Check out the Corp half of our Stimhack review of Down The White Nile. Or don’t. We’re just gonna trash it to gain six credits either way. Revisit the heckin good Runner reviews over here.
Nightdancer
Miek
This feels quite good to me. 6c is a bit on the high side for its tax, but as a face-plant it basically means you get a free agenda score next turn. How you value this depends on how often you think you can trick the runner into hitting it without a breaker.
FightingWalloon
This ICE reminds me of Brainstorm: an expensive HB ice that punishes face checks but is pretty easy to deal with once rezzed. HB having ice that stings to face check is good for the Corp. Architect does the same job — two free clicks and painful face check — for less cost. I do predict this ICE will be the inspiration for at least one memorable deck names.
Saan
Nightdancer is *completely brutal* if it hits, but getting it to hit might be hard. The rez cost is such that if it doesn’t hit, you have to feel a little bad about your life afterword.
TheBigBoy
3/10. 6 is a lot. In the post-EtF world we just can’t afford ICE like this unless it scores all our agendas basically by itself *cough* FC3 *cough*. Really cool design, I wish the stats were a little better but nice try!
CrushU
The numbers aren’t right on this for it to be very good. It’s a good facecheck surprise, but doesn’t ETR and doesn’t especially tax the runner. (It’s at the Black Orchestra sweet spot for breaking.) Historically, that indicates a weak piece of ICE. Especially at 6 to rez.
blindidiotgod
An ice that wants to be MCAAP. So proud of you little ice :3 15/10
Jinja City Grid
CrushU
Because it says ‘Whenever you draw…’ instead of ‘The first time you draw…’ this is going to be extremely good. It fights for slots, but honestly, in a taxing deck that doesn’t care about facecheck penalties, this is amazing. (So any deck that doesn’t run Nightdancer. Which will be nearly all of them.) Can’t use any other Grid with it, but there’s not too many good Grids right now.
Higgs
This card is good (the value!), but I expect that competitive players will also get really good at timing Legwork against it. Don’t install Equivocation if this is on R&D.
Miek
Seems powerful. I feel like you have to go super hard on Glacier for it to end up as value over Breaker Bay Grid. There’s definitely a deck to be built around this card.
Blindidiotgod
Best buds with the Clearance bois. 11/10
TheBigBoy
7/10. I go back and forth on this. I think the archetype that this encourages isn’t good, but this card is a sleeper. It’s not really trashable and saves a lot of clicks and money. If CI gets nerfed by MWL this is probably garbage but the synergy with clearances is too powerful to ignore. Very interesting and hard to evaluate card and I’m erring on the side of saying it’s good (which you may have noticed, I don’t do often). If you’re looking for a card to brew with that has some potential, this is the one for this pack.
FightingWalloon
To the above, I’d only add a question. I wonder if the “reveal” piece of this ability makes is slightly less powerful. If the Runner knows the exact ICE composition of your remote, it might be easier and less scary for them to attack it. That does not take away from the value gained from the clickless and free installs this upgrade can generate. It is a strong card in the right deck. I just wonder if the lack of hidden information might reduce its value a notch or two.
Saan
I also agree that revealing the card makes it a bit worse. Knowing the exact ICE I’m going to run into sure helps my day out a lot. However, the numbers on the thing are excellent (5 to trash is way too much, and 1 to rez is the literal next thing to free), and installing things clicklessly, for free, is similarly incredible, and goes a very long way towards making up for the fact that I know exactly what you’re laying down.
SimonMoon
The best thing to do with this is blast off at the speed of light with the clearances. Just play a pile of money cards, the clearance, and build a giant remote (Seidr seems like a star). You may be tempted to use this to play HBs best card (VLC) out of a different ID but this deck will still be best in CI as you can still play your deck without Jinja then and all the other HB ids are terrible anyway.
Aimor
TheBytemaster
I’m a bit conflicted about this one. Technically better than Data Mine in terms of mill. Turtle doesn’t really help the case for this card though. Could be pretty annoying out of Scorpios?
FightingWalloon
My biggest problem with this card is that it makes people forget how to spell “Skorpios.”
TheBigBoy
3/10. I don’t think PU has the slots for this and that’s the only place this goes. If you rez this against me as Skorpios we are never playing Netrunner together again.
CrushU
This is for PU decks, maybe 1000-Cuts PE decks, but… Either way, I don’t think this is doing what you want. The reason why 1000-Cuts works is that they have to take the time to draw up to make sure they don’t die. This ice doesn’t help with that, it just makes the inevitability lategame happen sooner. It also dumps more fuel for Anarch recursion decks.
