I didn't think it was broken, but it did put the danger and made every run potentially hazardous if you got caught with a tag. I guess they wanted new Netrunner to be more new player friendly but with that being said I feel that the even more suspense in netrunenr has been removed and we are just back to high efficiency glacier/fast advance type decks. That being said does anyone feel threatened by flatlineing anymore?

I think it went because they wanted the design space so they can do more with tags than just bag.

2 hours ago, Mep said:

I think it went because they wanted the design space so they can do more with tags than just bag.

Well you did have closed accounts with NBN. Also with the high influence cost unless your entire deck was designed by tag and bag you wouldn't see it outside of a Wayland deck. Yes I know most butcher shops were NBN but again that would be all the influence and it is pretty easy to tell when you are up against a Butcher shop NBN.

I don't know I just kind of want runs to have some sort of threat element to them. Right now I think the closest we have is snare from Jentiki. But yeah tags should be punishing but not game ending. I guess we need to find another way to put in a threat of flatlining if the runner was not prepared for such an event.

I suspect, though it is only that, that we will probably see a rough correlation of 1 tag = risk of tag punishment, 2 tags = lots of meat damage as the new normal. 2 tags + double = Boom. Plus I think we'll see more Weyland cards like Punitive which do meat damage when non-tag conditions are met.

In a core set designed as an introduction for new players, Scorched Earth is just too intimidating for new player runners as games tend to go along the lines of "I'm doing well! I'm doing well! I might win. I'm dead again." Punitive + other sources of mini meat damage is probably more fun for new players on both sides. Corp gets a sense of achievement when they pull of a flat line and runner gets obvious counter plays.

Pretty much exactly that. In interviews, Damon said that Scorched Earth existing really put a design constraint on the team, because why would you do thing X with tags when you could just kill and win? If I tag the runner, I could Close his Accounts and open a scoring window, or just end his life.

People have been so dead set on avoiding any and all tags at any cost for so long, I wonder if we'll ever get over it.

Also the flatline threat isn’t gone it just takes some setup. And of course the changes overall benefitted Jinteki (the trap people) big time. We may see the return of Jinteki kill decks especially with Ronin and Swordsman and such in Core now.

I think I'm glad Scorched Earth is gone. The games of "Doing well. Now dead." were never any fun, and their threat put serious constraints on deckbuilding because you always had to plan for its possibility. I'm glad it looks like the new philosophy has made flatline harder to achieve. The game has always been a game of bluff and counter-bluff centered around the agendas with flatline and decking the corp as interesting alternate win-cons. Both alternate win-conditions should be harder to achieve than the primary win condition of "score 7 points." They should take very focused deckbuilding and play choices.

1 hour ago, Mathom1 said:

I think I'm glad Scorched Earth is gone. The games of "Doing well. Now dead." were never any fun, and their threat put serious constraints on deckbuilding because you always had to plan for its possibility. I'm glad it looks like the new philosophy has made flatline harder to achieve. The game has always been a game of bluff and counter-bluff centered around the agendas with flatline and decking the corp as interesting alternate win-cons. Both alternate win-conditions should be harder to achieve than the primary win condition of "score 7 points." They should take very focused deckbuilding and play choices.

On alternate win conditions it is harder but only in comparison of what the other side had to do with their primary win conditions. Sure as far as winning on alternate win conditions it is easier for the Corp to flat line the runner than it is for Runner to mill R&D. But again when it came to primary victory by scoring agendas unless it was an Agenda like NAPD contract the runner just had to access the card. Also you didn't see Runners milling a lot of decks because by the time the Corp was in danger of being milled the Runner would likely win on a run in the Archives pulling all the discarded agendas from there.

So yeah the Corp had an easier alternate win condition from the Runner only because their primary win condition was harder than that of the runner. And to be fair the Runner's alternate win conditions wasn't exactly a goal of the Runner as much as it was a failure condition for the Corp. Something to put the Corp on the clock so that they just don't try and stall out the game.

But as for scorched lately it wasn't really that much of a threat because runners were good at keeping their grip to max size before a run. But yeah running has lost a lot of its threat. Right now the worst that could happen in a run is you are taxed out to give the corp a scoring window. You almost have to commit suicide to be flatlined as a runner.