Our last ban list update, 24.09, was focused on ensuring metagame stability going into Worlds. With the results of the World Championship and UK Nationals cementing the landscape of the meta, and more time to discuss options internally in the Standard Balance Team, we have prepared a new banlist update aimed at addressing a broader challenge: expanding Runner archetype diversity.
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Summary of Standard Banlist 24.12 Changes
Trick Shot banned
NBN: Reality Plus banned
Luminal Transubstantiation banned
Effective date: 26 December 2024. As always, Casual-level events may adopt this update sooner at the TO’s discretion.
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A note on Startup
Startup will not be receiving a balance update at this time as the meta is still relatively unsettled from the 24.09 balance update. The Startup Curation Team (SCT) has gathered some new data from recent Startup tournaments which suggests that Corp and Runner win rates have roughly equalized. Without evidence to suggest that the cards added to the Standard banlist in this update are currently creating the same kinds of issues in Startup, the SCT have decided to wait and see how the meta adapts to emerging successful decks before issuing any further balance updates.
Explanation of changes
Across Worlds and UK Nationals, the Runner metagame has been dominated by Deep Dive Shaper, mostly played out of Lat: Ethical Freelancer. This archetype’s consistency and power level have made it a clear choice for competitive players over other Runner archetypes, leading to a decrease in archetype diversity. However, the metagame is still slightly Corp-favored overall in terms of win rate. Therefore, our primary goal is not to bring down Runner power level overall, but to expand Runner archetype diversity. Finding an appropriate targeted ban for the Deep Dive Shaper archetype was the focal point for this banlist.
Trick Shot
Trick Shot is the key card in successful Shaper decks at the moment, providing early remote pressure, early multiaccess opportunities, and a chunk of setup economy bundled into a single card. While this is true for many Shaper archetypes, this unique combination of role compression is the perfect early game complement to a Deep Dive finisher.
Moreover, the power of Trick Shot has warped Corp play. If a Corp cannot ice R&D on turn one, they risk the Runner being able to take a full turn’s worth of actions in a single click. This has made life difficult for decks that have a harder time committing ice to central servers in the early game.
While the power of Trick Shot is undeniable, it is almost entirely localized in Shaper. Having the ability to proactively spend Trick Shot credits as well as using them to break ice is key to realising the card’s extraordinary potential. Anarchs often prefer to trash ice or break it for pennies with efficient rigs powered by K2CP Turbine, while Criminals often rely more on their bypass effects and other tricks (like Boomerang) than on credit-intensive ways of interacting with ice. Shapers stand out not only for cards like Self-Modifying Code and Arissana Rocha Nahu: Street Artist which allow them to spend Trick Shot credits outside of encounters, but also for efficient breaker suites that require minimal setup.
While we discussed other options (see below), we determined that Trick Shot is (a) way above-curve, (b) utilized primarily in a small number of overperforming archetypes, and (c) so generically good against all Corps that it was not keeping a ‘greater threat’ at bay.
All of these factors lead us to believe we can ban Trick Shot without hurting Criminal or Anarch decks, and leave other Shapers like Rielle “Kit” Peddler: Transhuman or a more setup-focused Lat archetype in a healthy place in the metagame.
Tipping Back the Scales
Once the team was aligned on the need for Trick Shot to be banned, we knew we also had to address Corp power. At Worlds Lat and Arissana had 60% win rates against the Corp field, but every other faction was between 35-50%. As such, banning Trick Shot alone would likely cause an increase in Corp power to an unbalanced level. We are therefore taking a targeted approach to bringing down the power of some of the strongest Corp archetypes as well.
NBN: Reality Plus
We’ve had our eyes on Reality Plus for a long time. Aside from this identity’s consistently strong results in tournaments, the Design and Development teams have had long-standing issues with its presence changing the value of cards that give tags. If a card is balanced with Reality Plus in mind, it risks not being very playable in other NBN decks. The power level of cards such as Drago Ivanov, Ping, Virtual Service Agent and Oppo Research changes dramatically when you get a 2 rebate. In this way, Reality Plus limits design space for tag cards, just as Jinteki: Personal Evolution has often limited design space for net damage cards.
Back in March, we knew that both Bellona and Reality Plus were issues that needed to be addressed by the time ‘Dawn’ released. At the time, we decided to start with the 5/3 agenda, as the more impactful ban. Right now, in a relatively balanced metagame that is seeing one of its most powerful Runner cards banned, it seems only right to even the odds by banning a strong Corp card that was already scheduled to be banned.
Luminal Transubstantiation
Reality Plus’ recent success was partially a byproduct of its matchup into the dominant Trick Shot-based Lat decks. With Trick Shot and Reality Plus bans locked in, we turned our focus towards the Corps that struggled against Shaper. AgInfusion: New Miracles for a New World, Weyland Consortium: Built to Last, and Azmari EdTech: Shaping the Future have all seen moderate success, but in order to cast a wider net we decided to look at the faction with the highest representation: Haas-Bioroid.
Luminal Transubstantiation has always been a tricky card to judge in terms of balance. With its one-per-deck limit, it has an inherently high variance, and determining its impact on the meta game is difficult. However, we have often seen that games in which Luminal was scored early were significantly more likely to result in a win than games where it came late or not at all.
