Yeah, ending a turn with 3 cards in hand against a corp that you aren't certain isn't running Scorched is bad play, sorry. So is not running on unrezzed ice. If you don't force the corp to spend money then there will always be that money sitting there to prevent you from running later. Run early, absolute worst case is you take a few damage and draw back up, or you get tagged and shake it.
Scorched Earth
Whoops, did not realize the whole "if you cannot discard, then flatline" part of the rules. See it now, its right there in the Damage section, surprised I missed it.
Still, it would be nice if they included that little aspect in the wording of the damage type itself. On my initial reading it felt as if that was all there was to know (that all you do is discard a card at random).
No, actually it could not have played out the same in the original - you should probably check your own memory before making snarky comments about someone else's. Chance Observation cost 2, and Urban Renewal cost 6. It also required the runner to actually do something, which the current does not - which may not have come up in that specific game, but is certainly relevant.
The "bad play" discussions are awesome in hindsight, but stupid. "Always run on ICE!" right? And if the ICE had been a Data Raven, the game is just as over - Corp is left with 1 bit but can tag the runner at will. Take two bits, Raven them for the tag, drop the Renewal, and it's over. Theorycrafting is bad enough, but hindsight strategic analysis is even worse. Or the node could easily be a Ghost Branch, and it's all over too. That's part of the problem - it's not even really a combo. There are so many ways to unavoidably tag the runner that Urban Renewal can combine with any of 3-4 other cards perfectly well..
I understand this is not the original Netrunner - obviously - but it uses the same rules and many of the same cards, and that means they can be compared and contrasted. When you start with something that was pretty well balanced, then you make it far easier for the Corp to tag during their turn, harder for the runner to avoid tags, and cut the cost for a game-ending play in half, it's hard to see how it stays balanced.
I never said it wasn't avoidable, but I don't think the avoidance techniques are balanced. "Keep 4 cards in your hand at all time or you're playing badly" is not a balanced answer. It effectively makes every card play the runner does cost an extra click as they're forced to draw the card back.
What's more, that's the ONLY real way to avoid it. The faction-limited nature of the few tag avoidance options means they aren't practical across the board. Again, looking to the original, there were a number of options the Runner could take - link enhancement, tag avoidance from any of a half-dozen options, forcing the corp to stay poor (keeping them below 8 is far easier than keeping them below 5). None of that is really viable any more.
Is it a guaranteed beat-everything card? Of course not, but it doesn't have to be for it to be unbalanced.
Urban Renewal was a completely different card (cost 6, 5 meat damage) in the original game and no one used it.
Corps used Scorched Earth which, aside from factioning, is exactly the same in Android. Tag N Bag was gloriously fast and deadly in the original game. My Corp deck used Fetal AI, Trojan Horse and Scorched Earth to finish Runners off before they even knew they were facing a Tag N Bag deck.
ffaristocrat said:
Urban Renewal was a completely different card (cost 6, 5 meat damage) in the original game and no one used it.
Corps used Scorched Earth which, aside from factioning, is exactly the same in Android. Tag N Bag was gloriously fast and deadly in the original game. My Corp deck used Fetal AI, Trojan Horse and Scorched Earth to finish Runners off before they even knew they were facing a Tag N Bag deck.
Whoops, got my damagers mixed up. My bad - I preferred Urban Renewal personally, but always aimed for I Got a Rock because it was cool
Then yes, I concur that the same could have occurred - but I still very much maintain that it's gotten far easier to do now, and far harder to stop. If it happened in the original, I could easily say "Well, you should probably keep more cards in your hand, OR make sure you have a link set up before you run, OR have a Cycle OR Weeflerunner OR any of these six other cards to avoid the tag." The counter options now are far, far smaller.
You cannot look at the number of tag avoidance options the Runner had before, and say it's easier for the Runner to avoid tags. You also cannot look at the number of direct-tag options the Corp has now, and say it's gotten harder for the Corp to tag the Runner.
If Tag N Bag was "gloriously fast and deadly" in the original, and the new one makes tagging easier and tag avoidance harder, what does that make it now?
In the original, 20% of my Tag N Bag deck was Scorched Earths. Now you can only have 3. Until more meat damage shows up, it's going to be hard to build a deck that reliably kills the Runner in a short period of time.
The factions also give you a heads up of what to expect. Weyland will have it and Scorched Earth has very heavy influence cost for the other factions to use it. NBN is likely to be bringing it in but that means it won't be able to import the run-ending ice that it desperately needs.
In contrast, Decoy is only a point of influence and Crash Space is reasonable as well.
