Android: Netrunner General - /anrg/

With the new helmet?

Ye, Zamba made hella dosh. Dude got locked out because corp Voter Intimidated his Caldera.

I don't think we have anything but suppositions about the other two minis getting new cards for now.

First time is an accident, and then you learn the trade! Or another party could do the deed stick it on them convenient scapegoat.

>Or another party could do the deed stick it on them convenient scapegoat.
Anarchs!

But yeah, management of the dam at least seems like a Weyland thing, and they definitely do other big infrastructure things that can be dangerous

>Dude got locked out because corp Voter Intimidated his Caldera.
oof, I assume Jinteki?

>oof, I assume Jinteki?
Ye. PE, Kakugo's on every central, on 6 points, Obokata in hand, runner has no cards in hand or deck.

>City
>Works
>Project
I can't even tell you how excited I am to play Weyland Shell Game decks.

You can't shell game it, it's Public.
Mushin works well though.

Mushin or Dedicate puts it at 5 damage, which is just fun. Still needs a little protection - prisec, being advanced again, etc., but it seems neat.
I do find it funny that Weyland only has self-protection when the project is public though

Gonna be a good time I think.

Oh that's spicy

It's a possibility other member states otherwise affected by the presence of the dam would happily reward whoever just happened to...get rid of that damned dam in the room.

Would make a heck of a RPG scenario. Easily Prime level for the runners.

Hitting a major infrastructure target like that seems like it would need a LOT of prep, and you'd probably need a bit of help

Especially with the lake being a site for a lot of the city, and the Kitara tether

Well, if any particular organisation can pull off that sort of dastardly deed, it would surely be the fine fellas at Big W.

Gotta show those insolent national governments who's the boss of the planet.

Would you/your friend switch over to 419 when he appears? He seems pretty much superior compared to Sil, even with the larger deck size.

With that deck, no. I think current derez/expose Los builds are better for 419. He wants to keep the corp poor either BY his ID, or FOR his ID. either they are poor and cant rez ice and you get GPI Net Tap bucks and Aumakua counters, or they expose things and give you regular Zamba bucks and Aumakua counters.

That sounds intriguing, but how do you deal with the crazy setup time and costs?

I think you only need a few pieces to start earning dosh and applying pressure. That fuels and makes space for the rest of the engine. Also Supplier.

>You want net tap? Just came off the suborbital from Mumbad today

I keep forgetting to put that guy in my builds, and worse still they are already filled to the brim at 50..

I'm thinking the time of the self-protecting 5/3 is going to look a lot grimmer once the critic rotates.

How do you mean? As in they'll be run more?

Pretty sure he means that post-critic they'll be a lot stronger.

I don't like critic as a card, but an answer to self-protecting agendas and "if the runner stole an agenda" retribution should probably be in the game

Added-cost has a security valve in the form of Critic. If every corp packs self-protecting stuff, as is likely, decks that can't live up to the resources spread needed can just pack Critic.

When the critic leaves, it either needs replacement, or an explosions of means for the runner to keep up. Or seeing swathes of decks go down as they just can't.

Maybe run events or resources with repeatable run events that can ignore "When accessed" abilities (these would then be incompatible with Counter Surveillance or Deep Data Mining, a needed nerf to critic's power)? I'd like to get more options even before critic rotates.

By any means is an interesting example, when you think about it.

Singularity and Imp do as well, though they don't solve the Obokata, Hunter Seeker, and Predictive Algorithm problems. Film critic solves two distinct issues, three now that the agenda archetype has distinctly split. We need ways to deal with all three that are not as easy or effectively costless, but not too cumbersome that most decks don't have the opportunity to slot them.

1) Steal retribution is strong. With midseasons rotated and there being other ways to deal with Hunter-Seeker this is less of a pressing issue.

2) Self-Protecting Agendas: These are things like Obokata, Future Perfect, and Ikawa Project. The runner has to pay an additional cost if they can't/won't the corp keeps the agenda.

3) Ambush agendas: City Works Project, Predictive Algorithm, TGTBT. The runner likely will steal, but the corp gets something in return. Note how weird the color pie is on these, especially since Fetal AI rotated.

That's my essay. For what it's worth, I think corps should at the same time be given options to counter the counters. Don't forget Contract Killer and Corporate Town were the same cycle and function to shut down Film Critic as well as other uses.

Fuck me, meant Quantum Predictive Model agenda, not the extra cost current, though it also counts.

