I've seen several agendas (hostile takeover, and breaking news) that can be scored with no response from the runner. If i recall correctly, there were no agendas in original NR (or one, i'd have to check) that were scorable with only 2 advancement tokens. 2 advancement means that the corp can install, advance, advance and score the agenda in the same turn, disallowing the runner a chance to interact with the corp.

I hope there are not many of these types of agendas, as it allows the corp to score without having to protect the dataforts, and seems a bit annoying for the runner to put up with. Of course, the runner can try to get these out of the corp's hand by running there, but this will be all the more difficult, as the corp can consolidate its ice to better protect its hand, since extra ice on agenda dataforts are not needed.

Thoughts?

The corps deck will be packed with agandas making runs on R&D and HQ more effective. And if you spend your entire turn scoring 1 agenda then you are not installing ice nor gaining bits to rez anything. Scoring out-of-hand makes for a cool finisher but it's too early to tell if this will be a viable strategy yet.

I'm sure they tested the concept. FFG are not clowns, and they certainly had that in mind when they put a '2' in the corner of an agenda. I just hope they proceed with extra caution.

There is also the possibility that no one corp has access to lots of 2 "cost" agendas. I'll have to take a look at the corps for the "quick score" agendas that I mentioned. See if they are both the same corp.

Your point about doing nothing other than scoring the agenda… I hear you, but I'm also scoring 7 bits (for example). Most agendas have a score effect, which makes scoring them almost like being rewarded extra actions. Sorry, I need to get in the habit of calling them by their proper name now! Clicks .

With the almost certain assumption being correct, that corp decks are required to include a certain number of agenda points, trying to cram the required amount of agendas in your deck that are of the quick score variety also means that you will have many more agendas, per card in deck, than if you were to include some bigger scoring ones. This should also make quick score agendas less desirable.

AussieKSU said:

Hostile Takeover is Weyland, Breaking News is NBN. Of course, we don't know how many more there will be yet.

AussieKSU said:

Maybe FFG will include a section in the rules stating that agendas may not be scored the same turn they are installed.

Where these 2 'Advancement' Agendas could spoil the game is in close finishes. If the Corp just needs 1 point to win, but the Runner has programs and 'Bits' - sorry, old habits - to break through, it would make an easy win. The old method was to put down an Agenda in one fort and an Ambush Node in another and then pray. There were the odd cards that allowed extra actions and/or extra Advancement tokens, but you had to find them. My main reason for limiting my decks to only 1 of each card, was to stop too much of the being able to search for just the card you wanted. With a limit of 4 of each of these powerful cards, the game boiled down to getting these and little choice of what to grab as another would turn up soon. My favourite type of game is one where nothing is an instant win, but you adapt to what you do get and what your opponent does. A bit of luck should just give you a bit of an advantage for a while, not an automatic win. I have seen so many players play for a few turns and give up if they or there opponent got that 'killer' card first. You appreciate things if you worked hard for them and a close fought loss is just as fulfilling. Cheers!

My old cheey combo was installing a virus node, and advancing it 3 times. Then in a subsequent turn, instal an agenda, and play an op to move the advancement tokens from the virus node to the agenda, and score it.

I also have no idea what the previous ban list was in tournament play.

I found the aforementioned strategy to be very cheap, but yet very powerful. Being able to score an agenda when it is unexposed in a datafort is very meh. The 2 score agendas kind of follow that same cheezyness. There used to be very high cost ops (12 bits I think) that allowed multiple advancement tokens to be placed, thus allowing you to score an agenda without runner reaction.

I do understand that your hand is vulnerable, but not having to defend dataforts means that ice gets consolidated on R&D and hand.

I'm pretty sure we can bet that FFG won't invent a rule that specific cards they've created to be able to be scored in a single turn cannot be scored in a single turn… that is just bad design.

In a game where you only have one of every card there is both far more luck and far more play skill equired, while having a strict limit on how many times a card can appear in your deck puts a fair amount of skill in the deck building, while still requiring play skill and luck to come into play. I played a Game of Thrones yesterday where all my opponents locations were in the botom third of his deck. He did not see one single location the whole game, each location was in his deck x3 and 25% of his deck was locations. Probability is a *****, Just because statistically something should show up with a given frequency doesn't mean it will. You've got anomolies that balance out those god hands where you get everything you need right when you need.

