Whiz is fine, but val is better. Having not played competitive since early spring, made this to find out where i was wrong. Knew val was good, didn’t hear she’d ascended to the top.
Anything other than Ed is a good deck if it’s red. Eds good in a theoretical meets meta where every one is playing fastro of yesteryear
Ed is also ok in the Yellow Flash-type matchups. Overall Val is much better though, and I agree that she’s like a “fixed” Whizzard in that her ability is always useful. I haven’t played her for a while but when I did it always seemed to come down to how Noise used to be re: Pawnshop, only her dependence was Desperado. If you draw it, fantastic, if you don’t, can feel very sad. I would think that these days her reliability would be substantially improved, just like Noise, mostly by Peddler. Hmm, now I want to build a Val deck again 
Val is a crutch card.
Spags removes mask, reveals he’s been Damon Stone all along.
Next he’s gonna say that Jackson deserves to rotate out.
His special place is hell, aparently 
I think the Runner/Corp disparity would be the biggest factor. It will be like the reverse of last year, although the disparity is to a lesser extent.
To get to the magic 22 prestige to likely get you in the T16, cut you probably want to win all your runner games (maybe drop one) and win most of your Corp games (at least 4/7). I think that means the runner decks are of the proven variety (no reason to go with the new and risky when you’re generally favored to win). So that means Mac/Noise/Reg Val, then probably Andy/Geist. I do expect that 1-2 Val DLR runners (probably stronger than DLR Andy/Hayley with D&D coming out next week) will make T16, though.
I think on the Corp side you can go with some riskier choices and hope you get lucky on your matchups. HB Hybrid, RP Tax, NEH TS, NEH Butcher, even Blue Sun and Argus, or some secret tech are all fine choices. That is strong decks against some of the match-ups but possibly weak to one of the Runners.
Basically, I’d expect a lot more variety and unexpected cards/decks on the Corp side than the Runner side.
I’m not sure I follow the inclusion of Geist in the list (if even at tier 1.5 level). Has he won anything significant (or done well in big tournament this year) ? What would put him over Leela or Gabe in the “Andy or X” category?
He picked up some recent high placings in the UK, getting 1st and 3rd (I think) at a LCQ for their ANRPC series with two pretty different builds and getting 3rd in the final. He’s a good Criminal aggro/denial ID and unless the meta swings back to more Crisium, I think that’s a reasonable archetype. Not sure if it’s tier 1, but people are doing well with it.
Exactly what @linuxmaier is saying. Not claiming that any Criminal is tier 1, I just think Geist’s stock is rising and Andy is Andy. So of the criminals those ID’s would be most represented. There’s some chance that one of them would sneak into the T16.
I think andy is actually quite good vs a field focused on beating Noise.
Why is this? My mind goes right to cerebral static when thinking about how to hate noise nowadays, but that can’t be the only thing.
People worried about noise aren’t teching for criminal bs. Which is primarly shutdown (over ice destruction) and credit loss. A good player will still know how to play against Andy, but their tools may not be as good. For instance, people dropping eli due to lady are hurting their crim matchup. There are other little edits, like perhaps having less econ which doesn’t let you weather a siphon storm.
Get ready for spinal modem Edward Kim and the cheap breaks of doom!
I’ll always be ready for such mediocrity.
Probably not, but little efficiency gains like that can make a difference in deck performance if you’d otherwise be close. Bank Job is another good tech for asset spam decks which might be good against noise, and those sorts of decks also turn on sec testing.
It’s not anyone one thing. But if you look at why eli is in a deck, its not for the shaper matchup these days.
Ice costing 3 or 4 were my bread and butter when I was tearing through them with Geist (the aforementioned BABW deck).
Ice costing 0 - 2 (fuck you pop-up and wraparound) were more irritating though. Especially out of a deck that could score from 0 credits.
i am pretty sure what Dan means is that the current meta has shifted toward scoring aggressively to go faster than Noise. i know a lot of good players have moved to faster NEH and ETF builds which put a little defense on r&d and a lot on the remote and just go faster than Noise can possibly set up
obviously, this strategy does not work against Andy, who forces the Corp to be able to defend siphon and a remote immediately (and defending against a 9 card starting hand and potentially inside job is very difficult). these decks also have no hope of scoring aggressively and shutting off sec test. Etf is basically a fold to Andy and NEH decks that are teched to survive against Kate are slower against Andy than they were this time last year. a field teched to beat Noise probably doesn’t include some of Andy’s weaknesses (namely RP)
if the current amount of Etf carried to November, Andy would clean up
Most EtF decks have the ability to slow down the game and go Glacier if they want to, which is the default against crim. So why would they automatically fold?