A Look Back at the Netrunner Core Set - Anarch

[@dagononbane3536]

14:45 - "Datasucker also EXASTURBATES the problems..." Exacerbate + masturbate = exasturbate. Love it. Hypothetical definition: make worse, often for the sake of its own gratification. Sorry, I had to. Great video, as always. Insightful stuff, and no doubt helpful for a lot of newer players.

[@Willingdone]

dagononbane Haha, awesome! Datasucker gets me so worked up that I start making up words to describe it.

[@theswad]

Great vid. I think the retrospective is the way to go for the core set 'reviews' as it were. Can't wait to see the rest!

[@Willingdone]

***** Glad you liked it! Thanks for watching!

[@phette23]

Great analysis here, especially the insight about the core set Anarch breakers. Showing them all out there at the end really highlights how problematic the influence values are-only 5 to import the whole suite! And as much as I enjoy datasucker-parasite, you have a good point about their power level. Looking forward to more in this series!

[@Willingdone]

Eric Phetteplace Haha, yeah! The best rig in the game might be worth a bit more than five. As I've said elsewhere, it's mainly Datasucker but if we could go back and change everything, we'd probably want Mimic, Yog, and Parasite to cost more influence as well.

[@MrIronJustice]

Thank you so much for doing these reviews. I find your analysis very fair and insightful. Its not always about finding a broken combo and steamrolling your opponents, its about what makes the game balanced, consistent, and fun. I find every set has a feel and a personality and the Core set is very endearing to me. It has some of the best, worst, and most fun cards overall. A great introduction to the world of Netrunner.

[@Willingdone]

+MrIronJustice Thanks for watching! I agree that the Core Set is an excellent introduction to Netrunner. It has a huge variety of card effects and lays a solid foundation from which the rest of the card pool was built. The pre-built decks in the Core Set are a great idea as well, even though I don't think they're particularly competitive.

[@grahamcrackerGO]

Just watched all your retrospective videos. Even after another year, all 4 deluxe expansions, a new lead designer, and two MWL updates, your thoughts still summarize the core set's ongoing effect on the game. I'm impressed by your insights and I agree with several of your card suggestions. Great job! I've been thinking a lot recently about a "Hindsight Errata" for older cards that were over- or underpowered. Your suggestions for core set changes fit this concept perfectly. I kept thinking about how Corroder, Mimic, and Datasucker make it too hard to use other Fracters and Sentries. What if all of them went on the MWL with Yog and Parasite? Hahahaha... at this point, that would put almost all of the core anarch cards on there (including Wyldside) and most Anarch decks would be virtually unplayable. We'd rely on Eater-Keyhole-Siphon in orange, and that ubiquity would make Anarch way less interesting. So yeah, I think the only way to remedy the core Anarch problems is with errata, and I'm under the impression that Damon and FFG are only considering errata as an emergency solution, not a "make things more ideal" solution. Unfortunately, we will probably not see these changes be made (although I'd be open to a side format with said errata).

[@Matorory]

Oh, hey, perfect timing. I've just been thinking about core Anarch in particular since the recent resurgence of fixed-strength anarchs. I played Noise quite aggressively for the first year of this game, so I'm also fairly nostalgic for this period. Looking forward to watching!

[@Willingdone]

Benjamin Weinstock I too was an Anarch for most of early Netrunner. I think our main man, Noise, has really never left the scene but rather been overshadowed by shiny new stuff. I'm glad to see him come back in a serious way. It's pretty neat that there are a lot of playable Anarch ID's, each with some amount of variety in deck construction.

[@snogurt]

Great video! Thanks! Looking forward to the series!

[@Willingdone]

Brian Wood Thanks! I hope you like the others too!

[@EdHastingsKillerShrike]

Great vid as always. One comment, on the low influence costs of key Anarch programs...the design team / lukas had to squeeze an extra faction (the 4th corporation) into the box on a set number of card slots. Some of the influence costs on breakers were lowered to allow players to construct playable decks in all factions, allowing some compression of card slots in the starting pool. Unfortunately, Anarch seemed to bear the brunt of that burden. I don't know for sure, but perhaps the thinking was that (aside from the bomb that is Corroder) fixed strengths helped to mitigate. Also, many Anarch cards have a very high power level, as you note, so perhaps another line of thought was that the faction would be viable despite it's main rig cards being very importable. Anyway, just idle speculation. On the subject of a Core 2.0, I hope that it doesn't happen. For me one of the best things about Netrunner is the stability of the core set and the fact that it remains viable even now. I greatly prefer Lukas' approach to "fixing" the card pool by printing solutions and alternatives. I've played a lot of games over the last 30 years, rpg, board, card, computer, and I've never seen a game designer with a finer grasp on maintaining and repairing game balance.

