Norwich Launch Day Party
We ask players for their first impressions of playing with Vantage Point
Norwich is the end of the line. A small city far away from the rest of the country with not a lot of reasons to visit except a declining university and two (count them two!) cathedrals.
We do however have a pretty active local Netrunner meta, a pub landlord who is willing to open at 10am on a Monday to let us in and, apparently, an abundance of unused annual leave.
As such we have made it a bit of a tradition to take the release day of any new set off work and head on down to The Plasterer’s Arms, armed with sheaves of black and white paper proxies and half a dozen pairs of scissors.
This time around we had almost 20 people in attendance from as far away as Cambridge and London and played over 100 games of Netrunner from 10am to 11pm.
I thought it would be nice to share the thoughts on some of those players and give a less statistically driven flavour of what the new meta might have in store…
DullBulb (from Youtube)
London, 2 ½ hours awayWhat were you most excited for? And did it live up to your expectations?
Definitely Flood the Market Poetri, believe the hype.
What do you think will define the new meta?
Loup was very impressive, installing Daily Casts off of The Price prints a hell of a lot of money.
What was your biggest let-down?
I don’t think anything fell completely flat, Hiram is exactly as bad as I expected he would be.
What took you most by surprise today?
There was much less Phoenix than I expected, it seems like people aren’t that interested in their new cards.
Omnishambles
Essex, 1 ½ hours awayWhat were you most excited for? And did it live up to your expectations?
Unleash definitely, I got to play Unleash in a couple different decks and it was really awesome every time. I haven’t played before with the unbanned runner cards so I was interested to see those too.
What do you think will define the new meta?
Getting to actually rez a Tyr in PD is something that I think we will see a lot of, which is funny because it is an Ashes card.
What was your biggest let-down?
It felt like the corp had a bit too much control for me to land Kompromat reliably and the downside of Vulture Fund is a bit too real for 7 credits.
What took you most by surprise today?
Reanimation Protocol seems like a really cool card, I hadn’t expected that to be so good.
Tom
Norwich, 30 minute drive.What were you most excited for? And did it live up to your expectations?
It was probably Nihilo Agent. It did loads of great stuff, especially in Editorial Division.
What do you think will define the new meta?
Flood the Market is clearly very strong, any deck that can play that and Fully Operational will be very strong. I mostly played against jank today and that was so much fun.
What was your biggest let-down?
I don’t think there was any, I’ve had fun with all the cards.
What took you most by surprise today?
It was fun to see Hype Machine, Jonald did some nasty stuff with that one.
Aash
Norwich, 10 minute walkWhat were you most excited for? And did it live up to your expectations?
VIPI, 100%. It looked incredibly good, it might have been playable if it had no text box and just had the subtype “Digital”.
What do you think will define the new meta?
Flood the Market PD, it is the only corp deck that I am really scared of, so messed up.
What was your biggest let-down?
Every Editorial Division deck I have seen hasn’t been convincing to me, they still can’t score out of the remote.
What took you most by surprise today?
Loup with Aircheck and Lampades managed to trash whatever it touched, like more copies of Gourmand.
Ox7f
Cambridge, 1 hour train ride awayWhat were you most excited for? And did it live up to your expectations?
Probably Flood the Market. It was a ton of fun.
What do you think will define the new meta?
There are a lot of scary looking Weyland decks, especially the new upgrades.
What was your biggest let-down?
Kompromat, I wasn’t too impressed by that, especially against small ice, but I think it might be a skill issue
What took you most by surprise today?
Poetri actually looked great, they recovered really well from Hermes in a way the PD decks didn’t.
Cobrabubbles
Norwich, about 600m from the pub.What were you most excited for? Did it live up to your expectations?
I built a deck for every faction but I was probably most excited for Ob. It feels just like the deck I was playing 2 years ago but with added Measured Response.
What do you think will define the new meta?
Daily Casts will define the kind of corps you can play going forwards I think
What was your biggest let-down?
I am yet to make Chain Reaction happen but I still have hope for it, it might just be hard to land.
What took you most by surprise today?
Sacrifice Zone Expansion seemed really hot, I thought it was fine but now I think it is much better than fine.
rad.andro
Norwich, approximately 10 minutes away.What were you most excited for? Did it live up to your expectations?
I had built a Thule with Let Them Dream in. Let Them Dream goes incredibly hard, the Thule is looney tunes silly, very fun.
What do you think will define the new meta?
Editorial Division, the tempo Nihilo can give you is wild and hard to recover from.
What was your biggest let-down?
Nothing, all the decks I saw had some amount of potential.
What took you most by surprise today?
I couldn’t really tell you, everything was super fresh and new to me.
not_yeti
Norwich, 15 minutes walk.What were you most excited for? Did it live up to your expectations?
Melies U is possibly my favourite ID of all time, the deck wasn’t as strong as I wanted it to be out the gates but I have already started tweaking it.
What do you think will define the new meta?
I can’t see anything toppling AU Co and Ob, it will just be a question of what cards to play in those IDs.
What was your biggest let-down?
Sell Out, I was convinced that card was perfect for Crim but I have been finding it hard to slot into decks.
What took you most by surprise today?
Near the end of the day people were toying around with Sacrifice Zone Expansion, maybe BANGUN is going to be good???
Hyped about the Vantage Point release—there are other launch events happening in Torino, Bath, Clovis (CA), Helsinki, Reading, Pittsburgh (PA), Esslingen, Milwaukee (WI), Vancouver, London, Victoria, and Toronto—or why not host your own VP launch party!
What could be more fun than exploring the new cardpool with your friends.
Huh, I was expecting a glacier meta, not for a deluge of water.