#Netrunner Datapack Review: Daedalus Complex — Anarch
Ratings:
- Exclude — Hell naw. Usually a better option. Or it’s just totally not useful at all and actively hurts the player that includes it. If you can make it work, it requires an extremely laborious setup, vulnerable to disruption. Ex: Eden Shard, Record Reconstructor, Disrupter
- Include (Conditional) — Niche effects, combo-reliant, or meta-reliant. Sometimes a dead card. Ex: Keyhole, Escher, Paintbrush
- Include — A solid card to run, particularly if you’re in its faction. Ex: R&D interface, The Turning Wheel, Diesel, I’ve Had Worse
- Include (Ubiquitous) — In a lot of cases, you’re going to want to import this even out of faction. Ex: Sifr, Temujin Contract, Daily Cast
- JACKSON HOWARD— You’re actively hindering yourself by NOT running this, regardless of your deck’s strategy. Ex: JACKSON HOWARD, Sure Gamble, Hedge Fund
Pushing the Envelope — Exclude
A continuation of the high-risk/high-reward theme found in the Mumbad cycle — specifically that of The Noble Path and Emptied Mind.
…wwwhich means it kinda sucks.
If The Noble Path had one advantage, it was the self-protection, being able to shrug off any meat, net, or brain-damage you might incur along the way, making it viable against 3/4 of the corporations out there. You’d never need to worry about Komainu, or HB ice, or at least one subroutine from Mausolus.
That represents a credit savings high-end much in excess of PtE’s +2 strength to ‘breakers — not that a potential three-credit swing isn’t potent (six saved on breaker-boosting, minus three for the run event), assuming all three or more breakers are on the field. But that’s also about when their ice starts stacking up, forcing you to burn through your cash resources to knock out the same ice that The Noble Path would’ve allowed you to shrug off without having to pay a single credit.
And nobody runs The Noble Path anyhow. So you’re not gonna run Pushing the Envelope either.
Maw — Exclude
Sifr exists. And even if it didn’t, a six-credit machine that replaces access with HQ control is extremely niche. Just straight-up inferior to most console options at the moment, even for dedicated hand-stripping decks.
The Archivist — Include (Conditional)
Best-geared towards a Weyland-heavy meta — which, admittedly, is something we might see more of nowadays! Skorpios and Jemison are both solid IDs that allow interestingly deadly design spaces. But it does do work across the field, thanks to the ubiquity of Global Food Initiative.
Ironically, it works by being the mechanical opposite of GFI’s theme. In exchange for solving world starvation, both runner and corporation are hit by poverty. In order to prevent Bad Publicity (and Blackmail shenanigans), the Corp has to burn through at least as much credit as the runner has on-hand plus one. In a meta with Temujin Contract and other runner-enriching options, this can quickly get out of hand… for the corporation.
There’s potential here. And the +1 Link is welcomed in an NBN-dominant meta too.
