There's Always Money in the BANana Stand
I mean it's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? Ten dollars?
If you’re reading this, you probably already know that NSG has banned Bellona, Tributary, Reconstruction Contract, and Knobkierie (say goodbye to these). The justifications given are totally fine with me, I’m not really going to waste your time repeating what they wrote in the announcement.
No, I am going to waste your time on the more broad and abstract questions regarding bans, what they are meant to accomplish, the difficulty of the task, and in the time-honored tradition of philosophizing, answering nothing definitively or satisfyingly. I’m a monster.
The Good Meta
As various commentators such as YsengrinSC have noted, the TAI meta we had last year was, in many player’s view (including my own) one of the best ever. The removal of various FFG cards, the targeted Obokata ban, and the introduction of new fun elements in TAI resulted in a dynamically evolving metagame where any given weekend could shift what Corp faction and Runner faction was winning. It was a meta where no deck was obviously “Tier 0” (parse that as “it is a mistake to not play this regardless of metagame composition”) although I do think NBN was extremely dominant near the end.
A meta is “good” if people keep coming back. That’s really it. Are players engaged? The aim of a ban list, more than anything else, should be to keep people playing. It accomplishes this by rebalancing the elements that seem to be correlated with that: dynamism/adaptability, deck variety, skill-based gameplay rewarded, removal of NPE play patterns. But ultimately what matters is if people wanna show up and play Netrunner.
Bans are a double-edge sword though: none of us like it when cards we’ve been having fun with (and, let’s face it, winning with) get banned. So, ideally, bans are used sparingly, right?
I’m part of a contingent that actually thinks NSG should be more aggressive with the ban hammer (there are dozens of us, dozens!) . Because there’s no economic penalty in terms of secondary market value, players can rapidly change their decks, no hard feelings. The rapid banning of Tributary feels like a well-used aggressive ban, although I will note that I have heard dissent from players who thought Criminal players could have been given some more time to adapt. “Hush is a card right?”
Ban List Management is A Difficult Task
When a ban doesn’t lead to the desired outcome of a more fun metagame, it can be deceptively easy to think one could have done better. This is not true. One’s play skill can greatly affect how one perceives the difficulty of playing around certain cards. When I play runner-side, I am often far too aggressive, seeing weakness where there is none (thanks to a badly conditioned Magic: the Gathering psychology where the logic “kick ‘em while they’re down” predominates) so I faceplant into obvious Punitive tricks or lethal net damage far more often than someone who has been playing as long as I have should.
Now, I’m aware enough of my own shortcomings with respect to Saisentan and Punitive that I don’t really feel the need for those cards to be banned, but am I sure that my a lot of my losses to Bellona → Oppo couldn’t have been avoided with more shrewd play? No, I’m not, so I have to trust the opinion of a more informed committee of players. The point I’m trying to make here is that one person’s repeated NPE is another players “perfectly respectable” move. At some threshold the ban list committee has to say “git gud scrub” and allow for powerful cards to exist, period. The exact location of that threshold is fuzzy, subjective, and means some people are going to get alienated by some bans, but the hope is that the game that emerges offers enough new interesting possibilities that it outweighs the alienation.
Things that Have Been Winning For Me Recently
OK, slight change of topic. What’s been good?
This deck is extremely good. I am a below-average runner side player and I’m 5-0 with a very similar list both on Jnet and RL. Bankhar is suspiciously good, almost like some type of Faustian bargain. Should it be considered for banning at some point? I don’t understand the question and I won’t respond to it.
Arissana. If I’m a subpar runnerside player, then I am a very subpar Shaper player. Nonetheless, after putting in some reps I’m starting to get the feel for Muse shenanigans. Assets are still a bit of a problem for Shaper, so make sure you’ve got two Miss Bones in your list so you can turn those thumbs up into thumbs down.
Not Mercury. I have reached the conclusion that even with some new tools, Mercury is not going to be as competitive as alternative Criminal IDs. Check out the decklist of the week on NRDB though. It’s interesting and does have some legs. Stop playing crim? Never. I love blue. I’m afraid I just Blue myself. (ugh, I couldn’t make that one quite one work, just roll with it ok?)
On the Corp side, I am happy to report that the death of Yellow has been greatly exaggerated. While Degree Mill can’t fully fill in for Bellona’s shoes, it’s playable particularly in extremely fast Reeducation Combo lists.
I played this Asa deck a bit and it is reasonable. Malia is a very good answer to Bankhar and his Faustian shenanigans.
That’s it for this week, good luck in the new meta!