Data Raven? Corp rezzes it (at no small cost), you decide to end the run rather than take the tag. Then you run somewhere else. Now the corp doesn't have the money to go after you. Or you run somewhere else first, force the corp to spend money there and then walk past the Data Raven to steal Breaking News.
Can the corp get lucky? Sure. So can the Runner if they hit R&D three times their first turn and pull nothing but agendas… which is more likely in the new version between the increased agenda requirement and the available cards.
You can't jack out after the data raven gets rezzed. Your chance to end the run was before he rezzed the ice.
That said, I don't believe Scorched is broken or unbalanced at all. As stated, you can only have 3, it's completely shut down by several easily available low-influence runner cards, and its unlikely to show up in non-Weyland decks without severely hurting the rest of the deck because of the high influence cost. It's a powerful card that can end games, but that doesn't make it broken. Several things need to fall in place for that to happen and if they do, congrats, you took a a risk and it paid off.
There's also the slightly metagamey concern that corp decks that can only really win via flatlining suffer because they score no or very few points in a loss, leading to a very difficult time winning tiebreakers in 1-1 matches.
ffaristocrat said:
In the original, 20% of my Tag N Bag deck was Scorched Earths. Now you can only have 3. Until more meat damage shows up, it's going to be hard to build a deck that reliably kills the Runner in a short period of time.
The factions also give you a heads up of what to expect. Weyland will have it and Scorched Earth has very heavy influence cost for the other factions to use it. NBN is likely to be bringing it in but that means it won't be able to import the run-ending ice that it desperately needs.
In contrast, Decoy is only a point of influence and Crash Space is reasonable as well.
Data Raven? Corp rezzes it (at no small cost), you decide to end the run rather than take the tag. Then you run somewhere else. Now the corp doesn't have the money to go after you. Or you run somewhere else first, force the corp to spend money there and then walk past the Data Raven to steal Breaking News.
Can the corp get lucky? Sure. So can the Runner if they hit R&D three times their first turn and pull nothing but agendas… which is more likely in the new version between the increased agenda requirement and the available cards.
ffaristocrat said:
In the original, 20% of my Tag N Bag deck was Scorched Earths. Now you can only have 3. Until more meat damage shows up, it's going to be hard to build a deck that reliably kills the Runner in a short period of time.
A lot of people seem to be focusing on the first- or second-turn kill as the only use for this. It's not. It can end a game just as reliably fifteen minutes in. The same argument could also be made for the counters - it's going to be hard to build a deck that has any reliable safety from tagging when there are only 3 in there.
ffaristocrat said:
The factions also give you a heads up of what to expect. Weyland will have it and Scorched Earth has very heavy influence cost for the other factions to use it. NBN is likely to be bringing it in but that means it won't be able to import the run-ending ice that it desperately needs.
In contrast, Decoy is only a point of influence and Crash Space is reasonable as well.
The problem with this is that the defenses are classic silver bullets. It was argued above that this wasn't overdone because smart play could make the Scorched Earth a dead card; what happens when you have to build 2/3 of your influence for something the corp may not be playing?
ffaristocrat said:
Data Raven? Corp rezzes it (at no small cost), you decide to end the run rather than take the tag. Then you run somewhere else. Now the corp doesn't have the money to go after you. Or you run somewhere else first, force the corp to spend money there and then walk past the Data Raven to steal Breaking News.
Except that you can't just end the run if it's the first piece of ICE. And if you don't break it, you not only have a tag but hand the corp the ability to tag you at will on their turn, for no cost. That makes Data Raven an incredibly dangerous piece of ICE to run against. Your second scenario assumes a dumb corp player. If my entire objective is to tag you, I'm not going to spend all my money rezzing something that won't accomplish that. If you haven't got a Sentry breaker in place, you're utterly hosed by a Data Raven. Who cares if you steal the agenda at that point? You're still tagged, and I can still tag you during my turn while you can't do anything about it. What's worse, you just handed me the ability to dig for the Scorched Earth I need, and finish you off as soon as it shows up.
ffaristocrat said:
Can the corp get lucky? Sure. So can the Runner if they hit R&D three times their first turn and pull nothing but agendas… which is more likely in the new version between the increased agenda requirement and the available cards.
I'm still not sure how exactly it counts as "getting lucky" or "requiring too many things to go right" to have a single card plus any of the 3-4 ways which exist to easily and unavoidably tag the runner. A lot of those who think it's fine seem to be focusing very heavily on a multi-Scorched, multi-turn Agenda operation. It's really not. Forcing the Runner to never hold fewer than 4 cards at the end of their turn is unbalanced. Forcing EVERY non-criminal deck to spend 9 of their influence on counters for this is unbalanced. Honestly, I think it's highlighting a rather dramatic failing of the faction system as a whole. NetRunner presented a number of offensive and defensive vectors on both sides. Part of the balance of the game is that you had to cover all those vectors - ignore tag defense, you're in trouble. Run with no Sentry breakers or link, you're in trouble. Run a single type of ice, it's trivial for the Runner. But the faction system has made it so not every faction has the core defenses necessary. It's a lack of tag avoidance outside of Criminals, or the lack of Codebreakers in them.
