#Netrunner Datapack Review: Daedalus Complex — Shaper/Neutral
Previous Writeups
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
SHAPER
Bio-Modeled Network — Include (Conditional)
It’s not a great card. In fact, it’s often a dead card. The majority of Net Damage sources does plinking damage — one at a time, looking to bury you under high frequency of hits rather than one big one.
The only reason it escapes Exclude status is because there actually are a few cards where you’d want this over something like Feedback Filter or Net Shield. Classics like Project Junebug and Snare are still in the game. Psychic Field does a lump-sum damage compared to Komainu’s subroutines. Ronin hasn’t cycled out yet. In such a case, Bio-Modeled Network will be the one thing that keeps you standing, and out of Neural EMP range.
That means Bio-Modeled Network is a dedicated anti-Jinteki card, technically making it meta-dependent. There is conceivably a format where you’d want this as your ace-in-the-hole, and it’s cheap too besides.
Network Exchange — Include (Conditional)
I’d be less hesitant to run this than Bio-Modeled Network, certainly, though there’s a few things I’d want to talk about later from a design trend standpoint (y u hate glacier, Fantasy Flight). Still, a runner-side tax card is not something to turn your nose up against. Over the course of a game, assuming they put out something like six or more pieces of ice, you’ll likely generate net-effective-profit (two down immediately to force an additional three or more credits from the corp).
It might be even better as a Criminal import, in fact, where a single Account Siphon can hit on two fronts: increase the necessity of HQ protection while making it painfully expensive to actually set that protection up.
Ultimately, this is meta-dependent (glacier, but no Blue Sun), and build-dependent (a runner-side tax deck???), but the effect is interesting enough to experiment with.
NEUTRAL
Mad Dash — Include (Ubiquitous)
Aw hell. A starting hand of Indexing, Freedom through Equality, and Mad Dash can conceivably make the corp quit on the spot. The single point of meat damage isn’t even a factor — you’re not gonna run Mad Dash except as the capstone to a successful, possibly game-winning, turn.
All for zero credits and zero influence, on top of it all.
Yeah, this is a Good Card. This punts you over the finish line before the Corp’s got everything in place. While obviously best for aggressive runners that want to swing hard and fast from the get-go, rather than big-rig or combo setups, it’s a solid enough option even then, when almost every corp deck’s running Global Food Initiative to minimize agenda density.
Note, however: it’s anti-synergistic with Film Critic, as FC replaces the steal effect that triggers Mad Dash’s bonus point.
