Frisky's Corner

Mailbag:

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the most recent Frisky AI installment -- "Debunking and De-Blinking" -- resulted in the most mail to feedback@cardplace.com than any other.

For one thing, "Debunking" was up on the CardPlace site for six weeks. The piece I mailed in from Virginia was misplaced in a Mystery Box or something.

Then those of you with affection for Blink all rushed to say something in its support, like how the installation of 37 Green Knight Surge Buffers makes Blink really good. Next time one of you Blink dinks manages to install three or five Blinks, and finds that each of them fails during a game's critical run, write again, so I can laugh.

Get lives. Play with real icebreakers. Learn deck management skills, because a deck with specific icebreakers will force you to judge to Temple or Crash (when NetRunner was new, to "search" for cards or to "dig" for them was a big philosophical question). Install a Jackhammer or a Dwarf when both are in hand? -- that decision may have serious consequences later.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of influence a paragraph like the last holds. Do you listen to what I have to say because I win often, or not listen at all, because I express my opinions insensitively?

For instance, one local player joked that Joan of Arc isn't played around here anymore because people fear a Frisky tonguelashing. Bartmoss? Corporate War? Sniff. Precision Bribery and Time to Collect? Not unless you want to be berated for the unimaginative munchkin you are.

So, I've been experimenting with a new runner deck lately, which includes ... three Precision Briberies.

Call me a hypocritical blowhard if you will, but in my defense, I have to say that I'm trying to use the stupid card in an original way.

Consider my candidate for cheesiest deck in history. Bartmoss/Joan, many Top Runners' Conferences, multiple Precision Briberies and Times to Collect, drawing everything with Synthetic Blood, selling what isn't needed with Organ Donor, eventually Demolition Running each subsidiary fort (blowing up the contents with Death from Above), removing tags with Total Genetic Retrofit, and recycling the Conferences with a MIT West Tier or three.

Compare that to my harmless Fait Accompli deck. Fait Accompli is one of the weak v. 1.0 viruses, infecting subsidiary data forts by increasing the difficulty of agenda installed inside them. The drawbacks to Fait are obvious -- fast advancement operations often preclude the need for a subsidary fort, and why run a subsidiary fort before anything important is installed?

The second of those concerns can be addressed by Poltergeist, Scatter Shot, On the Fast Track and Karl deVeres, which make those runs for dropping Fait counters less costly, if not profitable.

The first concern -- fast advancement operations -- is handled by Precision Bribery. Yeah, when you install a Bribery, the corporation will call you a snert, but if you shrug and point out that you have installed neither Time to Collect nor Junkyard BBS, you might salvage some self-respect.

Perhaps the combination of Fait counters and timely bribery will stall the advancement of agenda -- Corporate Ally (pay 3 bits and an agenda point to increase agenda difficulty) is also waiting.

Another Precision Bribery plan which doesn't include blowing up subsidiary forts on the way to a Time to Collect lock involves multiple Restrictive Net Zonings -- that is, Bribe the corp as soon as possible, then Restrict every fort in sight (I suppose when the time is right, the runner misc.for-sells all the Net Zonings). Perhaps the corp might find himself unable to afford to install a card, and might have to make a very painful discard -- which suggests that the lame Cockroach virus might have a place in such a deck.

Ah, well. If Wizards won't give me new crayons with which to draw, I have to play with old crayons which I really hate, like Precision Bribery.