I started using Faust the same way, as a filler before I got my full rig setup.
But there there came a game where I had Yog in hand, but never bothered to install it, because using Faust was much quicker and easier. Hell, I may have trashed Yog to break a codegate subroutine.
Eventually I realized I only installed corroder to break Wraparound, but against decks likely to run wraparound, I could probably just afford to use D4v1d to break instead, so then Corroder was out. I had 1x Mimic, but that was mostly because I wanted something for Architect. I had a CC and parasite for dealing with Swordsman.
Of course, I thought using Noise’s ID to accelerate the game is what made it work. Turns out using cutlery to destroy all the ICE works too.
I guess I was biased by being Whizzard every game…
I also thought Temujin wasn’t a 10/10 like it is, but that’s because I thought you had to finish your contract before you could play another one, which can get you stuck in a really bad spot in some cases.
Oh yeah, I thought that Museum was 100% never worth it, because why on earth would you ever want to go up to 54 cards? That just dilutes your good shit. Never mind that it (at the time) could recycle 3 cards a turn back into R&D, making it immune to thinning out and recycling all your good crap. Let’s not even get into the City Hall shenanigans it enabled.
I guess the lesson here is that we underestimate corp recursion. (Although I think Museum wasn’t really that great until the political assets came out, even if it was only a couple of packs later.)
I still think Temujin isn’t a 10/10.
This card doesn’t dominate enough to be on MWL in my opinion, and it is slow to draw, install and refund, have lots of weak spots, but it good enough to limit the asset spam.
I’m not a user of it but seing it against myself as a 2 turn relief, I think it is needed against horizontal, I don’t know why they nerf it.
If Temujin is here, with Eli out and Fihp worth 1, NEH should be T5.
When I first saw Temujin my main reaction was “oh, this is going to be really good in my Pheremones deck so the first few HQ runs after they purge are still valuable”.
Which is I guess was technically correct, but probably slightly misses the main competitive implications of the card.
It’s interesting to me that so many people underestimated Temüjin at first. It’s not like it’s a card with a pretty unique effect like Leela or Faust, it’s an economy card, albeit not the most straightforward one e.g. Armitage Codebusting or Sure Gamble.
It took a relatively short time before people warmed up to Temüjin and it was in every runner deck, however. There were other cards where it took much longer until their value was recognized—Turntable and worlds 2015 comes to mind.
I thought Fairchild 1.0 was a nice li’l piece of ice that’ll see play.
Then I thought Fairchild 2.0 was a good average piece of ice that’ll see play.
Then I though Fairchild 3.0 was a freaking good buffy ice that will not see play because they’ll release Fairchild 4.0 or something.
No, just kidding.
I thought Architect was not that good (like, “dude, can’t you see it’s porous ?”) and that Faust was a nice backup breaker for Anarch (at least for that one I was not alone).
FC3 is a beast and sees a lot of play (mostly in HB). Very taxing and a punishing facecheck.
FC1/FC2 are decent in Architects of Tomorrow (generate ID triggers and rez for free most of the time). I haven’t really seen them much out of other IDs.
I’ve never seen Fairchild (the 4th one) played. The lack of facecheck punishment (a la Wotan, can just let the run end) is a major drawback. It looks pretty good in terms of subs/strength, otherwise. I keep meaning to try it out in architects, but they keep on printing new bioroids (or removing them from the MWL ;)).
I think it’s because HB has better ICE on average than Jinteki, so you lose out a little bit by including FC1. Also, Pup works uniquely well with some Jinteki game plans (e.g. cheap, taxing ICE for RP to put on the outside of a central server) that don’t necessarily have an equivalent in HB.
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