First, a confession. I haven’t actually played a non-draft game of Netrunner in over a month now. It’s normal for one’s interest in a game to wax and wane, and I guess I’m at a waning point right now. Partly it’s that Hearthstone is really good and I’ve been playing some of that. Partly it’s due to being annoyed by most of the Netrunner constructed decks right now.
My ‘Rant’ about current Constructed Netrunner:
It was bad enough that NBN would never put an agenda on the table, but now there are also Caprice Nisei decks and Cerebral Imaging decks that can get 7 points in one turn fairly reliably. Add to this the fact that the top runner decks have only had minor modification for an entire cycle.
On the runner side, you’re either trying to ruin the corp with Account Siphons and Shutdowns over and over, or you’re trying to ruin the corp with recurring Parasites. Completely gone are the days when a corp player would stick an agenda in play and say go, and the runner would run the server and try to break the ice to get it.
At least that’s how it has felt to me. I think we need a new format. Netrunner has been out for over a year and a half now and nothing has been printed that’s a real counter to Account Siphon or Parasite, or Fast Advance, but those strategies have continued to gain support cards. First we gained the ability to recur Account Siphon, and now with H&P we can even Tutor for Account Siphon. With Clone Chip we can recur Parasite. With Fast Track we can now tutor for Astroscript. With Accelerated Diagnostics and Reclamation Order we can perform the ultimate fast advance play: 7 points in one turn out of hand.
Essentially every strategy in the game that I dislike and feel hurts the game has gotten much worse, and has gained helper cards, while not gaining any counters. So that’s why I’m not playing right now, and I think we need a new format.
There was a big thread recently on BGG about whether Netrunner should have set rotation. I feel that while set rotation may or not be the answer specifically, that we need SOMETHING to be done. Personally I would like to ban or errata Account Siphon, Emergency Shutdown, Parasite, Astroscript, SanSan City Grid, Accelerated Diagnostics, and Caprice Nisei. The exact cards on the list would be a topic of debate. Maybe Desperado needs to be on the list, maybe Emergency Shutdown would be fine if Siphon didn’t exist, and so forth. Accelerated Diagnostics should not exist, because that card has only two play modes: It either utterly breaks the game, or it’s worthless. I’d rather ban things than restrict, because creating a list of restricted cards including Account Siphon and X other card, where you can only choose to play one of them, does nothing about Siphon, all it means is that the other card was effectively banned! Restricting cards only bans the second most problematic card, not the most problematic one.
You know what’s one of the great things about an LCG over a CCG? You can ban a card and not just screw over everyone who had a play set of them. Because ‘everyone’ had a play set of them. And yes, it’s true that banning Account Siphon would mean that was one less card you could play. But you know what, there would be more than one previously unplayed card that would now become VIABLE, that you would be able to play now, to make up for it! Change is good, and I feel that we need some of the old problematic core set cards to go away, in order to shake up the format.
In response to “they shouldn’t ban, they should just print counters”. First off, from the time when they have the idea for the counter, to the time we get it in our hands, is a 6-12 month timeframe. That’s too slow. Secondly, banning a card doesn’t have to last for all eternity. You could always try banning Account Siphon, and then later when a counter is printed, allow it to be played again.
I played some cube draft games and they were awesome. Playing in a format without cards like Siphon, with minimal other annoying cards, and with minimal fast advance and 3/2 agendas was very refreshing. It’s like playing real Netrunner again!
I play plenty of digital games, like League of Legends and Hearthstone, and one nice thing about those games is that it’s really easy for the designers to tweak cards/champions/items in order to help balance the game. If something is either overpowered or very frustrating to play against, the designers can tweak it for better balance, or change it into something less frustrating. (That said, I’m also frustrated right now with Unleash the Hounds in Hearthstone. If you play that game you know what I mean. Still, Siphon and Fast Advance have been a problem in Netrunner for 18 months, and Unleash the Hounds has only dampened my enthusiasm for Hearthstone for a short period of time).
