2 whole turns purging gave them time to run and force rezzes, putting pressure on their hand size. Plus remember a lot of them were on Levy rather than Clone Chip, meaning they basically had 6 sac cons! Clone Chip isn’t even necessary if your clot is impossible to trash!

Great point about the Levy. I’d still put Clot on the list before saccon.

The thing is, without Clot, Tapcon is green light to rez everything. Whether it works or not depends greatly about the corp deck compo.

I don’t care much, playing the British Fairer PE a lot these times (-1x giraffe, +1x Preemptive), but I recon it is a perk vs most non PE decks that have not lots of habits playing on low money.

I don’t think anyone thought SacCon was a problem before Tapwm became so wildly popular. It was mostly put into decks that really wanted to go all in on protecting Clot. Even with SacCon, there are lots of great tech cards against Clot lock that have viability against other decks (e.g., Best Defense, CVS, Macrophage). Alternatively, if you never-advance or run powerful 5/3s – a strategy becoming increasingly viable with the release of stronger agendas – Clot doesn’t affect those win conditions.

I don’t think Clot has ever really been considered overpowered or unfair. I would argue that it’s still not overpowered or over-played. Shaper is really the only faction even running it, and they already have so many cards on the restricted list that adding it would likely have the unintended effect of giving FA a massive boost.

In contrast, I think Tapwrm is overrepresented in the meta. Almost every competitive deck I’ve seen lately out of every faction runs at least 1, usually 2 and sometimes even 3 copies. Peace in Our Time synergizes well with it, which leads people to run SacCon, which often leads Shaper to add Clot.

Restricting Tapwrm would really force every faction to re-evaluate their deck building decisions in regards to economy and restricted card choice. However, there haven’t been many strong Runner economy cards released so far this cycle that could compete with Tapwrm for efficiency, so my fear is that restricting Tapwrm would unduly penalize Runners until additional cards are released.

I think if Cyberdelia had been written to trigger on the first run each turn, rather than the first time each turn, there would be a lot more Shaper decks exploring big rig options. I hope they release more synergistic Shaper cards that gain money on breaking all subroutines on ice, because that seems to really fit into the Shaper theme of interacting with ice advantageously. I’m also tired of importing Tapwrm into my Shaper decks.

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I really hate repeating myself, but one last time: I don’t think Clot is unfair; I don’t think Tapwrm is unfair. I just think it’s bad for the game for one single deck (Hayley) to be able to both threaten clot-lock through saccons AND remote lock through money on tap (pun intended :stuck_out_tongue:) so very effectively.

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Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but based on my own experience, it’s really hard to keep both Clot and Tapwrm on the table when both are vulnerable to the same Corp strategies. Macrophage and CVS are only going to increase in popularity over the next few packs as more powerful virus cards are released, especially once Freedom Khamalo sees play. Macrophage costs 9 credits for Gordian Blade to break if you clear all the subs. With Aumakua and Anarch as an overall faction so popular right now, putting ~2-3 cards in your Corp deck to counter viruses is a good call.

Even if you only use Tapwrm or Clot in certain match-ups, and different games altogether, Tapwrm is a strong but fragile economy option, and Clot is a powerful but equally vulnerable remote lock option. I don’t think having access to both in the same deck is unfairly skewing the meta to the degree that restricting one of the cards is necessary. Just my 2 cents.

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So is Sure Gamble next on your proposed restricted list?

I agree it’s everywhere, but simply due to the absence of better options. I don’t think “restrict everything popular until there’s not a single popular option left” is a reasonable path.

Yeah, that’s pretty much my stance. Except I’d also say once those cards are released, restricting Tapwrm will be unnecessary because people will play them instead…

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Of course not. My understanding is that the restricted/banned list is an official tool for keeping unbalanced cards out of the card pool and keeping other powerful cards in check. This allows FFG to directly influence the meta for the purposes of keeping it healthy.

The difficulty lies in defining “powerful” cards and a “healthy” meta, because these are largely subjective and relative terms.