Getting lucky enough to get that 1 turn scoreable agenda when you are one point away is not something you can depend on. Also the nmber of agendas you'd need in your deck to match the required agenda points is going to making protecting your hand, your archive, and your deck problematic… especialy given that there are going to be times when you are drawing these weenie agendas instead of ice you need to protect them in said places. The corp was always light on search effects, I doubt this is likely to change.

I refuse to worry about it until it has proven to be problematic. Besides, FFG has a long history of balancing mechanics and cards like this with other mechanics or cards.

Two cards got banned in classic NR: Enterprise Shields Inc (protection against net/brain damage that was ridiculously cheap) and Tycho Extension (4/4 agenda). The other problem cards got minor errata. misc.for.sale, Viral Code Cache and Precision Bribery had their trashing effects made unpreventable, Viral Pipeline was made Unique. There are probably a couple others along those lines.

There was a Golden Loop deck for the corp - it was 18 3/1 agendas, 6 each of the 3 agendas that reduced the difficulty of each other's keywords. Once you scored one of them, you could start scoring the next type in line out of hand, which would reduce the difficulty of the next time and so on until you could just install and score the final agenda without needing to advanced. The problem is that the deck was 40% agenda. Big fat target.

That's the problem with any 1 point agenda - it dilutes your deck. It means there are more opportunities for the runner to steal and it means you have fewer non-agenda cards to protect data forts or fuel your economy. I had a hard enough time justifying using 2 point agendas. I always tried to use 6 3-point agendas to narrow the attack window. That aside…

Aside from the one agenda point, Breaking News has no benefit if you score it out of hand. Hostile Takeover has mediocre bit gain (+5 bits for 3 actions) plus a Bad Publicity point. The latter is particularly dangerous because Bad Publicity is in the core set this time around. You have to expect that any runner, no matter how green, could be playing it.

It certainly puts pressure on the runner. Once NBN or Wey reach 6 agenda, they are a top-deck away from winning.

Hmm, just some thoughts about NBN's Breaking News. I always thought is odd that it granted two temporary tags. Now don't get me wrong, I understand why multiple tags are a good thing for a corp, but since these new tags are only temporary, why two? Tagged is tagged right?

Now this could indicate a few things.

• This could just be for thematic's sake. I mean, it's a fairly flavoursome card, tracking the "Runner" live for all the viewing audience to see* it's pretty damning evidence for the Runner to shake off, so they would have to pull of some slick moves to escape detection. Leading to..
• .. A feasible means of forcing the Runner to burn through credits and resources- could mean a return of the Nasuko Cycle for the Runner?
• Failing that, maybe NBN has some heavy hitters that require multiple tags to operate? Now there weren't many of these in the original game (3 if I recall) but could this be more prevalent in the new game?

I have a feeling that tagging play would be forte of NBN, having eyes all over NA and generally being omniscient as the media giant that it is. It wouldn't surprise me if the equivalent of that killer card City Surveillance didn't fall under NBN. I'm just curious as to what end though- big finishers, as typical of conventional Tag n' Bag play? or perhaps something more insidious like starving the Runner of credits?

All in all, as much as the 2/1 cost surprised me at first, it has grown on me due to the potential this card offers whilst still being thematically sound- and pretty cool at the same time "Man, even on my Nasuko they were still on my tail! I think I shook them off in the eastside tenements… Shame about Ms. Melman though.."

(*it's all fake, don't believe the media's lies!)

Psychographics is already a pretty good finisher for NBN. Load the runner up with tags and then cheaply score a high difficulty agenda in one turn.

Treguard said:

We've already seen Psychographics : Cost X bits: X is equal to or less than the number of tags the Runner has. Place X advancement tokens on a card that can be advanced.

Just like the media. "Look over here, we have the Runner!" "Quick, advance our Manturian Candidate Agenda."

Whoops, I guess I let that slip by me. Glad to see that they seem all about the tags.