[@Willingdone]

Ed Hastings RE: Being able to make functional decks out of the Core Set That's a good point and one that I don't think we've talked about very much in these discussions. Most of us can agree that Mimic and Yog.0 were given low influence values to make them easy to play outside of Anarch. To a certain extent, the Anarch breaker suite was intended to be the standard. Unfortunately, it was a little too easy to import and a little too powerful. I think you're right that Anarch was given really powerful Programs and Hardware to encourage players to play Anarch. Like I alluded to in the video, the problem with playing Core Set Anarch was the surrounding card pool especially weak economy. This was quickly addressed with cards like Liberated Account. RE: Core 2.0 Pretty much all I'm about to say is also idle speculation. I'd imagine that Core Set 2.0 would contain many of the same cards from Core Set 1.0. About 2/3 of the cards in the Core Set are great designs that still see a lot of play today. There are undeniably a few cards that didn't work out as planned: some cards are a little too powerful and some cards are a little too weak. Core Set 2.0 would be an opportunity to replace the weak cards with better ones, making the new Core Set a better value for the next generation of players. It would also be a chance to right some of the errors of the original set: Datasucker, Astroscript, etc. I agree that Lukas and the design team do an exceptional job. I was really careful in the construction of this video to make sure that I said that several times. I don't want people to think that I think they're doing a poor job. Much to the contrary: I wouldn't have this channel and spend so much time thinking about and playing this game if I didn't think it was truly great. In some ways, it pains me to conclude what I have about Datasucker and few other cards. I like Netrunner so much that I don't want there to be anything wrong with it. But upon honest reflection, I've found that there are some cards that are holding the game back. Certain strategies don't get their rightful place in the sun because of a few bad apples. I want to share these opinions because I want the game to get even better over time, and I'm of the opinion that that involves removing certain cards from the card pool. Most of the solutions to balance problems that have been printed are great. In particular, Corp went through a fantastic evolution with the myriad of ICE and economic tools. Jackson Howard, love him or hate him, was an incredible thing for the game. It takes guts to print a card like Jackson. He's obviously overpowered, but his effect on the game is purely positive. The only designs that I don't particularly like are the "hard counters" like Sealed Vault, Clot, or Plascrete Carapace. I'm not a fan of cards that work only to negate specific other cards. That said, each of these examples has a softer counter as well: Crisium Grid, Traffic Jam, and I've Had Worse. The soft counters are nice because they do something against every deck. I'm mainly opposed to cards that only work to deal with a particular strategy. Fortunately, there aren't many of them, and they don't have a big impact on the game.

[@12er5t7y]

I never considered before how the existence of Datasucker had so many run-off effects, most of them negative as you point out. Really interesting from a design perspective for sure! I know I'd buy a core set 2.0 if it included rebalanced versions of early design errors like Datasucker and Astroscript. Bump up the cost of Corroder and Desparado, etc. Who knows what the odds of such a thing ever happening are, though.

[@Willingdone]

12er5t7y I'd like to think that the likelihood of Core Set 2.0 is pretty high. As long as the game continues with it's current level of popularity, I'd like to think that Core Set 2.0 would be justified. The game seems to have grown hugely year after year, so I'm hoping we can keep up the momentum.

[@KrystianMajewski]

