Agenda7 is Packing it in – So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

It was a tough decision, but Agenda7 is shutting its podcasting down.

We’ve all enjoyed playing Netrunner since August, 2012, but because of our many, many other interests, we can’t maintain the schedule. If you’re interested in why, read on – otherwise, so long and thanks for all the fish.

1 – Time. Our podcast takes a lot of time to research, play, record and edit. Often this means deckbuilding and playing with cards you would normally rarely use. You need to have an informed opinion, or you’re just making stuff up and crossing your fingers that you were right. The three of us agreed that this one (fantastic) game was taking up a full 50% or more of our gaming time. – ironically, often, not playing it.

Then there’s the social media aspect of it. I had no idea how much time Facebook, Twitter and email interactions would add to the ‘casts workload. Fair warning to other wannabe podcasters – social media and listener emails take up a lot of time, and if you don’t have it, or don’t care, don’t pretend to want feedback. We loved and responded to 99% of every piece of listener feedback we got – that’s why we announce some names at the end of each show. We love you guys, and thanks for doing it.

2 – Burnout. You can play a game too much, and it may begin to lose its excitement. After many store championships this spring, we all felt the need to take a rest from the game. Then Honor and Profit came out. What to do now? Without the passion, you shouldn’t be podcasting about Netrunner – you owe it to your listeners, wouldn’t you agree? Which leads to the next concern.

3 – Fun. We will continue to play, and collect everything – I have no doubt. Without the need to be taking notes and doing research, more ‘fun’ will come back into the game for us. Believe it or not, I actually feel a little twinge of stress or guilt whenever I can’t answer a listener email, or take too long between acknowledging tweets. What’s up with that? That’s not fun – it’s worry!

So what now? Agenda7 is not going away, although the new podcasts will be. We’ll see you on the forums. We’ll see you on OCTGN. We’ll still make videos. In fact, I expect the video aspect of Agenda7 to take off. And we’ll still be writing articles, and doing interviews whenever we can, but the regular podcasts are going the way of  Exploratory Romp and Burke Bugs.

Thank-you to everyone for a great time! We enjoyed it – and we hope you got something useful out of it.

Remember to drink more Red Bull, listen to more drum and bass, and we will see you ONLINE.

Honor and Profit: In Depth

Starting with Honor and Profit, we’re not going to be so eager to discuss cards we haven’t had a chance to use. After a month of use for many cards in this deluxe set, we’ve got a better handle on what to expect from them. Glen’s scathing and to-the-point comments are first in this review.

Harmony Medtech – 3/3
Normally I don’t like Identities that on the surface appear to benefit runner and corp the same. The big advantage here is that the runner doesn’t know going in that you are running this one. It offers Jinteki a rush deck option. And now that there is a 5 for 3 agenda, you can play this with only 6 three point agendas if you wish (40 card minimum deck size). Makes The Hive an even better piece of ice. – Glen

Nisei Division – 2/3
Has the most future potential as more good Psi effect cards become available. Still, playable now. – Glen

Tennin Institute – 2/3
Nice effect, but big problem is that Jinteki ice isn’t famous for stopping the runner. Will have to splash ice and use neutral ice to make this work. – Glen

House of Knives – 2/3
Not a huge fan of 3 for 1 agenda, but this one works well after Komainu or perhaps a well timed Shinobi. Also useful in decks that try to deck the runner. – Glen

Medical Breakthrough – 2/3
Better in a longer game – less useful with Harmony Medtech. – Glen

Philotic Entanglement – 3/3
It’s a 3 for 2! Oh ya, and it does something useful. – Glen

The Future Perfect – 2/3
Interesting 5 for 3. Most of them do something very useful once scored, but not this one. However, it does offer some protection until it is installed. Unfortunately, it loses this once installed, but still not bad. – Glen

Chairman Hiro – 1/3
Although this is useful in an endgame strategy, it is really hard to put cards like this in your deck which give the runner more points to steal. You still have to put the minimum number of agenda points in your deck. And with Unregistered S&W ’35 in the runner’s arsenal, any hope for this card just got snuffed out. – Glen

Mental Health Clinic – 3/3
A card that costs 0 to rez and 3 to trash. Very useful in decks not designed to flatline the runner. And it’s not unique. Fairly easy to splash. – Glen

Psychic Field – 3/3
The first card that has its effect take place when exposed! And only 1 influence. Gonna see this in a lot of Weyland decks. – Glen

Shi.Kyu – 3/3
Has a great effect and it works from everywhere except R&D (including archives). If you have enough money, can force the runner to take -1 agenda point. And it’s not unique. Combines well with Philotic Entanglement. Also great if you’re playing Harmony Medtech with only 3 point agendas, or only 2 point agendas – forces the runner to steal 1 more agenda than you have to score. – Glen

Tenma Line – 2/3
I suspect once again that I will like this card more than the general population. Especially useful in Jinteki where ice placement is key. – Glen

Cerebral Cast – 2/3
At first glance I hated this card as Jinteki usually has little tag punishment so runner would opt for the tag. But if used as the first click, runner might have to take the brain damage to avoid losing key resources. Once brain damage hits, easier to flatline via net damage. – Glen

Medical Research Fundraiser – 1/3
Basically gives you 5 credits to the runner’s 3. Not good as you often want runner to be poor when playing Jinteki. – Glen

Mushin No Shin – 3/3
Mushin No shin, how do I love thee, let me count the ways:
1. Useful with bluffing
2. Also allows you to advance a Project Junebug in one turn with enough to flatline the runner with a full hand
3. lso good for Ronin
4. Useful with Trick of Light
5. Super if you can score an Unorthodox Predictions on click 1 – can score a 5 for 3 next turn fairly easily. – Glen