Enough Ranting, Onward to the ratings:
Given that I haven’t played in a while, and that this set is huge, I will now proceed to dismiss cards that I think suck with quick pithy remarks, hopefully infuriating anyone who likes that particular card! Haha!
Ratings are from 0 to 5.
?s will be used to denote level of uncertainty. So 4/5 means I think it’s very likely a solid card. 3/5? Means is probably just okay, but maybe an import use for it crops up, or maybe it just ends up totally ignored. 4/5?? Means it could be anywhere from absolutely insane, to not that good, but it’s really hard to tell without playtesting.
This set is actually quite strong, with a number of cards that should see play and impact the game. That’s exciting.
Corp Cards:
Harmony Medtech: 3/5 ?
Playing the game to 6 points feels like as much of a drawback as an advantage. Especially for Jinteki. You’re not really going to try to kill people with this ID. This would have been stronger for NBN.
Also, 40 card size used to be more of advantage than it is now. Previously, it cut out your bad 4/2 agenda. Now it probably cuts out a GOOD 4/2 agenda (NAPD contract). So cutting that last agenda out is less beneficial.
Nisei Division: 3/5 ?
It’s probably not as much money as EtF, but it might be decent. Personally, I would rather gain random damage and hope to nail key cards, than get a few bucks as Jinteki. But there are a lot of Psi cards now, and some of them are great. (Please everyone, shoot all the Caprice Niseis with a gun).
Tennin Institute: 4/5 ?
This is my favorite of the new IDs. Stopping the runner or making them not want to run will have big payouts. Shock in Archives, iced up R&D and HQ and nothing else, and suddenly you are gaining free advances on your Ice Wall, feeding your upcoming Trick of Light. Kill their needed breaker with a Power Shutdown so they can’t get in, and suddenly it’s free clicks and money until they recover. One thing Jinteki is good at is hurting the runner so that they are forced to take a recovery turn, and on that recovery turn Tennen gains a lot of value.
House of Knives: 4/5
I think this is the best 3/1 agenda in the game. Use two knives whenever to try and snipe key cards and save the final one to threaten a kill when combined with all your other damage effects. Having one of these scored is practically like a Brain Damage! It also combos amazingly well with Tori Hanzo to become true brain damage.
Medical Breakthrough: 4/5 ??
It becomes really good later after feeding the first ones to the runner, but NAPD contract is ALWAYS good. On the other hand, the second one is a 3/2, and any 3/2 is good, and its followed buy a 2/2 which is insane. Medical Breakthrough + the card the lets you tutor for an agenda might be the way that Jinteki decks get to 7 points now.
I think this is strong, but there is also a chance that we all try it and just decide that it doesn’t work well enough and we would rather have NAPD or whatever.
Philotic Entanglement: 5/5
It’s a 3/2 agenda that also has tons of potential to kill the runner. You can even tutor for it! This could be the ultimate way to finish someone. Wait for them to take a couple damage, then tutor for/fast advance this out and it’s worth a whole bunch of Neural EMPs.
The Future Perfect: 4/5
Probably the best 5/3 agenda in the game. This is strongly resistant to being scored out of R&D or HQ, which is the bane of 5/3 agendas. Any Jinteki deck that wants to try and force a 5/3 through will be choosing this one. You can even play a full suite of agendas that are hard to score, with Fetal AI, NAPD, and this. Of course, then it’s also hard for you to score them. But maybe you are playing a kill deck.
Chairman Hiro: 3 ??
I really have no idea. Will Chairman Hiro enable a deck where he sits in play, gets rezzed at end of turn to bring down the runner’s handsize, and then you kill them with Phylotic? Or is he just going to feed the runner points?
Mental Health Clinic: 4/5
This is the strongest drip economy card in the game, though obviously not made for a kill deck. Unlike the others, you start out at +1 credit on the first turn, so there is no window where it gets killed and only served to slow both players down, or worse, only slow down the corp because it was killed by Imp or Whizzard or with a Bank Job involved. It also makes Sweeps Week better!
Psychic Field: 2.5/5 ?