Really love this new series. I generally agree with your observations. Here are some additional thoughts: - Demolition Run: You've been a bit down on this card. I don't think it's that bad. I think trashing ALL cards in remotes would have been too OP. Singularity has a more reasonable price point for that. And Demo Run card IS great with Medium. Sure, it's a "win more" card. But it can end the game when it otherwise could have been prolonged and possibly even reversed by a purge next turn. I recently used that card in Whizzard and it worked as advertised. I think perhaps making it influence 1 would make it see play in other factions. Seems like the shards took that spot now. - Corroder: I think the one thing that Netrunner is struggling with is that Corroder is just too good. It is REALLY hard for FFG to develop a Barrier breaker that can compete with Corroder. It could have used a situational downside. Additionally more influence would have made Battering Ram and Aurora more interesting out of faction. It's worth noting that the Corroder in the original Netrunner ("Hammer") was "Noisy". That mechanic is no longer present in ANR. But it basically had an anti-synergy with Stealth cards. "Noisy" also had vulnerabilities to certain Corp cards and the runner could gain some advantages by avoiding Noisy breakers. For example, certain multi-access cards were only possible when no Noisy breakers have been used during a run. It's really sad that this wasn't adopted for ANR. - Datasucker: I agree that this card turned out to be way more effective than it had any right to. Again, looking at the Netrunner CCG, the original was called "Pattel's Virus". You would put the virus counters directly on a piece of ice when the run was successful rather than collecting them on the Datasucker for later use. You could also only target ice that had all of its subroutines broken during that run. This sounds WAY more reasonable to me. Anarchs would need to use non-fixed breakers on their first run and use the Virus to make runs cheaper on subsequent runs. No Parasite trash on 1st encounter. No charging up on Archives either. BTW, little correction here. In order to kill a Tollbooth with Datasucker/Parasite you have to encounter it. Datasucker only works on ICE that is currently being encountered. - Medium: I propose that this is somewhat mis-matched in Anarchs. It is way too good R&D access for it to be not in Shaper. It easily competes with R&D interfaces and Maker's Eye. I think something like Keyhole feels a lot more Anarch. Medium should have been at least 2MU like Keyhole is. - Mimic: Again, I propose that this is WAAAAAAAY to good of a Sentry breaker in Anarchs. I would even say it's way to good for ANR period. Even disregarding Datasucker. Sentries are supposed to be expensive, remember? The Netrunner CCG version ("Codeslinger") costs 7. Back then breakers were a bit costly, admittedly. But I think a cost of 5 or 6 would still make it playable and would make Ninja look less awful. Alternatively, Criminals should have gotten Mimic and Anarchs Ninja. Mimic makes Criminal spend influence on Sentry breakers, which I think is wrong. It also makes more reasonably priced Anarch Sentry breakers like (Cuj.0) look bad. - Yog: And yes, I also think Yog should have been Shaper. But generally, I think this is also too good of a breaker for what ANR is. Again, we look at Netrunner CCG. Yog is a reprint of "Tinweasel". Back then, a breaker that just runs through Code Gates was ok because Code Gates were supposed to be the cheapest ICE to break - cheaper than Barriers. With ANR, it's the Barriers that are the cheapest. So Yog is out of place. The only Core Set ETR Code Gate that can't be broken with it is Tollbooth. Anarchs are supposed to be bad at Code Gates and Sentries. Cards like Force of Nature or Cuj.0 reflect this. The core-set breakers just don't. That's why you never see the former cards in play. That's why you see Shapers splash Yog (Yogsaurus) and Criminals splash Mimic. Even if you disregard Datasucker they are just way too efficient for what the strengths of this faction should be. Now this didn't seem that bad in the early days when Anarchs were lacking economy/card draw. It was the other factions that took these tools and ran away with them (Andisucker says hi). These days these breakers are coming back in-faction and they simply lock out a huge part of the design space. Certain ICE is "born dead". Certain ice breakers are never even considered.

[@crossbrainedfool]

Krystian Majewski Anarchs are supposed to be bad at Code Gates, and okay at sentries. On medium - it's really swingy, and a very all in card. That's why it's an anarch card, while Shaper multiaccess tends to be a bit more even keel. I doubt it needed the 2 MU. Anarchs are pressed for memory as is. Mimic is similar, at least in theory - it's highly variable. Or, rather it would be if there were more high strength sentries that saw play - especially non-destroyers, so Sharpshooter+mimic is less foolproof. As for cost, I think Mimic is maybe a credit or two undercosted, but not by 3 or more. I agree with the notion that Yog.0 was problematic given the lack of 4+ strength Code Gates - which seems to be on the fix list since Order and Chaos. I dislike giving the Mimic - Ninja switch, as it makes the criminal main sentry breaker reliant on out of faction cards. Also, fixed breakers should be risky, which doesn't quite fit in with Criminal. Dito Yog to Shapers. Running and hoping "alright, if that's not a ____ I should be okay" feels very Anarch. I'm okay with them as the fixed strength breaker faction.

[@Willingdone]

