@alex you play against me allot have you seen me play him. The answer to that question will be no because he honestly does nothing in the decks I build unless I know my deck will be low on influence count at the start of the game. In our meta he just turns into fodder and if I want fodder I will take Travis, John longstride, Valeria, philip, and say maria because they have that influence all the time so I snipe income not just during sundown. Is he a good card yes or we wouldn’t have a thread dedicated to him now. Is he an auto include no. Just my opinion I am just an average player.
3 Likes
I’m 100% in the same boat. When he came out I made it very clear that I liked him. I don’t believe he’s an auto include though.
I think I said he was a stall card only
I was thinking this too as I was reading through this thread. A Grifter with no abilities and the same trait would certainly make you think twice about starting him. He’d provide a very good defense to losing the game early on at the risk of poor starting variance.
If I had thought about this before coming up with a cheatin’ resolution for a gadget I’d probably say something like
“An opposing dude in the shootout loses their trait until after the Sundown phase.”
A nasty gadget would a flavourful way of turning off a dude’s trait.
I think this discussion is interesting. I dont see Jack as a crutch - but I agree that giving him the grifter trait would have made him more… balanced.
I strongly disagree with Jack being a stall card though. Depending on the deck, you need to survive to round 2 or 3 before its running fairly (control decks in particular). That is not stalling that is giving such decks an answer to early aggro.
Oh and Jack can win you games as well… His drawback of being unable to control deeds at noon is quite well done in my opinion.
1 Like
I honestly feel like Jake Smiley is on his way out in my Mad Science deck.
He was useful early on when I didn’t have certain cards to make it work (Specks, Jen), but now, he feels like dead weight most of the time…sure, he lets me start with effectively 6 influence, but he’s mostly a body to throw into a fight after turn 1.
Digging back a bit further in the thread, I just want to point out that the bolded section above is basically the textbook definition of a crutch card.
Let’s not get bogged down by definition arguments now.
It’s not a semantic argument, though, if that’s what you’re implying. You seem to be in the “he’s not a crutch card” camp, yet the text I quoted more-or-less makes the case for the opposite.
Alex seems to have a divergent view of what a crutch card is with his Netrunner example. To him a crutch card is something that becomes ubiquitous in the environment. To myself a crutch card is something that props up (like a crutch) a playstyle or strategy that is otherwise not well supported or otherwise viable. Your statement that I emphasized pretty much states that Design intended him to be the latter, which to me makes him a crutch card.
I would agree that he is not a ubiquitous card, but that makes him no less a crutch.
If that is indeed your definition of a “crutch card”, then it’s not a bad thing. But your original point implied that being a “crutch card” is a bad thing.
Bad is clearly subjective. It’s a bad thing to me as I believe it gives an “easy out” to Design rather than coming up with more interesting ways to allow for variety and experimentation. Essentially I see it as an inelegant short-term solution whereas I’d prefer a more elegant long-term solution, even if it kept certain strategies undersupported or not viable for a longer period of time.
Others’ preferences may vary.
o_O I think I lost the thread here.
I was under the impression that the discussion was based on the premises that Jake was a poorly made card that too cheaply became a part of many decks because of their lack of ready and cheap influence - and that the main point from those agreeing with this was that some cards needed to have had influence so we didn’t need Jake?
But now it seems that the discussion is that Jake is the ‘glue’ that ties certain starting posses together so that decks may perform?
If its the first - I dont think Jake is a crutch. If its the second I think he is a crutch.
Perhaps he is a pegleg?
2 Likes
I personally start Smiley in maybe half to 1/3 of the decks that I run. Some of that is due to the fact that I’m trying out a deck from the dtdb and not building it from scratch. Maybe he would be a better starter in some of my decks but he just doesn’t usually fit my play style. If he gets involved in a shootout he’s in trouble and if he doesn’t then he doesn’t do much to stop me from running my deck.
It delays some games an extra turn but that’s also one more turn to build my strategy against them.
Good old showdown in town square on turn 1, eh? 
From my perspective, Jake is a crutch for weaker archetypes, until they can find something they really want to play.
For instance, I had him in my Mad Science deck for a long time, in order to give myself enough breathing room. Now, I basically have enough breathing room to not worry about him, and he may come out to give me more money or some other piece I have been missing.
Sometimes turn 2, depending on what my opponent commits 
1 Like
I like to either go aggressive shooting or play control. If it’s 4th Ring control I’d rather have the GR used on aboms or something else that either get INF in town or has INF to control a deed without waiting for sundown. Reloaded has a lot more actions on deeds that are useful and I’d like to be able to use them on my opponents deeds. Smiley doesn’t help me do that.
He’s a cheap extra body that means you can do extra stuff and supports an expensive lineup that isn’t quite where you want influence to be.
He’s a very good card I’d rate him 4/5 but not broken so not a crutch.
Steve however…
1 Like
I am no designer but I really think you are asking for way too much here. We are getting 2 faction dudes per Saddlebag right now so clearly you can not come up with viable dudes for different starting posses for the subthemes and still develop the main theme of a faction.
Jake Smiley opens up a lot of possibilities and decks that otherwise would not be playable and I personally think that is a good thing.
I would rather play Jake Smiley in an experimental morgan huckster deck than not play it at all.
And from this point on there can be more options replacing him in the standard decks with more dudes coming out, negating the need for him sooner or later.
5 Likes
Actually, why not? Six faction dudes per cycle would be enough to cover starters fot two subthemes of that cycle and still have something left for the main theme and fillers.