I decided to go over to Southampton for the last Shadowmmor draft before the Shards Pre-release in a few weeks time.
I took a Prison Term first pick, the next two picks were uninteresting (one was a Elsewhere Flask that I took just to keep options open). A fourth pick Burn Trail seemed like a sign to be in Red.
This time I made sure of getting enough cheap Red guys to use the Burn Trail effectively. Silkbind Faeries were also going round a little to late it seemed, so I was able to pick up a couple and a Power of Fire, leaving me with RW or RU as options going into the final booster, Eventide.
The cheap red guys became even more of a priority with the first Eventide pick, the excellent Crackleburr - a bomb in the deck I was drafting.
The deck
2 Intimidator Initiate
2 Rustrazor Butcher
1 Riverfall Mimic
2 Tattermunge Duo
2 Noggle Bandit
2 Silkbind Faerie
1 Crackleburr
1 Noggle Bridgebreaker
1 Scuzzback Marauder
1 Outrage Shaman
1 Spectral Procession
1 Cenn's Enlistenment
1 Niveous Wisps
1 Power of Fire
1 Double Cleave
1 Prison Term
1 Burn Trail
2 Manamorphose
10 Mountains
6 Swamps
I won all four matches to win the draft. Crackleburr won several games on his own.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Netrunner deck; Rio de Janeiro City Grid
Netrunner is the one of most interesting CCG ever created in my opinion. This is one of the decks I still have built.
Rio de Janeiro City Grid
Cost: 1
Upgrade-Region-Random
Roll a die whenever Runner passes a piece of rezzed ice during a run on this fort. On a 1, end the run.
In most Corp decks RdJ City Grid isn't worthwhile, it's just too unreliable. To make RDJ work you need big forts. REALLY big forts. With the addition of 'payback' ice (that you get bits from when you rez them) in the Proteus expansion this became possible.
The deck (50 cards)
Agendas (6)
4 Corporate Downsizing
2 Political Overthrow
Upgrades (8)
6 Rio de Janeiro City Grid
4 Chester Mix
2 Rasmin Bridger
2 Obsfucated Fortress
Operations (3)
3 Off Site Backups
Nodes (1)
1 Bel Digmo Antibody
Ice - Code Gates (7)
3 Misleading Access Menu
3 Quandry
1 Mazer
Ice - Walls (10)
6 Snowbank
2 Data Wall 2.0
1 Walking Wall
1 Glacier
Ice - Sentry (9)
7 Washed Up Solo Construct
1 Fragmentation Storm
1 Data Naga
With this deck the plan is to build three really big forts; R&D, HQ and one subsidiary (this deck is weak against Shredder Uplink Protocol - it can't effectively defend a fourth fort).
Typically you begin by setting up as much defense as you can on R&D and HQ. Then once those are secure setup a sudsidiary fort and try to score a Corporate Downsizing.
When you do, shuffle all the Agendas in your hand back into R&D. With this deck you want the game to go as long as is possible (warning; games using this deck can much longer than normal games of Netrunner). You can't lose due to running out of cards as you have Bel-Digmo Antibody, with Off-Site Backups to return it from Archives should the Runner manage to trash it from R&D or HQ.
More typically Off-Site Backups is used to return Rasmin Bridger or Obsfucated Fortress as these are crucial to the decks long term strategy - to make the Runner pay for runs that will fail. (Obviously RdJ City Grid is also crucial but the deck plays so many of these and the trash cost is so high that it isn't normally productive to trash these).
To make the runner lose bits on each run, each fort needs to have some ice that will cost the runner bits to pass, and the earlier in the run the better. Walking Wall and Glacier are excellent for this with their ability to move themselves. Rasmin Bridger means every ice will cost at 1 additional bit to pass, and Obsfucated Fortress will mean every run will cost the runner in full, even if you roll a 1 after the first piece of Ice!
Data Naga and Fragmentation Storm are there to keep the runner honest, so that they can't assume that all of the Ice is harmless.