Krystian Majewski A few responses: - Demo Run: I think I said a couple of different things in the video, but I'd be in favor of this card reading like this: "Make a run. You may trash a card accessed at no cost (even if it cannot normally be trashed)." In other words, I think it'd be better if you could trash a single card for free and could run any server. I like your suggestion to make it one influence since that effect would be nice to import into Shaper or Criminal. - Noise vs Stealth: It's sad that this mechanic was removed, but the designers seemed to think that distributing the best breakers among the three factions would somewhat replicate this effect. Unfortunately as this video discussed, the best breakers weren't actually distributed as they thought. I think that's mainly because of the undervaluing of Datasucker + fixed strength, but it's also because the Shaper and Criminal breakers are so terrible. It makes sense given the card pool that was printed to desire Noisy + Stealth, but if the breakers were distributed properly among the factions, that desire wouldn't be as strong. If the Icebreakers by faction were done properly, Noisy + Stealth wouldn't be necessary. - Anarch Breakers: I like some of your ideas about switching their factions, but I'd rather see the breakers that did get printed in those factions be better. The main issue with the fixed strength suite is that it's much stronger than everything else. Datasucker is just too good. Sure, the influence thing is a huge problem, Yog.0 is more of a Shaper effect, Mimic is more of a Criminal effect, but the main issue is that Datasucker is *way* too good. Fixed strength should have major issues with matching strength with 4+ stuff but Datasucker makes that trivial. I think that both Mimic and Yog.0 would be okay if we had to use Ice Carver or Net-ready Eyes to match strength. They'd probably still need an influence fix, but without Datasucker they'd be far weaker against 5+ strength ICE. Really, if we just banned Datasucker, I think we'd go a long way to making the Icebreaker vs ICE interaction more interesting. It's not a complete fix, but it's certainly an easy one. - Parasite vs Tollbooth: Yeah, I made it sound like you didn't have to lose the three credits. That's not the case. I think I used the word "encounter" in a non-technical way meaning "have to break it" and that's confusing since "encounter" is a game term. That's pretty sloppy. Oops. - Keyhole vs Medium: I would've rather seen Keyhole in the Core Set than Medium, but I'm not hugely opposed to Medium. I agree that it feels more like a Shaper effect, but I don't necessarily agree that it should be switched to Shaper because of that. Anarch isn't going to be good enough with just Archive effects, so we're going to have to make some thematic concessions. In general, Icebreakers don't have high enough influence requirements. This isn't a problem exclusive to the Core Set, but it's most serious offenders are there. The only Icebreakers that should be one influence are those that are really narrow in use like maybe Deus X or Gingerbread. Three should be the standard for Icebreaker influence. We should have to pay a ton of our influence if we're playing a premium rig. It's far too easy to play the best Icebreakers in the game because most of them are one or two influence. This is most evident in the example you gave where Criminals, who are supposed to be good against Sentries, import Mimic. It's so stupid that basically every deck plays 1x Mimic to break Architect. There are lot of changes I'd make to the Core Set, especially within Anarch, but I'm most interested in what we can do going forward. Banning Datasucker is the easiest way to deal with the problems we've been talking about. It's not a complete solution, but it goes a long way. General question: how much should I talk about Original Netrunner in these videos? I've been working on the rest of the series and the impulse is to bring up a few things from the old game -- especially regarding Siphon and a few other big cards, -- but I don't want the videos to turn into a comparison of the two games. Are folks interested in hearing about the old game? I'll probably splash it in a little bit.

[@KrystianMajewski]

crossbrainedfool >Anarchs are pressed for memory as is. Anarchs also have the easiest time to allocate memory for Viruses. They would have managed. > fixed breakers should be risky I agree that this was probably the intent. But then they had cards in-faction to make it not risky at all. Criminals could have used expose in-faction to make a Mimic less risky. It would have fitted their "get a custom-made tool for the right job" MO.

[@KrystianMajewski]

Willingdone Demo Run: Yeah, that could have been a good card too. I wonder if this was too close to Imp? > If the Icebreakers by faction were done properly, Noisy + Stealth wouldn't be necessary. What if Datascucker couldn't have been used with Noisy breakers? ;) I like the Noisy type simply because it opens up so much design-space. It is quite evocative too. > but the main issue is that Datasucker is way too good I agree with you that this is a huge issue. But even then. Looking at modern Anarchs, the only big issue are strength 4 ICE. Because they eventually released D4v1d. And now we have Net-Ready eyes to close that gap. In core set we also had Personal Touch. Without Datasucker, there are still tools in place to abuse the fixed breakers. That is why I think the fixed breaker would need a re-ballance either way. > In general, Icebreakers don't have high enough influence requirements. Here is my theory why the fixed breakers (and Datasucker) got their low influence. The design team knew that they were incredibly powerful. To make the factions balanced, they wanted to make them available to all factions. Like as if they were neutral. Putting them in Anarchs at low influence seemed close enough.

[@KrystianMajewski]

crossbrainedfool Oh and this: >Anarchs are supposed to be bad at Code Gates, and okay at sentries. I don't think there is enough evidence to support that each faction has a hierarchy. Each faction certainly has an ice type they are good against. That is also supported by the internal design documents. Any further distinction seems speculative to me. For example, Shapers are supposed to be awful at Sentries, yet they have Dagger?

[@ddbrown30]

The reason why demo run doesn't work on remotes is because the text reads "any cards you access." In order for that to be more than one cards in the core servers, you have to invested in static multi-access, like RDI. In a remote, you would be able to wipe out their entire server for 2 credits.

[@Willingdone]

TheChemist Right. I wasn't incredibly clear about this in the video, but I'd want Demo Run to read: "Make a run. You may trash a card accessed at no cost (even if it cannot normally be trashed)."

[@ddbrown30]

Willingdone Right. Makes sense.

[@Saracenar]

Totally agreed about Datasucker, I am not a fan mad will never play it, personally. Although I do tend to shy away from things that people are doing more commonly.

[@Willingdone]

Saracenar I totally understand where you're coming from, but it's incredibly difficult to be competitive without Datasucker. Unfortunately, this isn't a problem that can be solved by boycott. For casual games, it's cool and probably more interesting to totally avoid the card, but we're not going to be able to impose that on the competitive scene. I favor the banning of Datasucker because I think it would have a positive effect on the tournament scene.