One way of evaluating the power of a card is by looking at how popular it is in the current meta. Logically, if a card is powerful, it will be used more frequently. This statement is based on the assumption that, when all other factors are equal, competitive players will use more powerful and efficient cards because they’re relatively better.

The opposite statement is not inherently true – not all commonly played cards are powerful. I also don’t think Tapwrm contributes to an “unhealthy” meta, because the Corp currently has a variety of fair and interactive ways to respond to the threat.

I think we share the same views about Tapwrm. It’s everywhere, but there aren’t a lot of great other options. I’d like to see additional economy cards printed that could allow factions explore other options for making money.

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And here we see one of the reasons people opposed a B&R list in the first place: Instead of doing the competitively correct thing and slotting counters to a strategy, like Fastrobiotics did with CVS vs Clot, people will instead complain about a thing until it is put on a list of cards people can’t use.

SacCon is fine. Tapwrm is fine. Clot is fine. Clone Chip is above average power level, I highly doubt it’s ever coming off B&R because there’s not a really good way for the Corp to prevent that sort of effect. (Ark Lockdown and Blacklist are the only things that get used a lot, though Chronos Project sometimes appears. And, of course, Navi Mumbai City Grid is preventing some of its uses.) Come to think of it, I don’t think we’ve seen anything that interferes with the Runner searching their Stack…

The only reason TapCon is being used is that it’s the best non-restricted (general use) economy engine remaining. Kati Jones, Wyldside, and Desperado are gone entirely, Opus and Aesop’s are Restricted. There’s some economy engines that are better for specific runners (Geist + Tech Trader, Valencia) but as soon as we get any kind of usable economy, I’d expect Tapwrm at least to fade a little.

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This selectively picked quote is misleading. I intended to argue that IF people want to break up the Saccon-Tapwrm-Clot combo, saccon is the wrong target. That is the context in which I made this statement. I actually think it’s a fair interaction. It requires a lot of deck slots and is vulnerable to several already good Corp anti-tech cards.

Here’s what I actually think should happen to MWL:

  • CI (ban) - what’s the point when you can draw you whole hand and hold it by turn 6
  • VLC (restrict) - just too efficient
  • Kakugo (restrict) - OP in 1000 cuts
  • Batty (restrict) - mostly cause its getting too good now that barrier and code gates have sentry subs (and I hate its design)
  • DDOS (restrict) - cause rumor has it Siphon is being replaced
  • Temujin OR Scarcity (restrict) - Tapcon is a reductio ad absurdum of current runner econ
  • Aesop’s (come off) - Its good but not ridiculous and makes deck construction a real puzzle
  • 3 spoiled Kampala Ascendent cards [hardware, ICE, ID] (restrict) - some spoiled cards seem OP, not Sifr or Aarron OP, but OP

SPOILERS: Zer0, Mlinzi, and MTI Mwekundu? Actually, Surveyor seems like it could get real annoying, real fast out of HB. I’d almost wonder if they’re going to go ahead and straight ban Clone Chip with Reclaim available, then. Or, maybe Clone Chip will just get replaced by Reclaim in most decks without them having to move it. I’d kind of expect that.

Tapwrm just promotes stupid gameplay. As a niche econ card it was fine, but now that it is the main economy tool of many decks it is a problem.

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SPOILERS: I was thinking Hippo rather than Zero. I think Surveyor at least isn’t good early game…but it could get really annoying in ASA at only 2 influence. I think you’re right about Clone Chip. I have a CC Steve deck that is really fun to play. But Critic wins more unfortunately. Still banning CC would make me a little sad…but its totally reasonable esp with Reclaim available.

The french champ says that agenda is the agenda of the format.
I agree with him. This card won me more games and provoked more ragequits than any other one in my current corp deck.

What about Aumakua?

This one have too many problems to be a real central card of a deck in my opinion.

It can be teched against with 0-inf cards : then if it becomes proeminent in meta, answers are allready made :slight_smile:

I love that the Boggs banlist was able to rapidly respond to Vanadis without waiting the Damon-preferred six month trial period, but can we not start trying to ban/restrict cards that haven’t even come out yet? Especially when we haven’t seen what other cards will come out in the packs before that, which might provide counterplay or mitigation?

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