This deck has one major weakness - it isn't that good! Even with 9 pieces of ice on a fort RDJ will still fail to stop a Runner 20% of the time. You are relying on the time needed for the runner to regain the bits needed for each failure to score your agendas. This is okay for Corporate Downsizing, but it's much more difficult to score a Political Overthrow.
Given this weakness the deck is only realy suitable for casual play. But as it takes so long to play it isn't really suitable for that either! Still, it was fun to play occasionally and remains an interesting design.
Rio de Janeiro City Grid
Cost: 1
Upgrade-Region-Random
Roll a die whenever Runner passes a piece of rezzed ice during a run on this fort. On a 1, end the run.
In most Corp decks RdJ City Grid isn't worthwhile, it's just too unreliable. To make RDJ work you need big forts. REALLY big forts. With the addition of 'payback' ice (that you get bits from when you rez them) in the Proteus expansion this became possible.
The deck (50 cards)
Agendas (6)
4 Corporate Downsizing
2 Political Overthrow
Upgrades (8)
6 Rio de Janeiro City Grid
4 Chester Mix
2 Rasmin Bridger
2 Obsfucated Fortress
Operations (3)
3 Off Site Backups
Nodes (1)
1 Bel Digmo Antibody
Ice - Code Gates (7)
3 Misleading Access Menu
3 Quandry
1 Mazer
Ice - Walls (10)
6 Snowbank
2 Data Wall 2.0
1 Walking Wall
1 Glacier
Ice - Sentry (9)
7 Washed Up Solo Construct
1 Fragmentation Storm
1 Data Naga
With this deck the plan is to build three really big forts; R&D, HQ and one subsidiary (this deck is weak against Shredder Uplink Protocol - it can't effectively defend a fourth fort).
Typically you begin by setting up as much defense as you can on R&D and HQ. Then once those are secure setup a sudsidiary fort and try to score a Corporate Downsizing.
When you do, shuffle all the Agendas in your hand back into R&D. With this deck you want the game to go as long as is possible (warning; games using this deck can much longer than normal games of Netrunner). You can't lose due to running out of cards as you have Bel-Digmo Antibody, with Off-Site Backups to return it from Archives should the Runner manage to trash it from R&D or HQ.
More typically Off-Site Backups is used to return Rasmin Bridger or Obsfucated Fortress as these are crucial to the decks long term strategy - to make the Runner pay for runs that will fail. (Obviously RdJ City Grid is also crucial but the deck plays so many of these and the trash cost is so high that it isn't normally productive to trash these).
To make the runner lose bits on each run, each fort needs to have some ice that will cost the runner bits to pass, and the earlier in the run the better. Walking Wall and Glacier are excellent for this with their ability to move themselves. Rasmin Bridger means every ice will cost at 1 additional bit to pass, and Obsfucated Fortress will mean every run will cost the runner in full, even if you roll a 1 after the first piece of Ice!
Data Naga and Fragmentation Storm are there to keep the runner honest, so that they can't assume that all of the Ice is harmless.
This deck has one major weakness - it isn't that good! Even with 9 pieces of ice on a fort RDJ will still fail to stop a Runner 20% of the time. You are relying on the time needed for the runner to regain the bits needed for each failure to score your agendas. This is okay for Corporate Downsizing, but it's much more difficult to score a Political Overthrow.
Given this weakness the deck is only realy suitable for casual play. But as it takes so long to play it isn't really suitable for that either! Still, it was fun to play occasionally and remains an interesting design.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
06/01/08: Ticket to Ride 1910, Traumfabrik, For Sale
The usual five of us met up at my flat for a Sunday evening of games. We decided to start with something “not too thinky” – Ticket to Ride (1910 Tickets + Bonus).
I kept my opening 3 tickets. Two of them were northwestern Cities to Miami, and the other was Salt Lake to a third northwestern City (they were Toronto, Chicago and New York).