[@Saracenar]

+Willingdone Yeah that's fair enough, it doesn't really bother me because I don't play competitive, at least not yet. And if I did it wouldn't be regularly. I'm more the type of player that prefers to try things other people aren't playing, so I get a better sense of accomplishment if I do win (although appropriately enough, I don't win that many games - some of that comes down to play style and not just deck construction though). So it's not really a big deal for me. Can I ask though, does that mean a Runner deck without Datasucker is far less likely to win a tournament or at least place favourably than a deck with it?

[@Willingdone]

Saracenar It's not so much that decks *must* include Datasucker. There have been quite a few competitive decks without it. It's just much easier to build a deck that uses it. A lot of the time when I'm trying to build a deck from scratch it usually turns into Datasucker + Mimic + Yog.0 simply because that's the best way to break Sentries and Code Gate in the game.

[@stul8449]

Agree with you primarily that influence was too generous; had they fixed that I think Anarch would have been a fascinatingly different faction you had to learn to play against and we wouldn't have seen Criminals and Shapers steal all toys. I was hoping that things like Hivemind would fix that, but sadly Order & Chaos gave Anarchs very little in terms of a new fundamental breaker style (with the exception of Eater, which was printed against a pretty devastating counter in Crisium).

[@Willingdone]

Stu L I largely agree with your assessment of Order and Chaos; it didn't really do that much to disrupt the fixed strength rig. That said, it did a ton of other interesting things for Anarch. We have options when it comes to economy. We no longer have to cram every economy tool that exists in our deck. We can pick and choose. I've Had Worse was a great addition. It gives us a much needed draw effect while also helping a ton against flatline strategies. Eater was a pretty awesome addition too since it's totally paralleled in the other factions. It's going to be hard to disrupt the fixed strength rig just by printing new options. That's why I'm in favor of removing Datasucker: I think it would open up a lot of design space for Anarch.

[@PhuKhan]

Totally agree about Datasucker.

[@thevilovian]

We need a new video of the new core.

[@crossbrainedfool]

On Corroder - the reason it's so efficient is twofold: first, this is supposed to be Anarch's most powerful breaker type. The other is a deliberate decision to make barriers the easiest to break. Why? Because "Yes, but..." is more interesting than "No." On Datasucker - influence is where this is a problem. In Anarch, you need something like this for the fixed strength breakers to be at all effective. Also, it doesn't boost Icebreaker strength booth a) so it can work with Parasite, and b) because boosting Icebreaker strength is a Shaper thing (Shapers build up, anarchs tear down). Bit tomato-tamahto, but important to the feel of the game. Ice Carver is Anarch. "All Icebreakers have their strength increased by one" is a Shaper effect, even if they're functionally very similar. Ice-Carver, interestingly, is the descendant of Clown, which was a non-unique program with same effect - and a balance problem in original Netrunner. Datasucker can't hold a candle to how broken Clown was. The end bit about influence costs was spot on. Corroder was right. Everything else (okay, maybe not Parasite) was to cheap on influence. I think the one-two punch FFG has tried to solve this with is interesting. They started printing Code Gates especially with bonkers strength (And I hope Sentries at some point as well) and printed D1V4D. For Anarchs, it's just a new problem+new solution situation, while for importing the suite the influence cost spikes dramatically.

[@KrystianMajewski]

crossbrainedfool Interesting! Clown was broken? How was it used? People would MU-up and install masses of clowns?

[@crossbrainedfool]

Usually with Daemons, but basicly that. Then you use fixed/low strength breakers to burn through everything. The core set Anarch breaker package is basicly the same gameplan with a balance pass. Yog.0 is even a straight reprint of Tinweasel (well, with an influence cost). Mimic is properly costed Codeslinger, etc. The main difference is relocating the Clown effect (to a resource, which is more attackable) and making it unique, and replacing it with Datasucker.

[@KrystianMajewski]

crossbrainedfool I would argue against Mimic being "properly costed". Also, if Code Gates are no longer the easiest to break now, Yog/Tinweasel is out of place too. As mentioned in my comment above, I think Datasucker is a Pattel's Virus gone wrong. In ANR, they decided to put counters only on virus cards only. Which is a good design decision. But it meant Pattel's Virus couldn't put virus counters on ICE anymore. So they made it into a paid ability and changed the "all its subroutines broken" restriction into a "central server" and "being encountered" restriction. Turns out it wasn't equivalent. :(

[@NawDawgTheRazor]

Sorry if it's a dumb question, but how do you know when a card is "unique?"

[@Willingdone]

Prothope Unique cards have a dot in front of their name like Ice Carver netrunnerdb.com/en/card/01015.

[@NawDawgTheRazor]

Oh cool thanks :D Great series btw, very professional and insightful.

