Blamechanger (1st, 2nd NYC 1st, 3rd YVR SC)

Credit to @rongydoge for all images.

2 Corinthians 12

leave my poor sweet vacheron alone :(

I love the "What to Ban" section! :D

0/10

Lack of graphs, doesn’t address tempo nor utility, “hella” is used, there are 6 campaigns without breaker bay grid, and sports is spelled with a ‘Z’.

Well that's the first time I've been accused of arrogance by a man comparing himself to Jesus.

Wow. Local dominant testing group dominates local tournament. Huge news.

I'm just gonna move these goalposts and not believe you until it happens in Germany.

I feel this is unnecessarily aggressive towards the SBL, which are a volunteer group.

It's "lo," not "low." Deck looks solid, by the way.

It is writes up like this, that makes me glad I'm stepped away from SBL testing

In the SBT, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the testing diehards, who play 1000 games and come to the wrong conclusions anyway, and the elite, who post perfectly formulated opinions based on zero data 2 hours before release.

These... are their stories.

COUNTER OFFER:

Don't ban anything from this deck and there exists one hero who can fight both the 419 & apoc lists. This deck is the champion that fights for those who just can't afford to rez ice in the face of the doofpocalypse.

@solemn_storm, that made me laugh really hard.

@solemn_storm '@rongydoge DUN-DUNNN!

I agree with david707, this writeup feels a bit unnecessarily aggressive towards a team of volunteers, and I'd invite you to reconsider the tone of it.

Banning Game Changer or Vacheron doesn't necessarily need to be a one-or-the-other mutually exclusive thing. Yes, fake points can be problematic, but that doesn't detract from Game Changer also being very problematic. Sokka made a great case for why this is the case in the shadow net episode 9.

Case for why this is the case? Bleh, words are hard,

This deck is countered really hard by Clot. For any competitive deck for the current meta, where HB PD is among the favorite, Clot should be common.

Project Vacheron is a great agenda and is just as powerful for HB as Obokata Protocol, City Works Project and Bellona are in their respective faction.

Personally, I think the card to ban, in HB, would be Biotic Labor. Forcing HB decks to spend influence out of faction to score a card out of hand with nothing on the board.

@diogene but clot does nothing Vs PD.

Also this deck really doesn't care about clot all that much. You have RLC + CVS, or you can take a turn to purge, it doesn't really slow the deck down that much.

Also clot does literally nothing vs PD, as mentioned.

Also banning biotic, christ, is this what we've come to

I think this writeup is unnecessarily offensive to some people that do good work for free for the game i love and i want to express that i am not agreeing neither with the way of presentation nor the content of it.

But this deck has only one CVS and no way of tutoring it? Forcing purges until vacheron ticks out seems fine to me. Not saying the decks isnt good because clot exists. Just that clot is a valid counterplay which significantly improves the matchup (even if it is not an autowin by any means)

Also agree that the tone of the writeup seems unnecessarily aggressive

I also disapprove of the tone, hopefully people in the SBT will see the comments that do so. Any work done to keep Netrunner alive is very much appreciated and should not ridiculed.

"this is the age of 419, any deck that beats it is NPE"

PD rush still feels fine to me against 419.

It's a dumb combo deck, just score agendas or whatever

So having an agenda and a FA tool counts as combo now?

Deck doesn't look that broken to me, but we'll see if it is. I would have imaginded Vacheron's popularity declining in a meta where the two best decks either have Imp (Maxx) or Stargate (Apoc Loup). And as others mentioned, Clot is very accessible in Maxx and I would imagine Apoc Shaper.

You have RLC + CVS, or you can take a turn to purge, it doesn't really slow the deck down that much.

Decks that have Clot have Simulchip in abundance, so taking a turn off to purge doesn't seem that threatening to runners. But this is all mental gymnastics, not sure how it actually plays out.

Also maybe runners being down on strength right now can distort the percieved power levels of corp decks.

Don't worry Whiteblade, all the anger and helplessness is gone when puperty ends.

Well, I'm convinced now that the fast advance tools should not be banned. Biotic Labor, Audacity, Seamless Launch, SanSan City Grid and La Costa Grid are all fine tools that goes into a certain type of deck. Runners optimized for such deck would probably struggle against other archetypes, which is fine by me.

On top of Clot, let's all remember a shaper tool that is all too often not used : The Price of Freedom. This would be an even harder counter for any fast advance deck (for any deck for that matter). The last time I saw that card used to great effect was in @Klokotze no run deck (an amazing deck).

As for the tone, it is probably meant to be "clickbait" rather than mean. And it worked. We are discussing the decklist of next week. I enjoy large discussions about deck building and deck archetypes.