It’s kind of a niche card that you play against an expose heavy meta. Right now that’s not what we have, but perhaps if Jinteki becomes a big deal it will be the case, and this will get better. It’s a nice trap effect, but the runner at least has an out (win the Psi), and it has historically been hard to land traps that you have to play in a remote and then not advance (Edge of World). Landing an Edge of World feels more dangerous than this, unless it is the end of the turn when they hit it.
Shi.Kyu: 4/5 ?
Bring on the data dealers! I had speculated before that if they made 0 point agendas, then data dealer might see play. But this is a -1 point agenda! Access it anywhere, even archives, and suddenly you’re a point in the hole, or you lost your hand!
Like Shock, this is a great thing to shove into archives. I’d love to see the archives run following a Power Shutdown, where the runner loses a point AND takes damage. I feel like this is a strong card, at least until anyone counters you with a Data Dealer in their deck.
Actually Data Dealer is semi-playable now, provided you’re playing the connection deck and have a pawnshop. You can even tutor for it with Hostage. It’s funny how things change when new synergies are released.
Tenma Line: 2.5/5
Its niche, made for those positional ice decks, but it’s a better way to reposition ice than Sunset. It can move ice between servers, or make sure that your new big ice comes in at the end of the server. Probably hard to find room for this, but maybe we’ll see it a bit.
Cerebral Cast: 3/5
Well, you need to have both tag punish and damage potential to make this work, but it’s a pretty scary effect. The fact that the runner can pick what seems to be the less damaging effect weakens its potential, but it’s still pretty strong in the right deck.
Medical Research Fundraiser: 3/5 ?
You gain $5 but they gain $3. This is very strong right before a Closed Accounts, so you might want to include that in your deck. However, our economy options are pretty strong now, so maybe we don’t want to be playing a card that helps the runner as well. I think it has a place in tag decks with Closed Accounts. Play a Cerebral Cast. If they choose the tag, nail them with this into Closed Accounts. If they choose the Brain damage, set up a kill with House of Knives and so forth.
Mushin No Shin: 4/5 ?
By far the best way to set up traps. One of the problems with Install-Advance-Advance is that if the runner ignores it and it’s a trap, you lose a ton of tempo. Now with Mushin, your tempo loss is minimal. 3 advancements is also much scarier than 2, threatening a 6 damage Junebug. This is the best card printed for letting you play mindgames.
Inazuma: 4.5/5
Inazuma is a runner’s nightmare. Its only drawback is the positional nature, needing to be in front of something else. For only $3, you get an ice that requires 2 datasuckers + Yog, or a good amount of credit’s to break, which if unbroken can turn previously breakable Rototurrets or Ichis into a disaster for the runner! The runner’s only hope at that point is an instant speed Parasite or Femme that might be able to save them from the next ice. I think Inazuma is the strongest Code Gate in the game, and is probably one of the top 3 ice overall in the game.
Komainu: 3/5 (meta dependant)
Komainu is super strong against any deck without Parasite, becoming a very draining ice or a way to bait them to run with too few cards. However, it dies pretty hard to Parasite, at strength 1 but cost 5. The Parasite weakness holds this ice back from being amazing, but it’s still pretty good, especially as a way to punish face checking.
The strength of this card varies inversely with the number of Parasites being played.
Pup: 4/5
PUPup Window! Pup taxes for $2, which is about as good as Popup’s result, but it is not weakened by Yog. It’s the Jinteki version of Popup. I love it.
Edit: For some reason I thought this was Cost 0 strength 1, but its the reverse. So its a buck more expensive than Popup Window, but at least its not weakened by Yog.
Shiro: 2/5 ??
It’s the big Yagura. For big code gates, I think I’d rather play Inazuma and have the next ice be the trap, not a card I hope to find on my deck. If there isn’t a Snare or Shock there, then I have to pay $1 or show them a card, and the ice didn’t do much. Seems pretty expensive for the effect, but it’s hard to tell without playing this one.