[@Waggabagaboo]

Datasucker comments spot on. Patch should have also made the ICE it buffed indestructible.

[@Willingdone]

Waggabagaboo Patch certainly should've done more. My idea was to allow the player to rez the ICE (paying cost). I like your idea as well. It's too bad that Patch sucks.

[@TinoForever]

Excuse me, have you ever made a successful Demolition Run? It is amazing.

[@westfall300]

While I can agree that datasucker's interaction with a lot of other cards are somewhat OP and its existence is a source of problems for the design space, I do think that without it and parasite, runners would need a lot more ways to get around taxing servers than currently exists. It has always been the case that a very good way of losing as the runner, is to continually run and (fairly) pay through even moderately taxing servers without high quality accesses (or substitution effects). This of course is even more the case nowadays where corporations are much richer and thus can rez more ice.

[@Willingdone]

Rune Westphal I agree with most of what you're saying, though I reach different conclusions. First, I'm not sure if I made this clear in the video: I'd be in favor of removing only Datasucker from the card pool. Parasite should stay. Like I said in the video, most of the problems with Parasite are the ease of access to Datasucker. For most of the history of this game, Runner has been the better side. Pretty much the only period of Corp advantage was during the NEH boom and when RP first hit the scene. Since then, I think most people agree that Runner is back on top. An average Runner economy pretty significantly outpaces an average Corp economy, and even the very best Corp economies have trouble keeping up with a random Runner deck. If we can agree that Runner economy is stronger than Corp, then I think we can agree that Datasucker has something to do with that. Icebreakers on the whole are better than ICE. It's too easy to deal with even the very best ICE. This is mainly because it's so easy to import the breaker setup I discussed in the video and so easy to include Datasucker + Parasite in everything. An overwhelming majority of Runner decks have been designed to maximally exploit these cards. There are pretty minor differences deck-to-deck in breaker schemes. It's difficult to introduce new Corp economy tools to card pool because it's so easy to get into servers. The designers can't just print a bunch of Hedge Funds because it will make Corp economy too uniform. Assets on the whole are bad because the Runner can easily trash them. So what's left? I see removing Datasucker as a way to make Corp economies hold up a bit better, among other things.

[@crossbrainedfool]

Willingdone I actually think Cyberdex was attempt to change this up - if it's in archives, the runner can't accumate sucker tokens as easily. As for similarities - I actually think they've been hitting the list one by one. Eli is a corroder hoser (especially with Lady around). Yog.0 was hit by Lotus field, and more recently by high strength code gates (Wormhole, Checkpoint, Little Engine). Parasite was hit by Lotus, Architect, and Blue Sun. Mimic is the least untouched, and I'm fairly sure that that's next on the list.

[@Willingdone]

crossbrainedfool Agreed that the designers are making ICE to address some of the problems with these Icebreakers. Unfortunately, this is increasingly leading to specialized ICE that are really only good against an anticipated breaker. Maybe that's not a problem, but I tend to dislike this sort of design. I worry that we're going to end up with a piece of ICE that says something like "cannot be broken by Anarch cards." Shouldn't Runner have to tool his/her rig toward anticipated ICE more than Corp does the reverse? It seems to me that Corp should have more general use ICE and Runner should have more of the specialized solutions. Given the immense strength of the rig we've been talking about, the opposite seems to be true. Runners play the same rig they've been playing forever as Corps struggle to pack in ICE from every faction just to slow the Runner down.

[@crossbrainedfool]

Actually, I'd disagree. It's much easier to fit in specialty ice than Icebreakers into a deck (It's easy to throw in a swordsman, or swap Viktor 2.0 for Turing, for example). This is especially true in anarch, where tutors always cost influence. This is partially to do with the fact that # of Ice is way higher than # of icebreakers in a typical deck for each side. I agree with the need for attacks on the current rig - but that's more likely to come from a set of environmental changes rather than a single silver bullet. Silver bullets tend to be binary (Lotus Field, for example). I'd much rather see adaptable shifts from the corp (I'm still waiting for a advance for strength Code Gate - it would solve so many problems).

[@Willingdone]

crossbrainedfool I don't think we disagree on much. We're both describing a similar problem: Corps have a ton of cool specialized options but they don't really use them because Runners use such uniform rigs. Most of the cool specialized things that Runner has don't see a lot of play. I'd like to see more stuff like Deus X and Sharpshooter rather than stuff like Mimic. The Anarch fixed strength + Datasucker + David rig is too well-rounded. I'd like to see more gaps. I'd like that rig to be less comprehensive. You're right that the changes will come from a variety of cards, not silver bullets. That's how it should be IMO. That said, I worry that these changes will be extremely difficult to implement because of the strength of the Anarch rig we've been talking about. I think it would be better to undermine the rig with the removal of Datasucker than it would to print a bunch of solutions and hope they amount to something. An easy area of the design space that would help to disrupt the Anarch rig is Trap type ICE that have enough strength to survive Parasite. I'm not sure why we haven't seen this type of thing. I'd like to see a Trap that has 5+ strength. Another would be Program destruction effects that target low-cost programs e.g. Power Shutdown. Like I've said elsewhere, one of the major effects of this Anarch rig is that Icebreakers are far superior to ICE. This means that Runner economy is better than Corp economy. I'm not sure this can be corrected with the printing of new Corp economy tools. I'd rather see the Anarch rig bought down a peg so that it's on the same level as the other Icebreakers in the game.

