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

Coming from ONR, the beginning was okay, but the game has felt like it was watered down more and more as time went on. I miss the big explosive plays and eggshell walking.

Most surprised to see Fairchild 3.0 go unrestricted. It’s so nasty.

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Don’t worry, with Clone Chip off the list you can just recur D4 over and over to deal with it. On a related note, is anyone else excited to play some Reg Ass MaxX again?

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What the hell? Both of you. No personal attacks. No cultural attacks. No attacking other posters’ arguments without actually addressing the points they made. This is childish and unacceptable.

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Yeah, I regretted it upon waking, and tried to come up with a more constructive edit, but I think it’s best to cut my losses and delete…especially since I don’t feel like I understand the community guidelines at all anymore.

In particular–if it’s appropriate to ask–I really don’t understand why my initial post was flagged. I thought it was an extremely civil, respectful, and positive response to a post that literally told the entire community to “get fucked” (and which, I note, has not itself been flagged).

But if post #907 is is indeed acceptable and #921 not, then I think I’m just so far out of touch with this community and its values that I should probably just be going.

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Following up in PM.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/8/20/napds-most-wanted/

It’s here!

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Looks like the only discrepancy with the leaked list is that CSM is still removed. No complaints here.

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Seems pretty good. The new MWL has grown in me since I first saw it as well. Definitely seems best just to remove all the NPE cards if you won’t have a chance to rejig. Restricting Skorp and PU is good for the same reason.

I still kinda wish FC3 was restricted though. That’s basicaly it though.

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I like the update all-in-all. My one gripe with this list is that while it addresses the more degenerate and unfun strategies with the corp, that the runner’s version of this is left largely untouched.

I despise strategies that involve never actually dealing with my ice, or that make program trashing a minor inconvenience rather than a major event. None of the conspiracy breakers, nothing of the security nexus suite and nothing of the stealth decks is on this list. Program trashing in particular is a losing proposition now that clone chip is back.

M4m fueled dumb tag me counter surveillance. Zer0 fueled clan vengeance. Hyper driver is a constant enabler of stuff based on ddos, fear the masses, etc.

As a long time fan of chronos protocol, I feel you with respect to program trashing being a nonviable strategy. I think the problem is that the line between “janky and neat” and “degenerate” is pretty thin, and skorp/hunter seeker made program lockout a playable strat, which can lead to really unpleasant games.

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I should rephrase. They did hit on the more degenerate and unfun strategies that the runner has access to. The issue I face is that the actual “Run a server” part of netrunner is untouched. Conspiracy breakers, Security nexus and stealth subvert that part of the game.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a nice inside job. I don’t mind clone chip/scavenge getting back a breaker or the runner finding a cheap way to break my ICE. I do mind it when this comes at too little a price and at too high a frequency. My worry is that if ICE isn’t allowed to matter, that you just end up with gearcheck ICE and corp decks that find other ways to not bother with this aspect of the game.

A lot of these are moderated by cost. Stealth seems by far to be the least egreigious of the 3 things you mentioned because it requires a specialized economy to even use properly. When you’re trying to manage stealth credits for your breakers and real credits for everything else without getting too draw dependent, a bit of consistency in getting through big ice in the late game is a reasonable reward.

Nexus is expensive (in money and influence) and difficult to set up with the recurring money to be used consistently. It’s effective, but it’s a greedy setup and I think history has demonstrated this. But you’re right, pseudo-AI effects like this always need to be looked at constantly as metas change because they can easily become overcentralizing if the conditions are right for them.

I think the conspiracy breakers are ultimately balanced econ wise considering that we’ve had multiple sets of ICE designed to match up well against them but they pretty fundamentally warped anarch’s economy and draw engine around them so I wouldn’t have minded a bit of tweaking around those synergies as a general statement.

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A better solution would’ve been to put Paperclip and Zer0 on Restricted list. Fixes the main issue of Anarch getting 100% benefit from Zer0, and also makes Paperclip not just the de facto barrier breaker of choice. But removing Zer0 entirely also works, it just makes me a little sad that I can’t play with that card now. (Restricted Zer0 also prevents Levy from existing in the same deck. Basically handles a bunch of the worst abuse cases.)

