Because it should be 1 influence.
Seriously. I love this card so much for its effect (especially in Whizzard), but you’ll have to spend at least 4 influence on it. Oracle May decks are a thing because it’s only 1 influence. So sad Lukas nerfed this card with its influence. It would be so awesome if Donut was a part of the meta. 
I’ve seen a Noise build with 3x Hostage 1x Aesop 1x Donut 1x The Source (with the other three influence obviously to Cache), since this was about the time Noise only wants Deja Vu and maybe Sure Gamble and it worked pretty well as you could just get it in matchups it’s huge against (Weyland + CI etc).
These days, Inject is key to Noise too and there’s nobody else who ever really wants low amounts of Events. Maybe a Noise build in the future would want it?
It’s best in a Hostage based deck I think, because yeah you kind of want the two influence to stretch a lot. At the same time though, it has to be in the right meta and the right deck.
I think two influence is fine. It’s far better than it being no influence and being super problematic in the future. I’m interested to see if it fits in any decks in the future, and I’m sure it’s still worth playing in some meta, but it means it will never be ridiculous - which is important with denial based effects.
@bayushi_david and myself played around with some Donut Anarch builds back when he came out. If memory serves, the 2 Inf were an issue, but that could be traced back to the issues Anarch had with having to import both draw and reasonable econ. In the post-big box world, I’m thinking it could be done, and will have to revisit the idea.
I remember that one particularly hilarious avenue we explored back then was just to play Prepaids, since most of the good events we wanted to run were 1 to 2-costs anyway.
Seriously though, you can take some Hostages, some Donuts, some Aesops, a bunch of Liberated, a bunch of Daily Casts, a bunch of Armitages and you can mostly call it a day. If you want to draw, there’s both Wyldside and Earthrise to choose from. Losing Deja Vu hurts, but could theoretically be Clone-Chipped around. If you can swing a reasonable breaker suite that isn’t too convoluted, and some virus-enabled pressure (nothing fancy, Medium and possibly Nerve Agent could do the trick), it could work.
I’m really tempted to try this with some Fester-enabled hijinx, in order to amplify the denial aspect - that card looks like a waste of cardboard at first glance, but if you get two on the table and some Lamprey recursion going, your opponents are going to hate their life, that I guarantee you. The choice of identity then rounds out the deck.
I was thinking about squeezing him into El-Ad’s Nasir build, since the only events there are Stimhack and Scavenge. But you’re right, the influence is a problem – I’m not sure 2x would be worth the card slots in that build even at 0 influence, but giving up 4 influence of tricks is a big problem.
This is why we need a neutral runner. Maybe a Corp as well, one with a medieval theme?
If you want to beat dumb accelerated diagnostic CI decks, hostage-donut is a pretty great way to do it. I don’t know if that deck will ever take off but I’ve been rolling people with it recently, often through all sorts of disruption, (hades shard, noise+clone chip, leela). Donut is a pretty tough one to beat.
Isn’t just running the source strictly better than donut, which isn’t even that effective?
edit: vs shutdown decks.
I think the big workaround for the source (and part of why it doesn’t work well in general) is that you can turn it off so easily just by feeding them an agenda. Not hard to do, esp for CI. My meta is also rife with this CI silliness, and while I haven’t ran or faced him, It’s easy to see that Donut would take the wind right out of those sails. Also seems like it could be good against no-remote tennin? (making econ that much more sluggish, as well as taxing scoring methods a bit)
The Source is only a serious concern if the runner can protect it with fall guys, otherwise, it is much easier to beat than noise+clone chip or hades shard.
Why Donut Is Never Played
As well as this :
(those are 2 influence dots instead of 1)
I also think trying to limit the number of events you play to the bare minimum can be tricky.
Donut should be 1 influence. He is a neutral resource with a powerful effect that requires you to build around it. Just like may requires you to build your deck with a significant number of the same type of card or run motivation, he imposes that same kind of restriction on you, in that you cut yourself off from running very many events.
Yeah. I never thought the problem was donut per se. It was that the anarch shells he was being built around just weren’t good enough to take advantage. And spending 2 influence a pop on either him or hostage stung. Post O&C I think Kim does a better job and we’ve now good a suite of powerful in faction events.
I challenge someone to make a winning criminal deck with Donut. $10 bounty for a store championship, but you have to somehow prove that you actually put him into play in over half your games. Worst case scenario, I’ll just Nordrunner it into hiding if someone does succeed.
TBH, while I think people would try him out more at 1 influence, I think even then, he wouldn’t be played.
Corp economy operations are efficient enough that it’s not that huge of a deal. Hedge Fund, Celebrity Gifts, and Sweeps Week are still playable. And keep in mind that you aren’t even making back your money until they have played 3 operations. Plus, it’s unique so it’s dead in multiples, but you also want multiples to play it early. This is not even considering the direct or indirect costs that you get for playing around the ability as a Runner. Or the fact that some Corporations run only a few operations and then it’s kind of dead. Even if they do run operations, it’s sort of a weird thing to want to play because they can run a mix of assets and operations and then you are sort of guessing if it’s worth your while. Lastly, in general I’m more skeptical of resources that are greater than 2 credits because it becomes cost efficient for the Corporation to trash them if you get tagged.
I don’t think he’d be played that much at 0 inf. No one really plays Core Weyland anymore and his effect isn’t worth the spot vs most of the top corp decks people play. I’d rather put cards in my runner decks that gain me credits, draw me more cards, and help me gain accesses. Donut doesn’t really help there.
Wait, the runner gets the money the corp loses to Donut? I’ll take 3 of him please.
Donut playing backgammon v. his fave sparring partner.
When you play the game of backgammon, no one wins. (Seriously, this guy can’t be that brilliant if that terrible game is his favourite)
Donut + Subliminal = ultimate trollage