[@DefiasBrotherhood]

Awesome idea for some new videos man! I like where you started and look forward to the future videos as well! And I have to agree with you on Data Sucker. I think the price is fine and the ability was designed well. But it should have been three or four influence. I’m leaning towards four. People complain about Account Siphon being overpowered but I think Data Sucker point for point is way more overpowered. It was way too easily splashable in other factions. I think that is one of the few flaws they made in the core set. Putting the influence on Anarch cards way, way too low.

[@Willingdone]

Seth Dortch Thanks! Pumping up Datasucker's influence would certainly be a good approach if we were to try to fix the card. I worry that Anarch would be extremely dominant with that change. Datasucker + Parasite + Fixed Strength + Barrier breaker of your choice is objectively the best rig in the game, and if only Anarch could use it, I'm not sure that the other two factions could compete without the printing of other extremely powerful breakers. Early in Netrunner, the change you proposed would've helped a lot, but that's mainly because Anarch economy was terrible. Post-Order and Chaos, I worry that boosting Datasucker's influence wouldn't have the intended effect. Anarch is already really strong in the current game because it gets to maximally exploit the rig I've been talking about. Agreed that the low influence thing is one of the only major flaws of the Core Set. I was a little reluctant to start with the Anarch video in the series because I don't want people to think that I think that the Core Set is poorly designed. It's a great box with lots of fantastic designs, but the influence issues have absolutely had lasting consequences. I propose the removal of Datasucker because I see it as the easiest solution for the modern game. If we had a chance to go back and redo the whole Core Set, Datasucker could probably stay. Without modifying a dozen cards, I see the removal of Datasucker as the simplest solution to this problem.

[@DefiasBrotherhood]

Willingdone I agree with you. I just don't know how they would implement it. Even with rotation the core set never rotates out. I guess they could put it on a banned or restrictive list. I would just hate to see Netrunner get one of those.

[@Willingdone]

Seth Dortch It's worth noting that they said that the most recent version of the Core Set will always be legal. In other words, if they re-release the Core Set as a "2.0" changes could be made. I'm not opposed to Banned/Restricted lists. Sure, they're kind of lame, and it sucks to own cards that you can't play with, but I'd rather have that inconvenience than deal with problems forever. Really, the only argument against Banned/Restricted lists is an philosophical one i.e. games shouldn't have Banned/Restricted lists because X, Y, or Z. Nobody likes Banned cards, but unfortunately, sometimes they are necessary.

[@DefiasBrotherhood]

I didn't notice the wording there. So that is very cool. A Core 2.0? Other than needing three copies of it, I like the idea. lol. I think it's a little worse in my head having a banned list. I don't mind not being able to use the card. I just think that it's admitting you had some poor design choices that have forced you to ban a card. But I do agree, sometimes there is no other option. The designers are only human after all.

[@Willingdone]

Seth Dortch Yeah, it's pretty easy for us to sit here after 100,000+ games have been played and say "wow this thing was a bad design." It's hard to hold the problems of Anarch against the designers because of how much they got right. Netrunner is such a fantastically designed game that I'm not going to complain too much about a few bad designs. That said, it's worth discussing these problems so that we don't repeat them in the future.

[@meyrrr007]

Being a player of the original NETRUNNER (awesome game) demolition run's apparent weakness or limitations was based on lessons Garfield learned in early MTG. Cards that could effect multiple game boards (power is an obvious example specifically time stop) at once proved to be to much. So I am assuming when the NETRUNNER re-vamp happened they took some of the elements from Garfield's NETRUNNER which specifically limited card interactions to no more than 2 game boards or positions. Loved global domination lol. Awesome video and I think I might get back into this one I like where it has gone.

[@Willingdone]

+meyrrr007 Do it! Android Netrunner is really great and fairly inexpensive to play. The game is at a really good stage with lots of tournaments and discussion online. There's a pretty wide range of decks at the top level of play and even wider at the casual level. It's a great game.