On my second turn I claimed Toronto-Pittsburgh, and then I spent the early part of the game connecting my NW Cities through Pittsburgh and down toward Florida. By this stage both of the direct west routes out of Salt Lake City had been taken, but I had a couple of green in hand so I claimed Salt Lake – Helena a few turns later. I then worked on connecting Helena to Chicago and collecting the Purple trains I needed to get down to Miami.
After connecting Helena to Chicago and collecting the trains needed to reach Miami via Charleston I decided to draw more tickets. I hit the jackpot!
Los Angles – Atlanta
Las Vegas – a NW City I’m already in
A NW City I’m already in – Charleston.
I was worried that I might get blocked out of Salt Lake – Las Vegas – Los Angeles, but I made it okay, and then had time to claim Atlanta, Charleston and Miami a couple of turns before the game ended.
With my six (!) completed tickets I scored 140 points and won by about 20 points. Fiona was second on about 120 points. After completing her tickets she decided not to collect more, assuming I had the most tickets bonus won and she ended the game by claiming a couple of 15 point connections. And speeding up the game to try and make me fail my tickets was a reasonable plan too.
I really like how the 1910 tickets and most completed tickets bonus shake up the strategies compared to the unbalanced original. I won by 20 points after making multiple 2 train connections, only two 5 train connections and no 6s! (That would be impossible in the original edition).
After Ticket to Ride everyone demanded more tea. I acquiesced, on the condition that they pick out and setup another game whilst I’m gone. I didn’t want to come back in ten minutes to find them still discussing what to play.
When I returned they were setting out Traumfabrik. I think this might have been the first time we have played five handed.
After Tony wins the first **** director, the next auction is a couple of actors (one a guest star) and something else. The two actors should be enough for first picks at the first turn parties, and that should offer the possibility of finishing a film in time to win the first season best film award. So I decided to bid 11 to automatically win it (in hindsight I might have won with a lower bid – but I would guess that If I’d bid 8 that would have tempted somebody to bid 9 etc).
So my 11 won, and I got a good tile at the first party. All I needed was music (or an Agency) at the final party to complete a film, and I was picking first… There weren’t any. Tony also only needed one tile to complete a film but he was picking last and got Reiner Knizia who promptly got fired! (Back into the box).
So the first season 5 point award was unclaimed. During the second season I was still looking for music to complete my yellow film, but Fiona was also close to completing hers and stealing my 5 points! I bid her up to 11 in the auction with the tile she needed, but she decided it was worth it. Her film scores (4), a good early contender for Worst Film.
During this season Colin completed a Green film for (19)! That looked to make him an early favourite. There was a good chance that it would earn him 25 points of awards (first green, best second season film, best third season film, best green film) – it did.
Though I had lost out on the first film bonus I was aiming for I still had the best collection of actors and pretty high value tiles. The problem was I wasn’t sure where I was going to get any awards. However during the third season I won the **** director and was able to complete a Yellow film for 15. This put me in the lead for Best Yellow and made me a contender for Best Direction.
In the final season I was able to get the Director needed to win best Director – if I could finish King Kong. Thankfully I was able to win the tile needed at the last auction and didn’t have to rely on getting lucky at the party.
I thought Colin had won due to the many awards he won for his first film (and he also won Worst Film), but with Best Yellow and Best Director I beat him by a few points. Other than his 19 his films weren’t worth much, whilst mine were consistently good.
After the game Tony congratulated Colin. Colin pointed out that I had beaten him. Tony: “I’ve given up trying to win…” (Referring to the fact that I’ve won all six games we’ve played since Christmas…).
We ended with a couple of quick games of For Sale. Colin and I continued our trend of doing slightly better then average, with Fee and Tony less successful (Tony forgot there was a sixth auction in the first game!). Colin won the first game, Bekki the second.
Next week I think we’re going to play Aladdin’s Dragons, which I’ve never played before.
I kept my opening 3 tickets. Two of them were northwestern Cities to Miami, and the other was Salt Lake to a third northwestern City (they were Toronto, Chicago and New York).
