Why is Food Initiative so commonly played?

Best 5/3 in the game ?

That’s making people replay 5/3, this is actually nice :slight_smile:

3 Likes

I get your point, but…
I don’t like playing against stealth, and I don’t want that on the list. I hate playing TagnBag, but Scorch is a perfectly okay card.

So, to expand on that a bit, why do you feel that GFI warps the meta? You say steath and scorch aren’t problems but you see GFI as something different and worse. What feels different about it for you?

1 Like

[quote=“MightyToenail, post:22, topic:6494, full:true”]but Scorch is a perfectly okay card.
[/quote]

And there are people that feel like that should be on the MWL. It’s a very punishing card that requires either tight play to work around, or a few silver bullet cards.

GFI has no other ability like other 5/3s do. It’s not difficult to steal like the The Future Perfect. It doesn’t rez any ice for free like Priority Requisition. It’s just worth points. That’s perfectly fair for 1 influence.

1 Like

Both of these either have hosers (plascrete x3 will neutralize any kill deck) or proper play decisions (stacking sentries on rnd to prevent stealth lock).

GFI doesn’t have the first and the latter is hard to achieve out of non-anarch (turntable), but the corp is paying for this with influence and play style. If/when the game speeds up (or a hoser is introduced) people will shift away from this agenda and the corresponding decks that work well with it.

1 Like

By this logic I can hardly tell why Sure Gamble and Hedge Fund didn’t appear on MWL.

Food is pretty nasty, but the thing that really makes it easy to score (Caprice) is about to get a few very easy (and easy to slot in) hosers in Mumbad. There’s also an answer to it already: Turntable. I think it is a little degenerate to use the ‘four to win’ strategy, but overall it isn’t bad for the game.

1 Like

This is really not true in most situations. Turntable is actually a lot better vs, say, RP, where they have to score out a Future Perfect and you fans grab it for 3. (You also get the opportunity to grab a Nisei token, but they’d beside the point). In ethier case, any decent corp player will try and score the 5/3 last, so no Turntable shenanigans for you. I much rather have Grimore for the Foodcoats matchup, the extra virus token on Parasite is a huge benifit. Don’t get me wrong, I have loved Turntable since it has been released, and I am “Turntable Hype Man #2” (@moistloaf is #1) and I still rather have it in most matchups.

1 Like

Here a good video from @beyoken on the math behind why GFI is good:

Also, another counter-card is Notoriety, that did very well for @tomdidiot:

Why do you think it’s a problem? Is it that it showed up in a lot of the top 16 decks at World? Are you seeing it a lot across the table? If so, I think we have a sample size problem that only time will tell if it’s a real problem. GFI has only been tournament playable for about two months and after Worlds it’s been a mostly quiet season in regards to competitive play.

4 Likes

The way I see it, Global Food Initiative doesn’t so much warp the design space, as much as it reverts the design space back to the original intentions. 5/3 agendas really fell out of favor over the years, and GFI is giving players a reason to IAA again. In exchange for not having a crazy ability that grants a tremendous benefit to the corp, which would help them win, GFI has a crazy ability that reduces the benefit to the runner, which helps the corp not lose.

Global Food Initiative could theoretically be considered a “fair” card if, say, the ability on the average 5/3 agenda was approximately worth slightly more than a 1-agenda-point swing in the corp’s favor (thus justifying the influence cost). I haven’t watched the video linked above yet, but I would guess that it supports that notion. However, if it seems that GFI is worth a lot more than a 1-agenda-point swing, then perhaps it should cost more influence, and earn a spot on the MWL–it’s probably too soon to tell.

1 Like

Powerful =/= problematic. It opens up a lot of deckbuilding options, letting non-jinteki decks run 5/3s that are more than just a drawback. NAPD was problematic because you almost never had a reason to run a 4/2 over it, and while gfi technically puts that constraint on 5/3s not named future perfect, those were unused anyway outside of fringe decks that tended to not like having the 5/3.

4 Likes

Food is probably fine. The only reason to add it to the list is if Food cripples the design space for future 5/3 agendas. (I think it may well do, but it’s way too early to say, and Damon was completely correct in taking that stance. We’d already established 5/3 agendas were already very problematic cards, so it might be we just never see any more printed. That’s actually probably fine.)

I’m not sure GFI creates terribly interesting interactions. It’s just a good, but fairly boring, card.

2 Likes

As an aside, given how popular the GFI-powered “I need three agendas, you need four” deckbuilds are on the Corp side at the minute, I’m surprised that Notoriety doesn’t see more play as a lucky singleton for just this situation.

1 Like

See here.

1 Like

[quote=“SamRS, post:31, topic:6494”]
Powerful =/= problematic.
[/quote] This. The real issue is not that this card is “too powerful,” it’s that every other 5/3 but TFP has been made by an utterly flawed design philosophy that rendered them all complete garbage - I think going forward we’ll see a lot more defensively-minded 5/3s, as this is the only space for them that makes any sense from a deckbuilding perspective.

2 Likes

Agreed. That was more a statement about other cards people have been asking to be added to the list.

GFI is more interesting from a deck building perspective I guess.

1 Like

Food is incredibly strong. Not only did it storm worlds, but the 90 person (actually think it was more 70-80 given no-shows) Store Champs in London at the weekend you couldn’t move for Foodcoats - most of the top players were running it.

Should it be on the MWL? We’ll see, it’s a bit early. The initial MWL has taken effect yet. It’s having a big impact on the SCs already, but MWL may stablise this, or people may well tech more against Foodcoats decks in coming weeks and reduce the prevalence.

My gut feeling is it should probably be on there. Why? Because it’s strong and neutral. It might need a tweak to make it not a virtual auto-include in HB glacier decks - one of the goals of the MWL is to reduce this sort of thing. If other factions can get good results by playing it, all the better though.

Mainly I don’t think it’s on the list now because it’s too new, compared to the ubiquitous NAPD for example (which always should have cost 1 inf really, given hindsight and the costing of other neutral agendas more recently).

2 Likes

Thank you. Finally someone who I can agree with.

what 5/3s are seeing less use competitively because of it though? future perfect is still played over it, and there is still a decision in deck building between running 3 2 pointers and running 2 of these due to influence and ease of scoring. That’s what makes me think it’ll stay off the list, unless of course damon is taking the ‘anything powerful goes on the list’ option, which is I believe what happened to desperado and sansan.

4 Likes

I just saw Blue Sun playing Food. Not Priority Requisition, not High Risk Investment, not any other 3 point card. When even Blue Sun wants Food enough to pay influence for it, I’d say that it’s restricting diversity. I mean, I think I’d like more good 3 point agendas rather than see Food on the MWL, but hey. Whatever comes is up to Damon.

1 Like