I’ve been in the minority on Sifr/Nexus for a while. I feel Sifr is strong but not worthy of removal, as long as Nexus isn’t removed. Both consoles invalidate one ice per turn, the difference is Nexus can do it singlehandedly, while Sifr does literal nothing on its own. The difference is that by themselves, Nexus is useful, though expensive, and Sifr is completely worthless. But add support cards (drip econ/Link for Nexus, and a breaker suite for Sifr), Sifr becomes more powerful than Nexus, but also more vulnerable. (Skorp Sifr’s breaker and Sifr goes back to being useless. Kill Nexus’s drip econ, they can still get past your ice.)

For Stealth, they have a weakness baked in, that they only have a limited number of runs per turn. This weakness is the same as Sifr/Nexus, by the way. It constantly confounds me that Stealth and Nexus are fine, but Sifr is absolutely not allowed. All three strategies invalidate ice in one way or another, all three need setup and support cards, and all three have counters available to them. (There’s ice that’s best at stopping each of those three strategies specifically.

Ice already doesn’t matter, it’s one of the great secrets of Netrunner. Ice just represent a tax of money/installs/cards the Runner must pay. Vanilla doesn’t end the run. Vanilla requires the Runner to spend 3 credits, a click, and a card to install Aumakua, and then 1 credit every time they run Vanilla. It’s why you shouldn’t depend on your ice subs ever actually firing. Also why ‘enhancement’ operations, like Wetwork Refit, have never gotten played. Spending a card and that much money to just… make it cost 1 credit more each time through… Or instead you can have another piece of ice that also makes it cost more credits each time through, and works without requiring an ice installed and rezzed…

(The newest NBN one gets it right because it accepts that it’s just a tax, and also lets you install on unrezzed ice.)

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It’s funny, my inherent reaction to the notion of “ice not mattering” is just to go “Nu-UH!” and then make a pout-face. But that doesn’t make a good argument. And it’s also a good bit incorrect.

I do agree that in the end, ice just becomes an economic speed bump for runners (as you say–it’s just a tax). But my push back is that if you have a large enough economic speed bump, that’s where the “scoring windows” exist for the corp to push ahead.

Good/Great runners do everything in their power to make sure those scoring windows open up (or if they do, only for a fraction of a moment).

Dragging someone through a glacier server only to find a reversed accounts or an NGO is part of the game–though we could argue that the cost of having a scoring remote is that there are weaknesses elsewhere on the board.

I think this is a neat (kinda) philosophical discussion–does that make Ice not matter or does it make it just mean ice matters…but not in this “All Protecting Super Safe Fortress” sort of way?

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I suppose it’s more accurate to say ‘Ice subroutines don’t matter’.
But yeah, the game of Netrunner has two core facets to it: How quickly can you set up your defense/offense, and how efficient at getting through ice are the breakers?

(There’s obviously more to it than just these two things, but these two things are in Every Game. Some decks choose to say the breakers are infinitely efficient at getting through ice, and just don’t run much ice…)

My two cents on the matter.

The fact that Sifr only has one influence means that it can be splash quite easily into most decks. And when it is splashed into most decks, it will make the breakers you are using better without having to change too much with your deck. With Nexus and Stealth, you usually need to build your deck around it with link and specific cards/ID.

The other downside with stealth is that it is pseudo credits. Having access to 4 stealth credits might save you 10-15 credits during a run but you cannot use those as 10-15 credits as traces. With Hard-Hitting News a popular Corp choice at the moment, stealth becomes a tough deck to compete with (although Smoke does have Misdirection in faction).

The other kind of deck that could be considered alongside these other decks are Engolo decks out of Kit. Being able to get through two pieces of ICE of any type with just one card. It is quite credit hungry though. I am in no way saying this kind of deck is broken or too powerful but it does invalidate ICE much like the other three types in discussion.

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Sifr seems like a card that is perfect for a balanced replacement. It has a cool and powerful effect, but, in comparison to Nexus, it’s cheaper to install, only 1 influence and isn’t based on a trace, so the corp can’t stop it if it wanted to. At least with Nexus, it’s expensive for Runner to use (unless it has a lot of +link cards) and the corp can pay to end the run (and give the runner a tag) if it wants to (and has the funds to do so). I think that Sifr would be better if it had a trace mechanic (either with a relatively high trace and no need to discard a card or a lower trace and you still have to discard a card) and had higher influence.

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Sifr is stopped by Batty’ing a breaker.
Nexus is stopped by having more money than the runner…

Sifr’s large advantage over Nexus is that you only need to import Sifr itself, since decks already have breakers. At 1 inf as well, that’s just ridiculous. Sifr should’ve been 3 inf, easy.

I agree with you on Sifr. The thing is you can’t redo its inf until the card is banned and it’s redone by “someone”.