Good sum up. I like how we have some cards addressing some issues without being stricto sensu counters to them, asymmetry in the problem solved/problem create. Things like Recon Drone.

>I think corps should at the same time be given options to counter the counters.

Yeeah, some people seem to hate that, but I really like when the came allows some "play banter' so to speak between decks/players.

>Recon Drone.
I think it's a shame that flat prevention seems far better than this most of the time

Also it and Caldera makes any brain decks sad

Recon Drone is such a simple card yet ironically too clunky to use or consider including. I think it's just an oddly specific single use hate card whose only synergy with anything else comes from having a trashcan for Geist.

>Added-cost has a security valve in the form of Critic.
Yeah, agreed on all points. I absolutely hate Critic from a design-philosophy perspective, always have, but its role as a silver bullet is an absolute necessity in the current environment.

>Singularity and Imp do as well, though they don't solve the Obokata, Hunter Seeker, and Predictive Algorithm problems.
TBF, most people would tell you the problem with Obokata and HS are those specific cards, not a flaw in the broader game. Obokata in particular has maintained its dominance even while on the MWL. The correct answer there might be an eventual ban, rather than a new release offering counterplay.

Less severe variations like Future Perfect and Fetal AI have existed for years without breaking anything, by comparison.

>flat prevention seems far better than this
Flat prevention IS far better. Draw-on-damage effects are better in most applications too. The only place where RD shines in any fashion is against on-access brain damage traps, which is a pretty small share of the field.

It has basically the old plascrete carapace problem of being blank against anyone that doesn't field the right kind of cards, except that here it's a much smaller percentage of decks and (unlike carapace) the upside when it DOES do its job just isn't that big.

Another problem to take into account is what I was forewarning when they started announcing Kitara: what happens when the number of self-protecting agendas hits critical mass and 5/3s start to become defined by self-protection, ie, other agendas cease to exist in the pool by sheer virtue of how good having your agendas self-protect/fire on steal as well as score can be?

TFP/Fetal weren't a problem because they were an exception, segregated to one faction (and with the later, specific categories of decks I would add).
GFI, being neutral and build agnostic started the trend: it popped up everywhere that needed a 5/3. Competitive players generally will prefer the lessened risk to powerful effects - and let's cut the bullshit, most effects powerful enough for them to prefer a normal 5/3 to a "good" self-protecting one would be broken, and bad for the game. Elective Upgrade is basically "rush this to be able to FA your two next 3/2 to victory for free", and that still hasn't been enough as far as I can see. Which is crazy.

>the upside when it DOES do its job just isn't that big.

That's the sad part to me. You look at the numbers on Biometric Spoofing and Recon Drone, and it makes little sense, unless we're to expect some explosion of on-access damage across the board. Just sad.
I like the card.

>what happens when the number of self-protecting agendas hits critical mass and 5/3s start to become defined by self-protection, ie, other agendas cease to exist in the pool by sheer virtue of how good having your agendas self-protect/fire on steal as well as score can be?
I'd argue we're already there. And at present, the answer is "Film Critic happens".

Which is... not great.

Hence why we need new ways around it that aren't as prevalent/powerful as the critic, but are still options usable by several archetypes to varying efficiency. I also am not a fan of the archetype leaving the Jinteki/NBN color pie, especially in the fashion it has. How quickly we forget NAPD Contract being perma-MWL'd and why.

BAM, and other trashing effects, might be a viable alternative in comparison, although time issues might be a complication.

Probably worth noting that only Obokata is the only card mentioned that can only be countered by Film Critic due to the unpreventable damage, most of the others are playable around. What I'm hoping for post-critic is that the other faction get access to cards that can trash agendas, since those would at the very least stop the corp from scoring them on that turn.

Technically there should have been other ways to play around - if only Vanadis/Clan Vengeance.
I'm that close to believe Recon Drone was meant to be one such solution, but there was one of those wording snafu that haunted the last cycles - ie Obokata wasn't meant to be an additional cost at first and it was changed at the last minute by someone that did not see all the implications.

>How quickly we forget NAPD Contract being perma-MWL'd

Guilty as charged, though I definitely think NAPD wasn't as bad as the self-protected 5/3s, GFI especially, by virtue of being a two pointer. 4/2s have long been in an awkward spot, having to compete with 3/2s.
And yes, I'm still mad at Genesis 3/2s making the cut for 2.0.

