by flamejuggler
MMC and pad are very different cards. PAD is great for longterm drip of money, but it has no velocity to go from poor to rich at all and change your game plan, which is why i think MMC is a more critical card. i play with both alot, but win games on the back of MMC.When you play around inside job and manage to ice HQ and archives effectively early, Gabriel can really run out of steam quick. I recognize Criminal is popular online, but I think they win more vs less experienced players but gets harder the better the corp is, and the longgame doesnt favor criminal as much as other factions imho.
Frankly, we've been struggling to build a criminal deck that wins as consistently and reliably as our shaper and anarch stacks. my local group is a bunch of NR playtesters with dozens and dozens of games under our belts since we've had the game for a while now. im truly interested in seeing what makes a criminal stack stand out in a competitive field, and wasnt surprised by the lists, just surprised they were top of the field. /shrug.
i agree with the masses that HB is the best corp deck. weyland combo is also good, but a bit swingier.
i do think this game rewards solid play and reads on the opponent, and this contributes alot to success if your list is at least reasonable. Im sure jeremy and ben are both solid players in general to have made it that far.
and i understand that fatigue sets in in large tourneys, but the sheer amount of sloppy plays in the finals was disappointing. losing a match forgetting to remove a tag you could have is a bummer. But im most shocked at how lax rules enforcement was, and that jeremy was not given a game loss for putting ice inside a remote server illegally and having a turn go by. the game is full of hidden info that COULD be used for ill intent, and so playing hidden cards correctly needs to be held to a high standard, especially in a worlds final. I suppose expectations of rules enforcement like MTG protours is premature, but that ruling shocked me, and would NEVER have flown in a serious magic tourney. oh well, the game is young.
very excited the game is proving to be so popular, and so im very eager to get more tourney results and high level discussion going. the data packs are about to really open up options alot, exciting times.