Susanoo-No-Mikoto: 3.5/5
This is a huge (strength 7!) essentially end the run sentry, that can also tack on damage from Shocks or whatever that you stuck in Archives! This is the best big end the run ice that Jinteki has in faction. It’s very expensive to get through without a Femme token. A useful big sentry for a Jinteki deck that’s trying to keep you out.
NeoTokyo City Grid: 2/5 ?
It’s kind of like a Pad Campaign in upgrade form (which is cool), if you can manage to trigger it every turn. Clearly best for Tennen Institute (or the really bad Weyland ID). Note that with a Matrix Analyzer you can trigger this on the runner’s turn, essentially paying for the Matrix Analyzer’s advancement! You’re probably going to want to play Ice Walls with this.
Edit: Nope, ice wall doesn’t work. You have to advance a card placed IN the server. As a result, its a lot harder to use, probably too hard to really be viable?
This is a very build-around card. Decks without the stuff that combos with it should avoid it.
Tori Hanzo: 4/5 ?
Very deadly with a House of Knives, I think this is going to be the primary combo of Jinteki kill decks. Get House of Knives + Tori, hope they can’t get to her on their first run of that server, and stick a couple brain damage on the runner. Finish them off with standard Jinteki stuff. Very scary!
Plan B: 1/5
A very weak trap. Only really playable with Mushin No Shin. You need 3 counters on it to really do anything, and then they have to run it. Imagine what you could have achieved with 3 counters on a real trap, like Cerebral Overwriter of Secretary or Junebug.
Guard: 4/5
A solid end the run sentry. Useful neutral ice, and good against Inside Job. Its especially nice that this is available to everyone, it helps fill out or ice needs.
Rainbow: 2/5
Its okay as an any faction, no influence taxing ice, but Yog still beats it for one sucker. I’d much rather play Bastion. If at some point in the future Yog were ever banned, I’d have to reconsider this.
Diversified Portfolio: 3/5 ?
I love that I posted this card as an idea at some point (for $0 as a Jinteki card), and now it exists! This was a natural and interesting card to be in the game, the economy engine of Horizontal decks everywhere. I think it will get played, and maybe even lead to a resurgence of asset economy, which had recently dwindled in favor of the strong operation economy cards we have received during the spin cycle. I love that this card exists, it aids a fun and underplayed play style. Which makes it the exact opposite of the next card.
Fast Track: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh/5
Is the Astrotrain not enough for you? Now you can even tutor the missing Astros out of your deck? No longer can the runner hope to counter you by R&D lock.
I don’t know how many fast track I’d play, probably 1-2 in NBN, but more than being a problem power-level wise, my problem with this card’s existence is that it seems unhealthy for the game. 3/2 agendas are kind of unhealthy for the game, once you start getting more than a small amount of them in your deck, and this just results in more 3/2s. It’s another buff to fast advance strategies.
Slow advance (“Real Netrunner”) strategies don’t need to tutor for agendas. They tend to get as many or more agendas than desired. It’s going to be NBN tutoring for Astro with this that is a problem.
It’s also strong with Midseason+Psychographics. You can play this, install the Beale you tutored for, and Psycho all in one turn.
Runner Cards:
Iain Stirling: 2.5/5 ??
I wish that the card named after my favorite Science Fiction author (and another SciFi author that I haven’t read), was a bit more exciting to me. Iain doesn’t seem to stand up very well to Andromeda or Gabe. Cerebral Imaging in particular will never trigger his $2 bonus, because it will sit at 0 points until the turn it scores 7.
But he might become strong in the future, as the game changes. If we have learned anything from this game it should be that the value of IDs can change a lot over time. Cerebral Imaging was the worst when it got released in C&C, at the time it’s ability was basically a drawback. There was no Jackson, no Celebrity Gifts, no Accelerated Diagnostics or Subliminal Messaging or Hive or Reclamation Order, and not really any reason to want a big hand. Now it’s a combo powerhouse because numerous cards were printed that had a lot of synergy with its ability.
Ken Tenma: 3.5/5 ??