Wonder if they'll change the additional cost thing to something closer to City Works with the on access damage. If they ever "fix" Obokata then Ikawah will probably be the one to beat, especially with HB click loss shenanigans. Though again, I'd love for there to be a mini-Imp for all factions to deal with those post-Critic.

Data Dealer as a Run Event for crims? Run, and instead of stealing, any agenda you access is removed from the game and replaced by cold hard creds, depending on agenda points.

Contracted Run.

That would actively not help you win though, and hoping that the corp doesn't score out before they get milled, which is likely the plan for a deck that wants that card.

Maybe a priority HQ run event that blanks agenda text boxes whether installed or in the score area until the end of the corp's next turn? Would make scoring agendas with additional effects less appealing while it's up

Worth pointing out that the mill might be part of the answer. Mill decks have come back in to fashion since the rotation, and a fast mill is plenty scary for a corp that took nothing but 5/3's, AND most mill decks don't sweat much about defenses on agendas they didn't want anyway. 15 advance takes a long time.. quite possibly too long, if the runner is taking chunks out of you along the way.

My idea for one of the reddit Custom Card Threads was
>**Frostbite**
>Criminal Program: Virus
>4[credit](/credit) [1](/mem) •••
>Install Frostbite only on a card in a remote server and only if you made a successful run on HQ this turn.
>The text box of host card is blank.
>Trash Frostbite if the Corp purges virus counters.
>*"I can't get this damn door open!"*

A lot of corps (Looking at you HB) are getting parts of their installs or advancements for free. Fast advance got slower, but it can protect itself now and the old solutions don't work anymore.

Let's face it, 5/3 isn't slow enough anymore, something needs to give.

Maybe make defensive agenda with a trash cost

>not constructing your deck based on which identity is cutest

>tfw no kawaii animu IDs
Official ones I mean

>Still no femboy id
Where's the gay reprsentation ffg wtf

sure, 3-4% of identities can be gay, if you want representation.
Or better yet, what if some of them are actually gay already, but they're not flat people who define themselves by their sexuality, and so they don't advertise it? What a novel concept.

Vanguard and Force of Will are games with lots of animu protagonists and cards.

I think there's probably a bit of hivemind going on - I recall when 5/3's were "bad, you should never play them" - while they're easier to score now (especially in HB), there's still not that much difference.
You've still got the "3 access" problem with everything but GFI, and most 5/3s aren't great effects - or aren't played for them, which is weird when you consider that Elective Upgrade and Graft are, in a vacuum, amazing effects.

That said, I kind of wish 3/1s were better, but I have no idea how you'd make that happen without some gross disruption of the powerlevels

Are you telling me Exile isn't a twink if you shave him?

Also if you're any good at pattern recognition of ID abilites you might know who's the opposite of that

Nero's the reverse, and wasn't Quetzal the resident trans?

I mean for Netrunner specifically of course, though there does seem to be oversaturation of anime waifu card games, digitally though.

>Nero's the reverse, and wasn't Quetzal the resident trans?
Nero has fully transitioned, future biotech ftw. Quetzal is transHUMAN, their gender sitch is ???

Quetzal would tell you something along the lines of "don't try and define it, it doesn't define me"
Given you can get g-mods, and wyldside (which is on the moon, noting Quetzal is a lunar ID) has a bit of an animal thing going on, that's probably the most sensible way to go.

Kit is clearly and proudly transhuman, it's even her subtitle.
And Nero's mysterious past hints fairly strongly that he's transitioned.
All of them have the "ice type" ID effects as well

Ken's an anime protagonist, but not a kawaii one

>Game takes place in the future
>Uuuh you can have modern day representatives
If this was true there wouldn't only be two white guy id's

Exile not cute enough and is literally trash

>tfw you realize their ID abilities correspond to their bed skills

Quetzal will smash you
Kit will convert you to her kinks
Nero will take a look, then run away

Depending on whose definition you choose, there's what 5 or 6?
4 still in the game iirc.
But yes, the make-up of modern-day america is a pretty poor baseline for the makeup of New Angeles and the wider runner community

Also
>literally trash
>twink
Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

But I think this is getting off topic...
How much scarier would sentries have to get for Nero to be worth it?

Nero pulls out before bad things happen.

>How much scarier would sentries have to get for Nero to be worth it?
Nero with au revoir and turning wheel is great.

They would have to be MUCH more scarier then all those newfangled code gates that are doing most of the work nowadays.

