Influencing Cards
by David Kempe
Influence is my favorite new mechanic that Fantasy Flight added to Netrunner. Influence stops players from just building a deck of all the best cards and colors how different factions play more than any other card game I’ve ever played. Looking at the highest influence costs we see some of the most powerful cards in the game: Tinkering, Account Siphon, Biotic Labor, and Scorched Earth.
Tinkering was the card I was most wrong about when I first saw it. Shapers base their strategy around always having the right tool for the job; with a full suite of icebreakers and the most consistent money generation in the game coming from Magnum Opus, it’s no surprise that Shapers dominated the top in an environment with very little playtest time (like the GenCon Icebreakers). Tinkering embodies the Shaper principle and wins the mid to late game for Shapers like no other card: the ability to rush through a string of expensive ICE with a Gordian Blade makes Tinkering earn its card slot.
Account Siphon both defines the Criminal faction and makes a clear argument for why you would want to play Criminal. While Shapers have money mid to late game, Criminals have the money early game. Account Siphon attempts to ensure the Runner that the Corp will be stuck in early game for one and one half turn longer than he would hope. Also, unless you’re playing NBN or Weyland, the tags will probably have little effect until you drop a juicy resource (like Crash Space), but the Criminals are hoping to be halfway to their win condition by then! Probably the worst use of this card would be to spend your next 2 actions removing tags; assuming that your opponent is now poor, you need to run on unrezzed ICE and send a Forged Activation Order while you have time!
Biotic Labor presents an interesting conundrum: after spending 4 credits and a card for an extra action, the only thing you want to do is score an Agenda. Either taking a credit or drawing a card is wasteful, and Shipment from MirrorMorph installs much more efficiently. I’m hoping that this card becomes more useful in the future, but right this moment the card essentially says “pay 2 credits to put 2 advancement counters on a single card. It’s not bad (in fact that’s really good), it’s just boring.
Last, but most certainly not least, we have Scorched Earth. If you have ever wanted to know what the term “environment deforming” means, take a hard look at this card. At Gen Con’s icebreaker tournament, a large portion of the field ran Weyland because of this card, and 2 of the top 4 Corp decks were NBN decks that also ran this card. Runners have to plan their game around the possibility of this card making an appearance, and Corps can get more time to set up because the Runner spends many of her turns drawing to full hand size at the end of every turn. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this card; the top 2 Corp deck (probably) didn’t run it. Interestingly enough, this card can hurt the Corp player more than help in a tournament; when you build a deck that doesn’t score any points until it wins, your deck can’t lose a game or else it loses the match.
In mentioning the NBN decks running Scorched Earth, I can’t help but wonder what NBN brings to the table that Weyland lacks. NBN ICE lacks stopping power, and you have just spent 12 influence on cards that do not end the run, assuming you want to Scorch with any consistency. Weyland, however, can pull Data Raven for 2 faction point each and Ghost Branch for 1 faction point each totaling in 9 faction points spent with 6 left over to pull Archived Memories and Rototurrets. Sea Source is probably a poor choice since your final turn is “Scorched Earth, Archived Memories, Scorched Earth” a little less than half the time. NBN has its own strengths; Scorched Earth is not one of them.
Looking at the base set of card by influence cost has given me new ideas on balance. I hope this short review of the highest influence cards in the game gives you some ideas too. Now, I need to go build a Criminal deck before this inspiration leaves.
Tinkering was the card I was most wrong about when I first saw it. Shapers base their strategy around always having the right tool for the job; with a full suite of icebreakers and the most consistent money generation in the game coming from Magnum Opus, it’s no surprise that Shapers dominated the top in an environment with very little playtest time (like the GenCon Icebreakers). Tinkering embodies the Shaper principle and wins the mid to late game for Shapers like no other card: the ability to rush through a string of expensive ICE with a Gordian Blade makes Tinkering earn its card slot.
Account Siphon both defines the Criminal faction and makes a clear argument for why you would want to play Criminal. While Shapers have money mid to late game, Criminals have the money early game. Account Siphon attempts to ensure the Runner that the Corp will be stuck in early game for one and one half turn longer than he would hope. Also, unless you’re playing NBN or Weyland, the tags will probably have little effect until you drop a juicy resource (like Crash Space), but the Criminals are hoping to be halfway to their win condition by then! Probably the worst use of this card would be to spend your next 2 actions removing tags; assuming that your opponent is now poor, you need to run on unrezzed ICE and send a Forged Activation Order while you have time!
Biotic Labor presents an interesting conundrum: after spending 4 credits and a card for an extra action, the only thing you want to do is score an Agenda. Either taking a credit or drawing a card is wasteful, and Shipment from MirrorMorph installs much more efficiently. I’m hoping that this card becomes more useful in the future, but right this moment the card essentially says “pay 2 credits to put 2 advancement counters on a single card. It’s not bad (in fact that’s really good), it’s just boring.
Last, but most certainly not least, we have Scorched Earth. If you have ever wanted to know what the term “environment deforming” means, take a hard look at this card. At Gen Con’s icebreaker tournament, a large portion of the field ran Weyland because of this card, and 2 of the top 4 Corp decks were NBN decks that also ran this card. Runners have to plan their game around the possibility of this card making an appearance, and Corps can get more time to set up because the Runner spends many of her turns drawing to full hand size at the end of every turn. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this card; the top 2 Corp deck (probably) didn’t run it. Interestingly enough, this card can hurt the Corp player more than help in a tournament; when you build a deck that doesn’t score any points until it wins, your deck can’t lose a game or else it loses the match.
In mentioning the NBN decks running Scorched Earth, I can’t help but wonder what NBN brings to the table that Weyland lacks. NBN ICE lacks stopping power, and you have just spent 12 influence on cards that do not end the run, assuming you want to Scorch with any consistency. Weyland, however, can pull Data Raven for 2 faction point each and Ghost Branch for 1 faction point each totaling in 9 faction points spent with 6 left over to pull Archived Memories and Rototurrets. Sea Source is probably a poor choice since your final turn is “Scorched Earth, Archived Memories, Scorched Earth” a little less than half the time. NBN has its own strengths; Scorched Earth is not one of them.
Looking at the base set of card by influence cost has given me new ideas on balance. I hope this short review of the highest influence cards in the game gives you some ideas too. Now, I need to go build a Criminal deck before this inspiration leaves.