Again, I expect it to get better in time with expansions, but NetRunner was really badly suited to a faction split, IMHO. In the long run, each faction is going to need each ability, which just means duplicated cards. Which is, of course, probably the point.
Bah. Sorry for the bad quoting. Hate this board software
I can understand the concern with Scorched Earth. Or actually the problem is Breaking News (especially this), Posted Bounty and Data Raven, not the Scorched Earth. I think Netrunner should be about interaction between players and zero interaction win combos should not be possible (like Breaking News + 2x Scorched Earth). It doesn't even make sense thematically how NBN can know the runner without him running even once. This combo is very hard to pull off but the problem is that even exists. IMO the great thing about original Netrunner was that runner understood that running will have consequences but you also knew when you were safe. I hope designers understand the player interaction between players which made original Netrunner IMO great.
Breaking News can become the real problem. Handing tags easily can make things unbalanced in future. Breaking News makes very hard to make reprint of I Got a Rock and it can limit other design space also. When you design a new card with requiring tagging you have to think Breaking News carefully every time so the new card will not be unbalanced. My main gripe with FFG LCGs is usually that I feel the games lack a designer with a long term and deeper vision. It is understandable because FFG is mainly a board game company and they change the designers in LCGs a lot.
Anyway I don't think the situation is bad at all now. The reprint is super amazing. I hope FFG handles it with care. I like the factions a lot also but widely used cards (defensive cards especially) should be neutral.
*double post* This forum really is not very great.
JoshTheStampede said:
You can't jack out after the data raven gets rezzed. Your chance to end the run was before he rezzed the ice.
Runner decided to jack out or not (as long as this is not the first ice encountered during the run). Ice is then approached. If it is unrezzed, the corp may choose to rez the ice. Rezzed ice is then encountered.
Data Raven reads:
When the Runner encounters Data Raven, he or she must either take 1 tag or end the run.
Hosted power counter: Give the Runner 1 tag.
[subroutine] Trace3 - If successful, place 1 power counter on Data Raven.
You're right, the chance to jack out has passed by the time corp rezzes Data Raven. However, Data Raven gives the runner another option to end run when the ice is encountered.
I won with dual Scorched Earths today, though it took a long time to set it up. Basically, it got down to the point where I had a strength 12 Hadrians wall behind one of the ICEs that tags the runner. I had 6 agenda points scored, and another agenda one point away from being scored. I had the 2 cost 1 point agenda in hand.
These were the runner's options:
R&D: uncertain reward
HQ: uncertain reward, but with the server upgrade, he only had a 1/7 chance of getting the one agenda point that was there:
Remote Server Agenda:
Possibilities
1) Block the tag, not have enough bits to get through Hadrian's Wall. Corp win.
2) Take the tag, get through all ICE, steal the agenda. Lose on my turn when I score my last point
3) Take the tag, get through all ICE, steal the agenda. Lose on my turn to 2x Scorched Earths
Had he somehow been able to avoid the tag AND steal the agenda, he still would have lost.
Granted, I had one of those two Scorched Earths in my hand from turn 1, but he also had bad cards throughout the game and, to his credit, did his best to avoid taking tags.
Can't see what any of you wrote.
Forum is screwed up.
Everyone's posts are cut off to the right.
Unquoted because I've seen the board software being flaky
Oldschool tag-n-bag was only ever a mediocre archetype, IIRC. Because of the oldschool deck construction rules, if it wasn't degenerate in some way, it didn't stand up to the competition. That being said, I'm surprised City Surveillance hasn't been mentioned in this conversation.
As for the current discussion of SE, I'm in the "Strong but not broken/OP" camp. Yes, 4 meat is good, but the influence cost of putting it into non-Weyland is pretty prohibitive. Compared to the cost of the runner putting in Crash Space, a card I consider universally useful, I don't believe it's worth the effort at this point to build a deck which fully intends to win via meat flatline, (meatline?). Down the road when there are more meat damage options, this analysis will probably change. However, I have considered putting a single SE into decks just for the chance in the mid to late game of catching the runner with his pants down. IMO, the surprise factor the corp has is one of it's biggest assets, and suddenly dropping SE unexpectedly when previous play hasn't hinted that it might be in the deck is a game-winning play.
And now it's flaky in a new and interesting way. Yay.