That's just jacking out in general really. At least now that ding-dong the snitch is dead.
Everyone else just has something else you'd rather build around

Yeah, code gates are kind of stealing the show - even Oduduwa is a code gate, and that's Weyland (admittedly, he'd be kinda obnoxious as a Sentry - though I'd say that's what he should be - and only useful for his ability as a Barrier)

Sentries are already plenty scary, the issue is that Code Gates are as good as a Barrier and a Sentry combined, so why use anything else besides fearing everyone uses Gordian Blade? Despite being solidly a Nero fan, you only really want him if you have a fitting gameplan for the ID, or you want to reduce the amount of ice to fear a faceplant from by 1/3rd.

When we get away from damon meme design of printing barriers and code gates that should be sentries

It'd be great if we get more game ending Sentries that aren't just program trashes or net damage.

What do you suggest? Econ destruction? Straight built in win-con?

That's a difficult one, to be sure - econ war might be one way, but, say, Veritas isn't amazing.

I mean, there's always architect, but that was restricted for a long time for reason

I have no idea, to be honest. Best I can think of is "search the top 5 cards on RnD for an agenda, if found, put it in your score area, and attach this piece of ice as an agenda counter with the text 'this agenda has 1 less agenda point'. Otherwise, rearrange the top 5 cards on RnD". After that there's recursion, indefinite damage multipliers and or econ corrosion, advancement reducers... That last one might be cool as "reduce agenda advancement requirement until the end of the corp's next turn".

Perhaps something akin to Data Raven, except more then just another trace-for-tag after the initial on-encounter tag?

Perhaps take X amount of meat damage per tag?

Thoth already does that, though it's still a tracer

It really is a damn shame Snitch is gone. At least with it around crims actually has a decent way to make a decent amount of cash reliably.

And in about a years time, even Au Revoir would be gone...

Whizzard, Alice Merchant, MaxX, Armand "Geist" Walker, Iain Stirling, Laramy Fisk, Steve Cambridge, Ele "Smoke" Scovak, Exile, Sunny Leabau. 10 IDs out of 35 (among which a bioroid and an undefined lifeform) seems good to me, with a worldwide "white" (a very dubious category though) population of 11.5%. I do think the Netrunner IDs are within margin especially with a multi-planetary population pool, and the main hub of the setting being placed in Ecuador.
If anything, I love how most runner characters are cross-cultural, even Keung is named Omar (I'm still wondering whether Omar is the name, I've know people named Keung, but to both it was their first name - 強).

I always thought Runners being marginal in one way or another makes sense.

All that percentage talk being nonsensical, really, when the designers have a clear authorial intent. And a decent execution.

>That would actively not help you win though

That's something you can hold against *any* agenda sacrifice effect. Might as well not put them in the game by that token.
Here I do think being able to turn an agenda you couldn't steal anyway into cold hard cash helps your position, the corp can't score it either, and as another user noted, that plays right into a milling start (plus I love the theme idea of the runner getting paid by selling the agenda that couldn't be stolen, leaving the price to be paid to another party; very crim).
Would most likely not be a competitive darling, but I do think it's an interesting option.

Aggregated power counters into a win? Basically Viktor 2.0 but tied to a set number instead of grip size?
Don't know that I like this, but worth exploring at least.

Omar is likely to be the personal name of that Chinese guy. Usually the surname comes first, but specifically western-style personal names ends up in front instead.

>That's something you can hold against *any* agenda sacrifice effect. Might as well not put them in the game by that token.
When the existing point of comparison both let you stash away an agenda so you can steal at your leisure, yes, maybe they shouldn't. As a tool for stalling the game until you can grasp a win though, it's perfectly fine, great even. Just because I don't agree that it isn't the best method to be used for dealing with troublesome to steal agendas doesn't mean I've completely dismissed it for use elsewhere. Especially since I don't disagree with the bonus flavor effect you mentioned.

>When the existing point of comparison

... is something we don't want to see reiterated as is? Wasn't that part of the point of designing alternatives? None must be as stupidly good at dealing with too many things as the critic happens to be. Slight asymmetry between problem solved and problem posed.

Still drawing a blank on a Shaper alternative.