[@FranzBinder20]

So if you only have the card pool of the core set, what would you consider to be the strongest runner/corp? You are always talking about nerfing the anarch breaker suite, but as a beginner who only owns the core set I already find it difficult to play anarch because you need many cards to work together. The only fun part is, when I can manage that the viruses and breakers finally work together. So if you would weaken datasucker and parasite what would be left? Weak economy and ice breakers which are worthless against strong ice? (But I also think that the influence on those anarch cards should be higher as it seems to be the weakest faction in the core for me. At least then they should not get stolen their cards from other factions :-) As I am a beginner please correct me if I am wrong. Just sharing my own experiences.

[@Willingdone]

FranzBinder20 Hey, thanks for sharing! Welcome to Netrunner! It's seriously awesome! Just out of the Core Set, I'd say Criminal and HB are the strongest. Shaper and Jinteki are probably the weakest. There's not a huge gap, though, and many of these strengths and weaknesses were addressed by the printing of new cards. All of the factions have lots of good cards just in the Core Set. Keep in mind that my suggestions are for competitive/tournament play. I wouldn't recommend nerfing those cards for Core Set only play. I agree with you that without Datasucker and Parasite, Core Set Anarch would be pretty weak since its economy is so fragile. Competitive play has ≈650 unique cards beyond what's in the Core Set. The Core Set has a little over 100 unique cards. The card pool that I'm referring to when I say that I'd like to see Datasucker banned is much, much larger than only Core Set play. The issues I'm describing are the result of lots of cards being printed and lots of games being played. The balance issues I'm describing are very minor compared to most other card games I've played. Netrunner doesn't have broken cards. It doesn't have strategies that are so unbeatable that there's no reason to play anything else. The design is overall very well done. Like I've written elsewhere, the Core Set has a ton to do with the game's popularity. You get a good mix of interesting cards that represent the different strengths and weaknesses of the factions. A good percentage of the Core Set cards still see competitive play. My opinion about the Anarch breakers is derived from a huge community of smart people playing the game hundreds of thousands of times. I don't think these issues emerge just with Core Set play and shouldn't discourage you. If it weren't for the vast discussions of competitive Netrunner informed by tons of games played, I wouldn't have noticed these problems. They're pretty minor overall but worth talking about when reflecting on the Core Set from the perspective of someone who has played since release and is interested in tournament play. I hope this helps to explain where I'm coming from.

[@FranzBinder20]

Willingdone Ok thx for the detailed answer. My order arrived just now with the complete Genesis Cycle plus Creation & Control. I have to catch up on all those cards :-)

[@Willingdone]

FranzBinder20 Oh man! There's a lot of good stuff in there! Have fun!

[@NovaCyn]

I think you shouldn't have put SneakDoor in as an example of how criminal threatens HQ. They threaten the hand with that card, but the server it threatens is archives. If that makes sense.

[@Willingdone]

Phijkchu_Cute_Phijkchu Fair criticism. I probably should've used a different card in my example, though I think that the point I was making is valid. In terms of threatening the scoring of agendas, we can agree that Sneakdoor is more of a threat to HQ.

[@NovaCyn]

Yea definitely, thats why i said it "pressures the hand" making having cards in HQ (in the hand) harder, but sneakdoor, much like noises ability, retrival run and such, makes archives a server you need to protect. It does not warent more HQ ice. Its a minor detail, and your point is spot on, i think we can all agree that is how the game is, and plenty of other blue cards fit the slot so well, Legwork and HQI being so easy to mention.

[@Willingdone]

Phijkchu_Cute_Phijkchu Yeah, you're right, though I think we're having a semantics discussion about "threaten" i.e. does "threaten" refer to the potential damage or the necessitated defense.

[@NovaCyn]

Oh I was going the way of saying the ambiguity is on the term "HQ" reffering both to the server and the contents. But yea I can see 'threatening' is also ambiguous here. Funny how we can discuss our agreement :P Love the fact you keep up with comments like this and don't take my notes as negative, great having people recognize the difference even in text. Much love

[@bertamon]

Won't stop complaining about the power of combo datasucker + parasite/mimic/yog. Then at the end says relying on combo cards is bad.

[@Willingdone]

+bertamon I think you're missing one of my biggest points about Datasucker: it's not a "combo card," at least in the way that I meant it later in the video. To the contrary, the core problem with Datasucker is that it’s too easy to derive value from it, and it removes limitations from too many other cards. In the section of the video where I say that combo cards are generally bad, I’m talking about Adjusted Chronotype. My main beef with this type of card is that it doesn’t do anything on its own i.e. Adjusted Chronotype requires Wyldside (and only Wyldside) in order to realize its value. In most cases, these narrow use cards are unplayable because the value derived from them is not worth the setup time or “dead” deck slots. Conversely, Datasucker works with a HUGE list of other good cards -- nearly every icebreaker, Parasite, Grimoire, Desperado, Security Testing, etc, -- and is therefore very easy to use. This is the exact opposite problem that I was describing with “combo cards” like Adjusted Chronotype. Does that help make sense of this apparent contradiction?

[@bertamon]

+Willingdone I was mostly just poking fun.