Demolished by too many agendas

[gavinwatson 14]

Hi guys, absolutely love this game, can't get enough of it! Just had a quick question regarding agenda points in deck building. It clearly says 45 cards should have 21 points or there abouts. I assumed this meant scored points, but that equated to about 10 or 11 cards, which is roughly a quarter of the deck. When we played with that ratio i (as the corporate) was demolished three times in a row because the runner just hammered my HQ and R&D using makers eye when possible. I didn't stand a chance. We agreed that we must had misunderstood the rule somwhow, so dropped the amount of agenda points to about 11-12. Suddenly the game became balanced and we reallly enjoy it.

 

Have we misunderstood the rule? Surely a quarter of your deck being agendas isn't right?

[Devon Greatwolf 53]

From the rule book: "- 45 to 49 cards requires 20 or 21 agenda points"

 

This can be satisfied by any mix of agendas based upon their point value. Such as, 20 - 1 point agendas or by 4 - 5 point agendas.  Usually, it is best to minimize or dilute your agendas to the maximum by building the largest deck possible in the point value bracket and using higher point agendas... i.e. 20 points in 49 cards.  So your original interpretation seems to be the correct play.  If you see that the runner is scoring overly much from HQ and RD ice those with plenty of varied ETR ice.  In early games with newer players the corp usually has the higher win percentage due to timid runners. So, if your facing a non-timid runner ice centrals early and often!  I myself am currently running a HB FA deck for the Corp side with mostly one point agendas so this forces the runner to have 5-7 successful runs and steals before I score my 7 points direct from hand!

 

Edited for punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Devon Greatwolf

[frybender 56]

Hi guys, absolutely love this game, can't get enough of it! Just had a quick question regarding agenda points in deck building. It clearly says 45 cards should have 21 points or there abouts. I assumed this meant scored points, but that equated to about 10 or 11 cards, which is roughly a quarter of the deck. When we played with that ratio i (as the corporate) was demolished three times in a row because the runner just hammered my HQ and R&D using makers eye when possible. I didn't stand a chance. We agreed that we must had misunderstood the rule somwhow, so dropped the amount of agenda points to about 11-12. Suddenly the game became balanced and we reallly enjoy it.

 

Have we misunderstood the rule? Surely a quarter of your deck being agendas isn't right?

Just to be clear, you only need to score 7 agenda points to win.

Edited March 28, 2014 by frybender

[nungunz 221]

10 to 12 agendas is normal. Some run 13 agendas. You're reading of the rule was correct. I usually run 11 or 12 agendas in a deck

[Khouri 96]

As others have said, the rules are that you have to have a certain number of agenda points in the deck based on how many cards you wish to use. For a standard deck size (45-49) this is 20-21 points of agendas (no more, no less)

 

So for a standard Corp deck ID this will be a minimum deck size of 45 - but to minimise the agenda density most Corps will use the upper value of deck size (so 49).

 

The Corp has the freedom to choose how they get up to that required number of agenda points. At one extreme you could have 20 1-point agendas (but that does not leave all that many cards in your deck for other good stuff) or 7 3-point agendas (very low agenda density, but each agenda stolen is worth maximum points: 3 steals are needed to win instead of the 7 needed in the first instance).

 

In total this means around 14-41% of your deck will be agendas (with around 25% being normal). With so many agendas in the deck it is pretty much mandatory that the Corp ICE up R&D and HQ as quickly as possible or they will be in real trouble (unless you want to have the runner steal agendas for triggering other cards like SEA-source or Punitive Counterstrike).

 

If you find the Runner play-style is too aggressive and just running manically into blindly into HQ and R&D with Makers Eye it might be worth splashing in some traps like Snare! so that all those additional accesses don't just come for free and introduces some risk for the Runner to perhaps increase their caution. Similarly having a good selection of ICE available for install (including expensive to break, End-the-Run, and different types) will force the Runner to spend some of their time setting up their rig, allowing the Corp more time to continue developing ICE or setting up remote servers that the Runner then has to make the decision between these (potentially more traps) and digging in the central servers.

[Grimwalker 647]

If the runner is trouncing the corp every game, it would also be worthwhile to make sure that there isn't a fundamental error in understanding the rules going on. For instance, some new players feel like Ice must be rezzed every turn, or that they cannot pass Ice without an icebreaker (regardless of whether the ice actually has an End The Run.)

[Forgottenlore 9,838]

If the runner is trouncing the corp every game, it would also be worthwhile to make sure that there isn't a fundamental error in understanding the rules going on. For instance, some new players feel like Ice must be rezzed every turn, or that they cannot pass Ice without an icebreaker (regardless of whether the ice actually has an End The Run.)

 

Hi all, this is very good advice and very true, however... I am 99.999% certain that my friend and I are getting at least all significant rules correct, we are both experienced gamers with many and varied games under our belts and I would say we are running about a 10:1 win ratio for the runner. The weird thing though is that, despite that, the game doesn't feel unbalanced. Almost every game it seems very close, as if the Corp could have won, but they virtually never do, and we can't figure out why.

[Khouri 96]

Are you just playing with the base decks or have you started using the influence and deck building rules?

 

Is there any pattern to the ways in which the runner is winning (hard hitting R&D, multiple access cards, denying the Corp money and/or being quite rich in credits themselves)?

[Forgottenlore 9,838]

Always building our own decks. We are currently playing with the core set and the first full cycle of expansions.

No observable patterns. The corp in our games does seem to struggle for money quite often, but the times he doesn't don't seem to correlate to victories. My opponent and I each play both sides, trading off every game or two, so it isn't likely a player skill issue either. It just always seems like the corp never has enough of all the resources (cards, clicks, credits) needed to keep the runner out of everywhere he needs to be kept out of.

[AlexFrost 4]

You don't (and can't) keep the runner out from everywhere. Only from what really matters. Try to fool him into useless runr, waste his credits and keep him to the edge. Try some ambush too.

[Grimwalker 647]

Well, I do remember at the time, especially around when Genesis Cycle and Creation & Control were out, that the conventional wisdom is that it was the runner's game to lose.

 

The Spin Cycle leveled the playing field significantly, to the point where if you don't have Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) in your deck, then has to be a very specific and well-thought-out reason why.