I don't know about Geist being white, but you make a good point - with NA being the hub of the game, and being a relatively new city that boomed because of immigration, you wouldn't expect any particular makeup.
And all the runners in both cores are at least a bit cross-cultural (moreso in the first core, but that's just because we know less about Reina really)

Also yes, I'd say that totally sounds like a criminal thing - especially an Iain thing, if you were going to theme it on any given runner. I don't know if I'd have it be a run though, if it was I'd say targeting remotes?
As a resource (post/instead-of Critic) I could see something like:

Heist
2c Criminal ••• Resource: Job
When you access an agenda you may remove it from the game (the agenda is no longer being accessed and is uninstalled) and remove Heist from the game to gain 4c and an additional 3c for each printed agenda point.

So gain 5 for 1 point, 8 for 2, 11 for 3, and if you Heist Gov Takeover you gain 20 and avoid the punitive

That's interesting - so if you've got a western name, it'll end up in the western style, even in china?

Now I'm wondering about a couple of lecturers I had - both were chinese, but as far as I can tell the guy with the chinese first name still had it in the western order, with the personal name first.

>Quetzal will smash you
>Kit will convert you to her kinks
>Nero will take a look, then run away
Andy likes you, but probably has 8 other flings going at the same time
Val seems nice, but will talk shit about you behind your back
Whizzard will move in (he's already got his overnight bag) and then destroy everything in your house.
Maxx will pick you up once and dump you twice.
Gabe will charge you exhorbitant prices for his "services".
Apex prefers you stay face down (at least until you've been assimilated).
Hayley thinks anything worth doing is worth doing twice.
Ken likes fast wheels, fast women and fast parcels.
Adam always practices safety first, but don't worry because he never stops going and neutralizes all threats if you know what i mean I don't even know what I mean
Khan always has all the right tools for the job

>Now I'm wondering about a couple of lecturers I had - both were chinese, but as far as I can tell the guy with the chinese first name still had it in the western order, with the personal name first.
Worth pointing out, a lot of chinese people have a traditional chinese legal name (with family name first) and also adopt a western personal name as a "nick name", in effect. Usually when using the western name, they will also use the western name order. eg Bruce Lee's birth name was Lee Jun-fan. Lee is the family name, in either case, but he flipped the order when using his westernized stage name.

>That said, I kind of wish 3/1s were better, but I have no idea how you'd make that happen without some gross
disruption of the powerlevels

I've long clamored for 3/2s with downsides. Merger was the way to go as far as I'm concerned.
3/2s need to stay, they're just too central to some ways of playing the game. They need to come with proper risks attached, though. For better balance.
Very unlikely to happen though, with the Genesis 3/2s staying in the pool, since you also need to keep the overall number low.

Under most situations it basically goes like

[western/christian first name] then (Family Surname) then

It can get a bit complicated if the order gets mixed up, since many Chinese personal names can sound like (and sometimes are in another context) surnames.

>I don't know about Geist being white, but you make a good point - with NA being the hub of the game, and being a relatively new city that boomed because of immigration, you wouldn't expect any particular makeup.
>And all the runners in both cores are at least a bit cross-cultural (moreso in the first core, but that's just because we know less about Reina really)
It wouldn't be too surprising, given the location of NA and its nature as a super boomtown, basically, that the majority of immigrants would have been from other parts of the americas. Those two continents, if I had to guess, are on average a noticeably lighter skin color than the global average (the often quoted 11% number).

As one particular instance, there was probably a huge displaced population from the former US west coast after The Big One; I'd bet a fair few of the people that ended up working on and around the beanstalk belong to that group.

/golfclap

>I don't know about Geist being white

As I said, a very dubious category. Cuts both ways too. I have a black Canadian friend who was blown away hearing black Africans arguing that Beyoncé isn't black, but clearly metis.

Yeah, I did wonder, seeing as the names didn't really match.

On the other hand I know a guy who's of chinese descent from school (think he was still born here mind), and he had a western first name - but I guess that could also be a nickname/for the convenience of people (especially teachers and kids) not fucking up the pronunciation, idk. Not really something you'd ask.

Yeah, construction + completion of the beanstalk, combined with other geopolitical shifts (The Blackout, The Big One, Russia collapsing, Atlantica declining etc.) means there'll be people from all over - there's probably at most only a generation or so of full adults who'd have been born there (that weren't Ecuadorian, given it spills into at least one major Ecuadorian city)

Point is I didn't dismiss agenda sacrifice cards completely to the point that we shouldn't venture into the mechanic at all as you imply.

