I saw in another thread that their local meta limits Astroscript to 1 per deck (just like Phylotic Entanglement). I’ve often thought the game would be better with the same thing, but I’m curious if it just kills NEH/NBN Fast Advance. Can NBN even be competitive without 3 Astros?
I don’t think that says much because taking Astroscript away mean they don’t have 6 3/2 agendas and any FA deck doesn’t really work without 6 3/2 agendas. Maybe if the Astroscripts were blank instead of restricted to 1 you would have a better idea.
Sansan, Biotic and Astroscript were already there in the core set and it’s not before the third or fourth datapack of the second cycle that NBN FA started to perform. We have to wait the release of NEH to have a NBN-FA deck being top tier. What does it means ?
Historically, Beale was the first piece to makes NBN FA works by the virtue of giving to NBN a second 2 3/2 to NBN but even with that, it wasn’t enough to really compete against HBFA. In fact, NBN Fast Advance never really picked up before the release of Wraparound and Sweeps Week. These two cards were crucial to NBN FA since it gaves them econ and cheap binary ice without the need to use influence ( before that, almost every NBN deck had 5-6 inf taken by 3 GLC + 2/3 Ice Wall). And even with that, TWIY* and MN Astrobiotic were weak/average compared to Supermodernism, HBFA or Deadcoat. We’ve to remember that the NBN craze is a trend who only started with the release of NEH and even there, the deck wasn’t THAT broken. What brokes the deck was the inclusion of both Architect and Blue Sun. Architect by forcing Mimic in (almost) every deck and Blue Sun by giving another strong archetype to the corp metagame the runner NEED to adress.
I think i’ve already said a couple of time but building a deck to win against Astrobiotic is easy. I’m also gonna say that building a deck who can win against both RP & Astrobiotic is doable and not so hard. But having to build against the entire field of corp deck is really really really difficult right now and in that form, astrobiotic stands out because it’s the only fast/rush deck in a metagame filled with passive corp stacks.
4 Likes
While I think this discussion is largely a waste of time because of the coming release of Clot, I think that the best way to deal with AstroBiotic is to simply restrict Astroscript and Biotic, so that you can’t play both in the same deck, and possibly restrict Trick of Light or Fast Track with them as well. NBN would still be an extremely good faction if it weren’t for Biotic Labor, but it wouldn’t be such a huge pain in the ass as it is right now.
The problem as I see it isn’t NBN Fast Advance. In fact, every NBN deck since Beale has been a Fast Advance deck to one degree or another. The problem is Biotic Labor + Astroscript, and to some degree, Fast Track. As long as the runner has the ability to deny the Corp an Astro train by trashing SanSans and/or R&D lock, NBN is great, but not oppressive. The discouraging thing about it now is that you can very easily lose the game without ever making a meaningful play on a remote. The corp can just draw Biotic + Astro + Burst econ and, as early as turn 2, make it really really hard for any runner deck to do anything about them winning.
9 Likes
Informative post. However I don’t believe most of that was implied in the simple question of whether taking out Astroscript would kill NBN fast advance.
I feel a Caprice + Ash in a 2 deep remote way more soul crushing than losing to astrobiotic. At least, against Astrobiotic, if he got the perfect opening, you’ll lose fast. Against a perfect RP opening (granted, it takes 3-4 more turns), it just takes 40 min for the same result and I really don’t think it’s healthier for the scene.
So, should we restrict Ash and Caprice for the same reason than restricting Astroscript + Fast Track/Biotic ?
9 Likes
I think RP would still be really good without Ash. If anything, what should be restricted is Nisei Mk II and Caprice. That’s the real soul crusher, and it’s easy to play 3 of both because they’re in the same faction. Or just ban the Future Perfect. That card is 100% busto.
8 Likes
Caprice is my number one hate card but I feel the issue is a bit different. I think the problem with Astro+Biotic is that it limits other NBN builds to be viable. Other NBN builds using Midseasons used to be good but AstroBiotics now clearly out performs those. Problem is also NEH which seems to be stronger identity than NBN identities and works very good with combination of FA strategy. Jinteki still has other very viable builds which doesn’t use Caprice so Caprice doesn’t force faction using the same cards and strategy. Although I would very happy to see caprice just banned because I don’t think that card doesn’t do good for competitive card games and just causes frustration (apart from players who feels psi games rewards skill).
That’s exactly what i’ve been saying everytime the astrobiotic debate cames up. It’s healthy for the scene to have a variety of really strong deck going in different direction and Astrobiotic is a key component in that.
It makes the runner deckbuilding difficult and it should be like that for exactly the same reason parasucker recursion and account siphon spamming was healthy for the game last year. Everyone is complaining about but in the end, learning to deal against really strong / overpowered deck is what makes us better at the game.
RP doesn’t have any tier 1 build other than the taxing glacier with Caprice. And even if Manhunt Making News, NEH with DRT or TWIY* grail are somehow a a little bit worse than NEH, it doesn’t means these built aren’t viable. For instance, there’s only One Tier 1 deck in Jinteki and it’s RP Glacier. Every other builds are on the same power level than those NBN archetype i’ve cited (yeah, even the dreaded Killteki PE).
2 Likes
Maybe just restrict Caprice and TFP, so that psi-games don’t end up controlling everything. Then again, that would make Nisei division very sad, so I guess Nisei+Caprice is better.
You can’t split up the Niseis! Lore!
But in seriousness, both of those restrictions seem awkward. Limiting TFP to 1 copy seems like a safer move. Puts it in line with the Fragments, which I think is fair.
5 Likes
Jinteki already had a 1-of agenda in the same box. Even non-mechanically, that wouldn’t work either.
1 Like
The best solution would be to go back in time and do a better job of balancing the cards: Astro 4/2, TFP 6/3, NAPD costing 3 to steal instead of 4, Desperado costs 4, etc. Absent a time machine, I’m not sure what the best thing to do is. At this point I think nothing should be done and then see how things shake out post-Clot.
1 Like
Well, if I ever make a card game, I can tell you what I’d do: print “refresh” packs for tournament-bound players with rebalanced cards.
1 Like
this. I don’t think clot is necessarily as much of a lord-and-savior card that many think it will be, but it means that it isn’t wise to have a deck where your only plan is to score out of hand. This means less streamlined, more clunky decks, and it means that trying to score out of hand when an SMC is on the table is downright foolish, even if they’re not running clot!
Incidentally, for this reason I think clot is a big bump to orange and green and a sideways glare implying “you have all the good toys already” to blue : D
2 Likes
I would never do that because the downside of having to tell non-serious players that their cards aren’t tournament legal is so huge. Just get the damn cards right the first time. For an LCG (where every card is precious) to have printed stuff like Bug, Disrupter, Hard at Work, and Power Tap is just embarrassing. Fast Track costs 0 and Mutate costs 2? ITD? I can’t help but feel like I would be better at development than they are.
7 Likes
19 Likes
I feel like this is trivial. Non-serious players, by definition, won’t care about tournaments, right? So… why would they care about the fact that they’d have to get a few free replacement cards in order to compete in something they don’t care about?
I suggest that this is a lot harder than you’d think :). Playtesting resources are finite and the card pool is ever growing 
.
1 Like
Non-serious players don’t really care about how they perform at tournaments, they still want to play in them.
I’m still waiting for adequate proof from anybody that these cards are broken in the first place. Anecdotal, this card is too op type forum posts don’t really do it for me. In fact, the only reasonable way to respond to these threads now is to troll people with this gif.
4 Likes