On my second turn I claimed Toronto-Pittsburgh, and then I spent the early part of the game connecting my NW Cities through Pittsburgh and down toward Florida. By this stage both of the direct west routes out of Salt Lake City had been taken, but I had a couple of green in hand so I claimed Salt Lake – Helena a few turns later. I then worked on connecting Helena to Chicago and collecting the Purple trains I needed to get down to Miami.
After connecting Helena to Chicago and collecting the trains needed to reach Miami via Charleston I decided to draw more tickets. I hit the jackpot!
Los Angles – Atlanta
Las Vegas – a NW City I’m already in
A NW City I’m already in – Charleston.
I was worried that I might get blocked out of Salt Lake – Las Vegas – Los Angeles, but I made it okay, and then had time to claim Atlanta, Charleston and Miami a couple of turns before the game ended.
With my six (!) completed tickets I scored 140 points and won by about 20 points. Fiona was second on about 120 points. After completing her tickets she decided not to collect more, assuming I had the most tickets bonus won and she ended the game by claiming a couple of 15 point connections. And speeding up the game to try and make me fail my tickets was a reasonable plan too.
I really like how the 1910 tickets and most completed tickets bonus shake up the strategies compared to the unbalanced original. I won by 20 points after making multiple 2 train connections, only two 5 train connections and no 6s! (That would be impossible in the original edition).
After Ticket to Ride everyone demanded more tea. I acquiesced, on the condition that they pick out and setup another game whilst I’m gone. I didn’t want to come back in ten minutes to find them still discussing what to play.
When I returned they were setting out Traumfabrik. I think this might have been the first time we have played five handed.
After Tony wins the first **** director, the next auction is a couple of actors (one a guest star) and something else. The two actors should be enough for first picks at the first turn parties, and that should offer the possibility of finishing a film in time to win the first season best film award. So I decided to bid 11 to automatically win it (in hindsight I might have won with a lower bid – but I would guess that If I’d bid 8 that would have tempted somebody to bid 9 etc).
So my 11 won, and I got a good tile at the first party. All I needed was music (or an Agency) at the final party to complete a film, and I was picking first… There weren’t any. Tony also only needed one tile to complete a film but he was picking last and got Reiner Knizia who promptly got fired! (Back into the box).
So the first season 5 point award was unclaimed. During the second season I was still looking for music to complete my yellow film, but Fiona was also close to completing hers and stealing my 5 points! I bid her up to 11 in the auction with the tile she needed, but she decided it was worth it. Her film scores (4), a good early contender for Worst Film.
During this season Colin completed a Green film for (19)! That looked to make him an early favourite. There was a good chance that it would earn him 25 points of awards (first green, best second season film, best third season film, best green film) – it did.
Though I had lost out on the first film bonus I was aiming for I still had the best collection of actors and pretty high value tiles. The problem was I wasn’t sure where I was going to get any awards. However during the third season I won the **** director and was able to complete a Yellow film for 15. This put me in the lead for Best Yellow and made me a contender for Best Direction.
In the final season I was able to get the Director needed to win best Director – if I could finish King Kong. Thankfully I was able to win the tile needed at the last auction and didn’t have to rely on getting lucky at the party.
I thought Colin had won due to the many awards he won for his first film (and he also won Worst Film), but with Best Yellow and Best Director I beat him by a few points. Other than his 19 his films weren’t worth much, whilst mine were consistently good.
After the game Tony congratulated Colin. Colin pointed out that I had beaten him. Tony: “I’ve given up trying to win…” (Referring to the fact that I’ve won all six games we’ve played since Christmas…).
We ended with a couple of quick games of For Sale. Colin and I continued our trend of doing slightly better then average, with Fee and Tony less successful (Tony forgot there was a sixth auction in the first game!). Colin won the first game, Bekki the second.
Next week I think we’re going to play Aladdin’s Dragons, which I’ve never played before.
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