Shaper kind of already have soft responses for Obokata and Ikawah in LV District and Upya/Beth/All-Nighter, though that's mostly mitigating the damage than it is a proper counter to it. I wonder if "when you install, remove 1 bp. whenever you would pay an additional cost for stealing an agenda, remove this card from the game to ignore it" would be too strong? Though atleast it leaves punitive plays open.

>there's probably at most only a generation or so of full adults who'd have been born there (that weren't Ecuadorian, given it spills into at least one major Ecuadorian city)

Which has the potential of painting the Ecuadorian independentists in very different lights, depending on the demands.
I guess interesting to compare to current Catalonia independence movements, and how they exits across the whole political spectrum, but with significant variations depending on how left or right they stand.

>Shaper kind of already have soft responses

You're definitely right, brute-forcing is probably more the shaper way to deal with it, they have the tools for it, probably not good to also give them ways to side step on top.

>as you imply

I didn't imply, I outright said. That's how I understood your point. No agenda sacrifice is going to "actively help you win", unless it's something like Liberated Chela that gives you more point for points sacrificed.

>I guess that could also be a nickname/for the convenience of people (especially teachers and kids) not fucking up the pronunciation
It's very likely. I can think of at least half a dozen people I went to school with that were born here (US in this case), with immigrant chinese parents. It was typical that the "official" name on their birth certificates would be ethnically chinese, but they would have a western name (also given by their parents, usually) for everyday use. Sometimes it would be an obvious nickname from the anglicized version of chinese personal name (eg Xiaolu in to "Lulu" or Jun in to "John"), but can just as easily have no connection (I knew a Xiang who went by "George" and a Xiaoqing who went by "Victoria").

There are a LOT of layers to chinese naming conventions though, which Jun's mother will be happy to talk your ear off about if you want to know more.

Worth noting "spills into" is Ecuador's largest city becoming but a single district in New Angeles

As far as i can recall the 3 biggest independence movements in NA are a) the Prof's one, the weakest, b) violent kinda-terrorists who are supported by/a front for the Los Scorpiones organised crime group, and c) a group of very well funded politicos and business types who clearly want "independence" for greater corporate advantage rather than for any good of the Ecuadorians

>geopolitical shifts (The Blackout, The Big One, Russia collapsing, Atlantica declining etc.) means there'll be people from all over
Oh sure. It's not an exaggeration to say the world of netrunner looks completely different from our own both ethnically and culturally. You're talking about a shift on the scale of what we saw between the beginning of the renaissance and the present day, practically.

>Worth noting "spills into" is Ecuador's largest city becoming but a single district in New Angeles
It's probably moving toward Ecuador just being politically synonymous with NA. New Angeles is considered the largest and most prosperous city on earth, and that's compared to (relatively) known quantities like SanSan, which is an urbanized version of basically all of california (at least the non-submerged bits).

The population of Ecuador today is only about 16m. It's not much of a stretch to assume the immigrant population of New Angeles coincident with beanstalk construction outnumbers the native population of the country by an order of magnitude, and its economic influence is even more dramatic. The whole country is probably close to disappearing in to the growing city limits of NA.

Makes sense - I don't know if there's as much formula and layers, but there's certainly a thing with "ethnic" names and "name you use in English".
I recall being asked by my (Scottish) manager "who's that guy?" on a wage sheet and I was like "oh that's Martin... Yeah you can see why he goes with Martin", because he's got an African name and that's like twice as many consonants as you'd expect.

Yeah. It used to even be quite common to straight up change your legal name to something "local" upon moving to a new country. I remember being quite shocked learning as a teen that most of the names I knew my older family members by (grandparents, great aunts and uncles, etc - most of whom moved to the US in the late 40's) were not the names they were born with.

Or if your plan is to stall the game until the corp mills itself out. The perspective that I took was from a regular Crim build that steals to win, so of course such a card wouldn't actively help towards that, only stave off the inevitable for a few turns longer. If you go in as a mill deck however, then it can disrupt a potential score and stall the game long enough for your main game plan to take effect, ie. actively helps you win. To say that agenda sacrifice effects be discarded completely because it doesn't help score you points is to ignore their applications towards other objectives, and being a advocate for fair and objective reviewing of cards in familiar and unfamiliar situations, I just can't let that go unobjected. So no, "does not actively help you win" cannot be applied to all agenda sacrifice effects, because there are situations which can use those effects to win.

Yeah, though mill-crim is an archetype I think, or at least as a version of denial crim