I'm here to say that the tone is fine and I'm tired of this "but they're volunteers!!" excuse in response to a molecule of criticism against Nisei, let alone the satircally hyperbolic kind. There will NEVER be a time when everyone accepts the ban list for what it is, so stop pretending like making memes is somehow "too aggressive." Stop making people feel bad for expressing opinions.

@Diogene I assume the entire give/joke of the decklist write-up is that banning all fast-advance tools is beyond impractical. If Vacheron is a problem due to its interoperation with FA tools, you can't ban all of them.

This list looks fun, and probably very good. Vacheron is a potent tool in a deck where you just need to drag the game out a few turns. Sprint and Spin Doctor can keep them hidden just long enough to FA out everything you need for a win, and then when you lose them in the late turns they're guaranteed to be worthless to the runner (even Data Dealer is of only marginal utility here). I don't think Clot does much of anything, either. Perhaps a Shaper can bring enough Simulchips to stall the game out for a few turns, but their relative presence in the meta is miniscule, and Jeeves + RLC cleans up an awful lot of other problems. Your best bet is likely early and aggressive Freedom trash plays, complemented by Stargate and trying to keep their money down.

As for the write-up itself, it's definitely snide. That said, NISEI continues to perform its work behind closed doors, without direct community involvement or transparency, and that does a lot here to line up the "us vs them" mentality. Heck, the group that runs NISEI refers to themselves, rather opaquely and facelessly, as "The Board." I can't think of many other fan/volunteer organizations operated this way. If NISEI insists on acting as independent / outside of the Netrunner fanbase, a la FFG, then heavy-handed criticism is going to be part of the discourse, regardless of if it's in good taste. The real question is: why doesn't Whiteblade just join the SBL team already?

That said, NISEI continues to perform its work behind closed doors, without direct community involvement or transparency

Focusing on the part relevant to this write-up, from what I've heard, playtesting is pretty much open to anyone who wants to join, so you can involve yourself as much as you like? nisei.net

They also wrote detailed write-ups for the last couple of SBL articles, seems transparent to me.

"us vs them" mentality.

Might want to ponder about why anything NISEI does makes you think of us vs. them, can hardly believe anyone wants to divide a 2-400 hundred member community that's famous for inclusivity.

rather opaquely and facelessly, as "The Board."

You know that's a card's name, right? Also everyone on the board is listed on the bottom of this page, how is that opaque? nisei.net

If you want them to be less faceless, might wanna talk to them a bit to get to know them?

If NISEI insists on acting as independent / outside of the Netrunner fanbase

Again, you can join playtesting easily to involve the fanbase more. On the same note I can see how designers would want to distance themselves a bit from players with a lot of opinions about their work (like on Netrunnerdb, Reddit) and focus more on information they get from better sources, like playtesting and tournaments, to make more objective decisions. They are way closer to the community than FFG ever was though.

heavy-handed criticism is going to be part of the discourse

Not sure why anything requires heavy-handed criticism. Also shitty memes are now discourse, cool.

The real question is: why doesn't Whiteblade just join the SBL team already?

I think he did and then posted his findings about Vacheron too close to the SBL being published? There's a comic about it with a dog in it a few comments up.

First of all, thank you for taking the time to reply.

They also wrote detailed write-ups for the last couple of SBL articles, seems transparent to me.

From the SBL article: "Sandbox, in particular, despite being a card we strongly feel needs to be addressed soon, created a cascade of problems when banned, and we tested several combinations of bans in an effort to bring the meta to an acceptable state without it. Although all of the combinations we tried so far created as many problems as they solved, we intend to keep iterating on this and come up with a solution in our next update." I wouldn't call this transparent. This is comparable to FFG prohibition writings in the past. The mood expressed here says nothing about how the decisions were made, except that they were made with test data. They do not indicate how the meta, which is currently not in good condition, is to be repaired - or in what timeline. The explanations may be a little longer than FFG's, but the opacity of the process is not different.

Again, you can join playtesting easily to involve the fanbase more.

After their last call for recruitment, I spoke to some friends involved in play testing to ask how the process was going. From all I can collect, players submit match reports through a form and the SBL will aggregate this information to make their decisions. At no point will the test players see this collected feedback, they will only be informed of the decision. Even the playtesters don't know why the decisions were made. This seems bad. I am not interested in investing the time and effort to play a minor role like this. Never knowing whether it is worth making an effort sounds miserable.

On the same note I can see how designers would want to distance themselves a bit from players with a lot of opinions about their work (like on Netrunnerdb, Reddit)...

This is strange because previous and current Nisei developers have posted comments on this deck.