I feel like he is a weaker Gabe. If any event gave a credit or if his influence boost was a bit larger he might be great, but he comes out against stiff competition. Both Gabe and Andy are STRONG IDs. There is a high opportunity cost to play these runners.
Silhouette: 2.5/5 ??
I think that people are going to make the blackguard deck with her, and that it will be fun (for the runner) when it works, but won’t really compare to Gabe or Andy. While sometimes I would rather have a free expose than $2, in general an expose isn’t always useful, but I always want $2.
Calling in favors: 4/5
The heart of the new connection deck, I think this is very strong. There are plenty of good connections now. I am hopeful that this will allow a new type of economy to appear and shake things up a bit. Too bad it’s criminals that get it, not Anarchs.
Early Bird: 2.5/5
For Ken Tenma, the net result is to convert a card into a run without spending a click. It feels like a Niche card made for Ken. But maybe it becomes all the rage as a way to play a Criminal Notoriety deck? Early Bird lets you play 2 Notoriety in one turn and still use Desperado as your console! I think it will be hard to find room for this in our decks.
Express Delivery: 0/5
Netrunner is not Magic, and the card Impulse in this game is actually quite bad. 4 cards isn’t a tutor, and the card provides significant negative efficiency. If it allowed you to place the cards back on the top and/or bottom of your library and then not shuffle, then it could be useful as a way to enable Eureka or Oracle May. But it doesn’t, so you’re not ever going to want to pick this over something like Special Order or Hostage.
Feint: 2/5 ?
This card is essentially an emergency Shutdown enabler. But Inside Job is just a lot more versatile overall, and often achieves the same goal, so I don’t think there is much room for this. Most criminal decks nowadays run less than 3 Inside Job, usually 2. If they wanted more of this effect they would add a third Inside Job first.
Legwork: 4.5/5
An incredibly powerful card, Legwork is my pick for best runner card in the pack.
When accessing R&D, it’s very strong to be able to repeatedly access multiple cards, every time. This lets you R&D lock them over the course of a number of turns. You can check on their next several draws, rebuild money, and repeat. As a result, R&D interface and Medium are better cards than Maker’s Eye (though Maker’s Eye is still good).
For HQ, it’s the opposite. While R&D is a treasure trove of agendas that keeps replacing itself with new and different cards, HQ is not. Once you hit HQ a bunch and weed out the agendas, it becomes a weak source of further agendas, whereas for R&D, you always have a strong chance of finding them. (Cerebral Imaging is the exception. Against that corp, it is HQ that is the treasure trove you want to hit repeatedly).
Ideally, you would like to wait until the point in the game when you most strongly feel that agendas are piling up in HQ, and run it once and take ALL of them, and then ignore it after that. HQ interface doesn’t really do this for you, but Legwork does. At a cheap cost, you get to scour their hand quite well, at the time of maximal impact.
As R&D Interface is better than Makers Eye, so is Legwork better than HQ interface. I think Legwork should be played in all criminals, and frequently splashed in other factions for a surprise HQ attack.
Planned Assault: Rating: F*cking Siphons!/5
Yup, that’s just what we needed. The Account Siphon tutor. I don’t even know if it will get played, it just annoying that it exists.
Logos: 3.5/5 ?
Like Doppelganger, this suffers from the problem that it competes against Desperado for play. If Desperado didn’t exist, I would definitely rate this more highly. The hand size is actually quite useful if there are a lot of Jinteki kill decks floating around! As is, this is a good card which is outclassed by a truly great card that directly competes with it.
Public Terminal: 2/5 ?
It’s kind of ironic that the best run events actually cost 0. Lately we have been seeing some Voice Pads see play, now that Lucky Find has given us another strong event to play. But this just seems too hard to make work. There just aren’t enough run events to make this reliable right now. (Maybe eventually?)
At best it’s a niche economy card.