The decision to ban Luminal was taken in part as a pre-emptive correction of HB to adjust for the impact of the other two bans. With Trick Shot-based Shaper decks out of the picture, we expect tempo-based scoring HB decks to be a natural winner in a meta that is likely still Corp-favored. Taking away the hyper-powered tempo turns Luminal can provide will put those decks at a more consistent pace for Runners to plan around.
Other Considerations
Self-Modifying Code, KC2P Turbine, Creative Commission, Deep Dive, Lat: Ethical Freelancer
Before we finalized the Trick Shot ban, we considered a number of other candidates across Shaper’s card pool.
Self-Modifying Code is one of the cards that makes Trick Shot as good as it is, by enabling Shapers to spend Trick Shot credits proactively. However, Self-Modifying Code is a key card for many current Shaper archetypes. Without it, these archetypes would likely be condensed into Arissana, who can use Muse in a very similar fashion, reducing identity diversity. Predicting the consequences of such a ban is difficult and we considered this choice too risky for now.
K2CP Turbine played a key role at Worlds by giving Shapers game against grindy corps like AgInfusion. While Turbine is undeniably a shot of nitro to the rig, it also provides a safety valve against the slowest, most defensive corp decks. We don’t want to promote those decks in the metagame by banning Turbine at this time.
Creative Commission allows Shapers to dip to very low credit totals and still recover against decks built around taxing effects like Oppo Research. However, we felt that banning it would have far too broad an effect, hurting every Shaper archetype equally rather than just targeting the Deep Dive decks.
Speaking of Deep Dive: the best win condition available to Shaper happens to dovetail beautifully with the extra points Trick Shot can incidentally acquire to checkmate Corps. However, while Deep Dive has a lot of utility against remote-focused decks like Asa Group: Security Through Vigilance, it mostly serves to make games end quicker, which is overall a positive thing. Deep Dive is also an important win condition for other decks outside of Shaper, particularly Nyusha “Sable” Sintashta: Symphonic Prodigy.
While most Deep Dive Shaper players chose Lat as their identity, Arissana has also seen strong results. Swapping identities would give the deck a more defined weakness to kill strategies, but we weren’t convinced that a Lat ban would have a large enough effect on the meta.
Amani Senai
In looking at options for Corp bans other than Reality Plus, we also considered Amani Senai, which has consistently appeared as an exceedingly powerful card in tempo asset decks. Ultimately, we elected to let Amani stay off the ban list for now given that she is more dynamic than Reality Plus and that her power is at its lowest against the low-to-the-ground builds Shapers have favored recently.
A note on System Gateway
This update marks the first time that a card from System Gateway has appeared on a banlist. While we haven’t explicitly avoided banning System Gateway cards in the past, we do understand that there may be some confusion for players transitioning from smaller card pools into Startup or Standard. Ultimately, our job is to promote exciting and fun gameplay, which relies on the meta’s health and balance, and we believe this is the best ban list for making that happen.
The community that’s formed around this game is amazing and each one of us are stewards for it. So, if you see a new player getting involved in local meet-ups and organized play, we encourage you to help them understand the impact of the ban list – even if it means that they can’t play with some of their favorite cards.
And finally, a short personal note from lostgeek:
After four years in the SBT, the time has come for me to move on. It has been a wild ride with many tough choices and many more deep discussions about power level and the meta game. I want to thank everyone in the SBT and all of the people in NSG that I have had the pleasure of working alongside. I also want to thank everyone in the community who have put their trust in us to make good and healthy decisions for the game that we all love. I know that the SBT is in good hands and am looking forward to seeing where you all take the game in the future! (And who knows, maybe after rotation it will finally be time to unban Crowdfunding…)
Standard Ban List 24.12
Effective date: 26 December 2024
Changes from Standard Ban List 24.09 appear in bold.
| Runner | Corp |
| All cards with the “current” subtype | All cards with the “current” subtype |
| Bloo Moose | Archived Memories |
| Bukhgalter | Bellona |
| Clan Vengeance | Breached Dome |
| Crowdfunding | Cayambe Grid |
| DreamNet | Cyberdex Sandbox |
| Endurance | Dr. Vientiane Keeling |
| Kabonesa Wu: Netspace Thrillseeker | Drago Ivanov |
| Knobkierie | Engram Flush |
| Liza Talking Thunder: Prominent Legislator | Formicary |
| Mars for Martians | Game Changer |
| PAD Tap | Gold Farmer |
| Rezeki | High-profile Target |
| Salvaged Vanadis Armory | Hired Help |
| Trick Shot | Kakugo |
| Watch the World Burn | Luminal Transubstantiation |
| World Tree | Mass Commercialization |
| Mti Mwekundu: Life Improved | |
| Nanisivik Grid | |
| NBN: Reality Plus | |
| Obokata Protocol | |
| Project Vacheron | |
| Reconstruction Contract | |
| Shipment from Tennin | |
| Slot Machine | |
| SSL Endorsement | |
| Tithonium | |
| Tributary | |
| Whampoa Reclamation |