...and focus more on information they get from better sources, like playtesting and tournaments, to make more objective decisions.

It would be more transparent to back up decisions with those data and tournament results.

They are way closer to the community than FFG ever was though.

That's good to hear. I hope that NISEI and SBL decisions can become more transparent in the future.

@not_a_dan yeah! I think the Nisei team (and anyone can join) is doing a great job at keeping the game healthy and diverse. And yes, the banning of whatever is always a joke. We might as well ask to ban Hedge Fun because it is splashed in 100% of decks. The game is in constant evolution and I like when the meta change from time to time. Let's note the great thing about the Startup format : no ban list! So it stay the same longer, great for beginner and for people that like a more stable game.

This list is fun. Like any of those "super" fast deck are, they can be very swingy. A deck like this : netrunnerdb.com could do very well, with a few modifications. Probably better would be the list from three weeks ago : netrunnerdb.com .

I still remember some people using meme to clamor the ban of Project Vitruvius or Project Atlas.

I think that Clot would do well here, because it this list does not have the stopping power to deter a runner from trying a scoring remote.

Otherwise, an early Conduit or Stargate would be tough to deal with. And most competitive deck can get that before turn 8.

Since this list is in standard, Embezzle and Wanton Destruction would bring devastation to the corp strategy. Granted, Sportsmetal is rather resilient, so it would be tough.

But the fact remain : this list is fun to play. Even losing against it does not feel like a cheat has been pulled.

I'm pretty sure you could play this list in Weyland to great effect. You get Audacity for free and pay influence on Biotic Labor, Jeeves Model Bioroids can be had for free if you take either Marilyn Campaign or Sprint. The rest, you make up a different sauce, but it work.

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and keeping the conversation alive and animated. I'm enjoying this a lot. Cheers!

@not_a_danI heard about the deck and posted a silly joke comment that mostly only WB would get. I tend to deliberately stay away from a lot of the community spaces these days, even though I used to be quite the opposite, because I find it can be extremely draining. I've been hearing about this comment thread a lot so I was a lil curious and came to look.

There's a difference between coming and taking a look at a specific decklist comment thread and doing it routinely. I don't think anyone in the design or dev teams in NISEI routinely go looking through these spaces on a daily or weekly basis. That's what the CM team is for, and we have a lot of other things to be spending our NISEI time on as it is.

I'd prefer to play Titan over this and no one was complaining about that deck in the standard meta. It's healthy to have forks in the meta since it keeps the field diverse. Let's stop talking about banning cards to correct for this deck and instead learn to play against it.

@enkoderBest comment! I completely agree.

Should one of the Jeeves be a Bioroid Work Crew?

After playing against this deck, I think I've figured out why it's good, so I'm going to write my findings here to maybe help people come up with a way to counter it.

The basic idea of the deck is to rely on two-card combos that score points out of hand (normally Biotic Labor + 3-advancement agenda or Audacity + 3-advancement agenda), and aim to draw them past an R&D lock. The operations can naturally get into hand past a runner who's spamming R&D accesses (unless they have a way to trash operations), so the main difficult part is drawing the agendas. The deck thus heavily relies on draw cards, to try to sneak the agendas past the Runner's R&D runs; ideally, it uses clickless draw cards (like Spin Doctor and Red Level Clearance) so that it can draw an agenda that's the second card of R&D, and immediately score it the same turn.

If you don't have operation-trashers handy, the main counterplay I'm aware of is to run R&D every turn (ideally accessing at least the top two cards), trash all the face-down Spin Doctors on early clicks of your turn (forcing the Corp to rez them early and meaning that the cards they draw will be vulnerable to an HQ access), and use massive HQ multi-access to try to snag the agendas out of hand before they can be scored. However, most Runner decks don't have the capability to do that.

Additionally, this deck is so fast that even if you do have enough multi-access in place, you may not draw the breakers you need to get past the ICE. My attempt to beat this deck was foiled by the Vanilla, because I didn't find a fracter in time.

An alternative strategy is to try to permanently remove the Cyberdex Virus Suite (with, e.g., Archives Interface), and make use of Clot + Simulchip, preventing the deck ever scoring. This is a good counterplay to many combo/fast-advance decks, but it's virtually worthless against anything else, so many Runner decks have problems fitting the combo.

As the writeup mentions, attempting to "outrush" this deck doesn't work because it doesn't contain enough agenda points (Project Vacheron takes too long to tick down to zero, the Corp will just win first, unless you steal it very early).

It's clear to me that it's possible to build a counter-deck that blows this deck out of the water, if you want to; however, it seems to be much harder to build a deck that beats this one, whilst still remaining capable of beating anything else. So this may well be a deck to beat for quite some time.