Unregistered S&W ’35: Rating: MURDER ALL THE CAPRICES/5
If it weren’t for Caprice I would think this was just not worth it, but as is it’s one way to counter Caprice. At least, a way to counter Caprice that isn’t guarding HQ. Sadly, this card does not also let you tear the Caprice Nisei into little pieces. That would be a 5/5 card. Tearing cards into pieces is a very underused mechanic is CCGs! I once owned a Chaos Orb. (I didn’t tear it up though, I traded it for a Library of Alexandria). Perhaps instead of a banned list or restricted list or set rotation, Netrunner just needs a ‘Tear Into Pieces list’. If you trash an opponent’s card that’s on the list, you also get to tear up the card?
Window: 2/5 ? (only as a Will O’ The Wisp counter)
It’s the Will o’ the Wisp counter. That’s a good thing to have exist, because Will o’ the Wisp is probably quickly going to enter the list of cards that I wish I could tear to pieces when I trash them. Aside from that this doesn’t really do anything. I don’t think it’s useful with Mr. Li. If you really had to have that card, you would’ve taken it over the other one. Playing this and Mr. Li together in one deck is just a way to spend a lot of resources to not really gain very much.
Alias: 1.5/5
It’s still pretty expensive against Grim or Archer (more expensive than Ninja), and it can’t break remotes. I would rather play Mimic, Ninja, Femme, Faerie, or Garrote over this.
Breach: 3/5
While Alias was bad because criminal has tons of good sentry breaking options already, Breach has potential as a way to save influence that you would’ve spent on Corroder. Granted it’s a lot worse than Corroder, but maybe you NEED those influence. Maybe you paly 1 Corroder, and also 1-2 of these as a backup, and that costs less influence than 2 Corroders. Against big barriers is about the same cost actually. It’s niche but playable.
Bug: 1/5
I don’t really want to pay $2 every time the corp draws a card, to check up on them. That said, if we ever get something that allows you to access a card when you expose it, that would be an amazing combo. If you are checking every card they draw, the corp can just start going: Draw, Draw, Draw and you won’t have enough money.
Gingerbread: 1/5
The problem with this is that it breaks tracers for about as much as it would cost to beat the trace. A link card would do you much more good than this.
You would only play this if for some reason you HAD to break the tracers.
Grappling Hook: 2.5/5 ?
Combined with E3 implants this is a Super Faerie that breaks any multi subroutine ice for $1, plus $2 to play it. That’s cheaper than Faerie against big ice, and it breaks any type! For that reason it might have some potential, but it doesnt work against single sub ice.
Passport: 3/5 ?
It’s actually pretty good at breaking code gates that aren’t on a remote, and the cost is right. Of course, Yog is generally a lot better, but Yog costs 5. If people’s reaction to Yog is to play only a couple Quandary in their deck and no other code gates, then this might be better. It can also serve as a backup to Yog. Against even strength ice this costs the same amount to break as a Gordian Blade! A reasonable card in the criminal faction, since Code Gates are the ice type that their breakers are worst against.
Push Your Luck: 0/5
It’s sad that they made the artist of this card waste his time making a great picture for such an unplayable card. Sorry Matt Zeilinger!
This is the type of card that you are very glad is unplayably bad, because if you buffed it to where it became good then it simply adds a distasteful amount of variance to the game.
This is the type of card that CCG designers should just learn to stop making . The best case scenario for your card is that it never gets played in a game. The worst case scenario is that it’s actually good and gets played and makes people angry.
On a related note, I am so glad that Hearthstone nerfed Nat Pagle and Tinkmaster Overspark (two cards that heavily increase variance).
Security Testing: 4/5
Note that you cannot stack these. Like Bank Job you can only choose one at a time. Security Testing is AMAZING at letting you gain economy against an undefended Archives, or asset economy card. Ever since Shock and Subliminal Messaging were printed, Jinteki decks have loved to not ice archives at all, and just stick a shock there. Archives is now pretty much secure, and that’s one less server the runner can run in order to get a Desperado credit, datasuckers, and deny your Subliminal Messaging.
With Security Testing, a runner with Desperado can now run an undefended Archives for $3, and they even get to ignore the Shocks!
Excellent way to force the corp to defend all servers.
Theophilius Bagbiter: 2.5/5 ?