Inazuma – 2/3
Useful but has to be installed in the correct spot to be useful. Can cause a nice surprise the first time, then a taxing piece of ice after that. – Glen

Komainu – 2/3
Nice taxing piece of ice, but very susceptible to Parasite. Can end the game early along with a Neural EMP. – Glen

Pup – 2/3
Costs 1 to rez and runner pretty much has to pay 2 to get through unscathed. – Glen

Shiro – 2/3
A bit expensive, but can be very useful in a deck with a lot of traps like Snare! Need to test this more before finalizing the rating. – Glen

Susanoo –no-Mikoto – 1/3
Interesting. Freaking expensive. Unique. Nope. – Glen

NeoTokyo Grid – 1/3
Seems useful with a high trash cost, but it will get culled before you get to 49 cards. – Glen

Tori Hanzo – 2/3
Can see a deck designed around this, but limited use. – Glen

Plan B – 1/3
Would like to use this in Weyland where 2 and 5 advancement agendas are useful. But would never use without Trick of Light, meaning the 0 influence is misleading. Low trash cost make it vulnerable in R&D and HQ. – Glen

Guard – 1/3
Seems useful vs. Inside Job but at only 2 strength, will be easy for any useful Killer to break for 1 credit. – Glen

Rainbow – 1/3
Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I’d rather pay 1 more credit for a Bastion. – Glen

Diversified Portfolio – 2/3
Useful with horizontal decks like Replicating Perfection. – Glen

Fast Track – 2/3
Pretty risky as you are revealing an agenda going to HQ to the runner. However, can be a useful end game strategy. Probably best used after scoring Unorthodox Predictions. – Glen

Iain Stirling – 1/3
Finally a use for Data Dealer. The big benefit of this card is a bad strategy in the finals of a tournament, so it is only playable in ‘friendly’ games. Plus only 10 influence. – Glen

Ken “Express” Tenma – 3/3
With all the run events in H&P, this card is an ultra aggressive runner. With 17 influence, you can splash several great run events like Escher, Demolition Run, Stimhack, Indexing and The Maker’s Eye. – Glen

Silhouette – 2/3
Interesting ability, but I think it will play too slow for tournaments. – Glen

Calling in Favors – 3/3
Combined with Fall Guy, Hostage and Same Old Thing, this can be a big money maker. Just make sure you have some link or a Decoy. – Glen

Early Bird – 2/3
Auto include with Tenma, this will make the runner prepare one turn for the next. Might give away too much info to the corp during that prep. – Glen

Express Delivery – 1/3
Rather use Mr. Li. – Glen

Feint – 2/3
Use with Emergency Shutdown and Bug. Useful if you have Desperado. Likely auto include for Gabriel Santiago. – Glen

Legwork – 2/3
The Maker’s Eye for Criminal. Not quite as useful though. – Glen

Planned Assault – 2/3
The double event doesn’t hurt as you get to play the card searched for. Be more useful is there were a decent double run event. – Glen

Logos – 1/3
Does this cost more than Desperado? Yes. Is it better? No. – Glen

Public Terminal – 2/3
Auto include with Tenma. I really like Prepaid VoicePad and while not as versatile, it is cheaper. Also great protection from Power Shutdown. – Glen

Unregistered S&W ’35 – 3/3
Goodbye Caprice Nisei – we hardly knew you. – Glen

Window – 2/3
Obviously useful with Mr. Li. Not much else, but still useful. – Glen

Alias – 2/3
I like the inexpensive breakers and you can certainly build a good runner deck while ignoring the remote servers. Problem with this is it tells the Corp that you are going to ignore them. You need to put a least 1 AI breaker like Crypsis in there to keep the Corp Honest, like that’ll ever happen. – Glen

Breach – 2/3
See Alias. – Glen

Bug – 1/3
Too expensive for the info. – Glen

Gingerbread – 1/3
Not versatile enough. Most tracers are sentries and Criminal already has the best Killers. – Glen

Grappling Hook – 2/3
Great early to prevent major damage. Likely best used face check while not breaking the end the run subroutine to escape unscathed. – Glen

Passport – 2/3
See Alias. – Glen

Push Your Luck – 0/3
If this card were free, you could break even in the long run. What a waste of a click and a card slot. – Glen

Security Testing – 1/3
If this works with Feint, it is playable. Have to check the FAQ first though as I suspect it doesn’t. – Glen

Theophilius Bagbiter – 1/3
Someone will have to show me why this costs 3, cause I wouldn’t play it for minus 3 in any deck. – Glen

Tri-Maf Contact – 1/3
Really dangerous card with limited upside. – Glen

Mass Install – 1/3
The best use for this is a big surprise install right before a big run. Too bad you’ll be out of credits by then. – Glen

Q-Coherence Chip – 3/3
The zero cost, zero influence memory chip. This won’t cause you a problem with memory as the program is already trashed before the memory chip. Be careful having more than 1 of these installed though. – Glen

Overmind – 1/3
Seems really expensive for a limited use program. – Glen

Oracle May – 3/3
Finally a use for Dave’s fave Shaper Resource – Motivation. Also good with Test Run. 1 influence is still palatable. – Glen

Donut – Taganes – 0/3
Does the corp ever use more operations than the runner uses events? Nope! And it costs 3 to install and 2 influence. And it doesn’t stack. Awful. – Glen