Hey-O, Everyone!

I want to ask the experienced players how they feel about the new restricted and removed list for ANR? Do you all feel that it ultimately helps the game move forward, or does this more indicate serious problems in the development teams? Thanks!

I'm excited about the list.

Deck building with it has been fun and the games I've played have been fun. More fun than games without the list.

Development errors are inevitable with any card game and I am happy we have an efficient way of dealing with them.

I don't have a great frame of reference to figure out if the number of cards on MWL 2.0 represent serious problems in the development teams. Most card games have banned and sometimes restricted cards, though I haven't crunched the numbers to figure out if the size of MWL 2.0 is extraordinary.

Regardless, I would like for development to catch all cards that push the game in a direction we don't want it to go, but short of that, I am glad we have a good recourse for the cards that slip through.

From what I've seen it has been met with nearly universal appeal.

But that said, you're not *entirely* wrong about the development teams. The ban list has 7/11 cards which were designed by Damon in the last two cycles. Three of the remainder were Political or Alliance cards, which were novel mechanics introduced in the Mumbad cycle. The last, Faust, also tried to use card draw as an alternate resource. Damon was a great proponent of pushing the power level of the game overall, and of introducing new ways for the game to be played. (And one of them was probably a box warmer that happened to enable a specific abusive combo, but that's a risk with any card that doesn't have built in limitations.)

Now that Damon has moved on (nothing should be inferred from this; his wife took a job opportunity in California) it would be difficult for *any* new designer to pick up and carry those design intentions forward. Imagine replacing the lead singer/guitarist of a band and expecting him or her to write and play music just like the former front person. So, even if Boggs does intend to get creative with the game, it only makes sense to roll back to a more basic metagame.

That makes a lot of sense, designers initially asking the question, "How do we make the game experience better rather than how do evolve the gameplay into something deeper," like asking, "How do we make a better Star Wars film," instead of, "Where do we take the Star Wars universe?"

But this paradigm of game making does seem to imply a reachable limit of what cards can be made before power creep or brokenness occurs. I hope this new cycle resets us all back to good games on the table.

I gotta say, I wouldn't want Boggs' job. That's the challenge--some power creep is inevitable, otherwise new cards aren't worth playing, and when you start coloring outside the lines you risk enabling broken combos or obsoleting older strategies.

I am a big fan of the new NAPD, I even started a separate thread on it.

The way it is built now makes using it in deckbuilding easer, and combined with the "soft ban" of Core 2.0 and also Rotation I think they have nailed almost all of the toxic stuff that was out there.

I love Damon, but I also completely agree with the cards that got nixed from the last two cycles. I ESPECIALLY agree Faust had to go - in combo with a fair number of cards letting the Runner draw over their hand limit and also Runner having plentiful recursion it made Faust play like Yog almost. So to be consistent with the reasoning behind killing Yog either Faust had to go or they would have to restrict both Faust and all the cards letting the Runner draw cards.

I REALLY hope what we are seeing here is a new design rule where Runner NEVER gets to break subroutines for free or for something renewable like cards. It always should be either clicks or credits.

Yes, I'm hoping for a resurgence in the game without complexity getting in the way. I would love to walk into a game store and see twenty people playing.

I may need an update. I like the new most wanted but are the original core set, Genesis cycle and Spin cycle out of standard game play? Couldn't find anything to confirm this.

Yes, they rotated out late October/early November.