I don’t want to underestimate this card, because huge hand sizes allow combo decks to be strong. With this and Pro contacts you can just keep drawing and gaining money, hunting for all your contacts and getting then all into play and then playing outrageously huge Calling In Favors. Of course, during that time, NBN will have astrochained you to death, (but maybe you’re hiding behind the Source?)
The deck that plays this guy doesn’t want to have to ever run you or interact with you at all, it just wants to draw everything and gain $50 first. It’s the runner version of CI. Bleah.
Tri-Maf Contact: 2.5/5 ?
2 cost and allowing you to choose whether to use it or not is the correct way to print Hard at Work and have it be playable. I don’t think this card needs the added meat damage penalty, but since it has it, you’re going to need Fall Guy. I would’ve liked to see this at cost $1, but maybe that was too good for the Connections deck?
This is essentially a Niche card that you play in the Connections deck, and you play Fall Guy with it for sure! And Crash Space! I wouldn’t play this outside of the Connection deck.
Mass Install: 3/5 ?
Good with Wyldside, good with Quality Time, good for Andromeda turn 1 in the right deck, good for Noise to mill you a bunch all at once. This is a lot better than Shipment from Mirrormorph, but a lot more balanced than the original Netrunner’s Valu-Pak Software Bundle!
Q-Coherence Chip: 1.5/5 ?
Highly niche, this is probably a combo card for Overmind. It also might be a good way to get more MU for certain Criminal decks. Shaper would rather play Akamatsu. Anarch is going to have Parasites. The problem is that you can’t use Faerie without killing this, or various other cards. If you play a Knight and they trash the ice to kill it, this goes away.
For now, I see one Niche use for this. Play it, then play Overmind, then eat it with a Pawnshop. If you Replicate it you can get a big Overmind and several $3 clicks.
EDIT: And now Lukas has ruled that this dies if you trash a program from your HAND. Yeah, its bad now.
Overmind: 3/5 ?
Anything that can unconditionally break any ice, for a cost, is not terrible. Compared to Crypsis, this is sometimes worse, but if you only want to use it a little bit as a backup, and you have E3 implants to beat the multi-sub ice, then it’s a lot better. Any card that is conditionally better than Crypsis is quite decent. When it’s out of counters you can freely pawn it, and the Q-chips you used to pump it. I think that it’s pawnshop decks that will want to use this.
Oracle May: 4/5 ??
Get Motivation and Hostage her out, and you have a cheap super-Pro Contacts! I actually think this is going to be quite strong and will be the backbone of a new runner economy. But it might not work out? I think it will be strong.
Donut Taganes: 1.5/5 ?? (but possibly critical against a very Subliminal Messaging or CI combo heavy meta)
Did you know that his name anagrams into ‘Too Many Secrets’? Oh wait, it doesn’t. But he does anagram into ‘Nuts To Agenda’. Or various phrases involving gonads. He also Attends Guano.
Man, this guy seems really overnerfed. Why does he have to both cost 3, and increase event costs, and also cost 2 influence? I feel like he is a counter to event economies, Subliminal Messaging, and Accelerated Diagnostics, but do you really have to pay for him in 3 different ways?
In a normal meta he is pretty much trash, but in a specific meta where everyone is playing CI combo decks and Subliminal Messaging decks he might actually be good. I fear for the meta where he is a good card that you feel that you need to put in your deck!
There are times when having counter cards is a good thing. And there are times when needing to have counter cards is actually a bad thing, and the thing you are trying to counter should just not exist instead. I feel like Donut is the latter. If Donut is the counter to Accelerated Diagnostics combos, and you have to play this card that costs you influence and is terrible against everything else, just to survive longer against Diagnostics, then that’s a very bad situation. It’s just way better to ban Diagnostics than to print this card, and then nerf it so heavily that it’s not useful against normal decks.
So there we have it, all the cards in Honor and Profit, and a rant about the current state of constructed Netrunner, all in one article! Until next set, happy Netrunning, and tear up an opponent’s Caprice Nisei for me!