Miek
I hate these mill/attrition effects in the game. Luckily this one isn’t very good.
Saan
If Friends in High Places were a legal card again, this ice could be very rough for people with no AI breakers. Fortunately Friends is dead, and this ice can stay safely in a binder somewhere. People are mentioning Skorpios, but I think that playing the mill-and-hope-a-lot game out of Skorp is a vastly suboptimal gameplan.
Bacterial Programming
Saan
Man, Jinteki has a lot of reasons to really dislike Film Critic. Here in our latest entry is something that’s not Obokata Protocol or The Future Perfect, so probably isn’t getting played. It’s really good that the effect happens on Score or Steal, though, so it might enable some weird deck where you really need to find combo pieces more than you need to score 7 points by yourself.
blindidiotgod
I heard this one made jakodrako real angry. Poor card, it’s just trying its best 12/10
TheBigBoy
5/10. Pretty sweet IG card here. If there’s an IG deck that plays Bio-Ethics (and so not Obokata), then this card replaces your blank 5/3s to go with your TFPs. It’s quite a bit better than blank in that deck but that’s the ONLY place this goes and that deck isn’t good and hasn’t been for a while. That said, it used to be disgusting and we can’t ignore that so I give it this rating out of respect for the archetype’s potential. Don’t get your hopes up though, it’s probably a flop.
CrushU
‘When scored or stolen’ makes this card good. Film Critic eats this card’s lunch, and then drinks its milkshake for good measure. I don’t know if the effect is actually good, but if it is, this card will see play.
Miek
There’s probably gonna be some sort of “not score agendas and kill you” jinteki deck, and if it wants to lean on a restricted card other than Obokata then this seems to fill in the natural spot to replace that. Has to compete with SSL endorsement which is also very good for this role, but I think it wins if the jinteki deck is trying to kill (except maybe Punitive).
FightingWalloon
TheBigBoy argues that IG is the only deck that wants to run this card. My thought was that card draw is always good and is especially good if you run cards that punish Runners for stealing agendas or making runs. Punitive Palana might appreciate an opportunity to dig for its Punitives as the Runner is arranging their new 3 points just so on the corner of their play mat. I suspect, however, that this agenda is always third in line behind Obokata and The Future Perfect, and so will only see play in decks that are not trying to score but run Bio-Ethics … hey, wait a second.
SimonMoon
An improvement to Bio Ethics IG over what you were running in the slot, but doesn’t fix the core issue which is the fact Jackson was better for IG than any other deck by a lot. It let you hide agendas in Archives and force an expensive run to chase them out while also providing a ton of draw for the single most draw-hungry ID in the game. Both of these things need to be replaced in some capacity for IG to be good again.
tvaduva
Probably pretty nice in decks that want to run on-access ambushes that fire from centrals. Just use Preemptive Action, Genotyping, and/or the yet-to-be-reviewed, Distract the Masses to keep all your Snares and Breached Domes in R&D until they multi-access HQ or R&D, steal this then make the runner hit all the ambushes you can find. Then if necessary, Biotech-Brewery, Neural, and/or Punitive to finish them off.
Jua
CrushU
Like Nightdancer, this is a facecheck penalty ICE. Unlike Nightdancer, this one will always be a facecheck penalty ICE, as you’ll suffer the effect even if you can break it. The rez cost is nice and low, the subroutine is pretty powerful, and the On Encounter is good early, even if it doesn’t do much late. Still, I think this will see some good play.
Miek
Cheap but annoying. The on encounter is pretty good. Someone suggested using this with PU to trash an installed card. I think I vomited a little.
Saan
NBN ICE is awesome because of these cute on encounter messages that hurt the runner whether they break the ICE or not. This one can be played around once the runner knows it’s there, but it’s still a great effect. The sub is also annoying, effectively costing the runner 2 clicks and the cost of the card to rebuild board position. I think you’d have to have a good reason to run it over a similarly-costed piece of ICE like Turnpike, but if you have that reason than it’s probably great.
tvaduva
I’m a big fan of designing tech cards as ice (and agendas), since you (most likely) already have them in your deck, which saves you precious non-agenda/econ/ice deckslots. This is will allow the Corp to rush out behind a Vanilla (behind it) when their Paperclip is in the bin (and so much more).
TheBigBoy
6/10. If people still played Mimic this would be garbage, but guess what! They don’t! Not EVER! I think this is a dope ice against Anarch where you pay 2 and they pay 3 and their MK probably breaks NONE of your other ice because you’re NBN. The facecheck is good too. I don’t rate this higher because it doesn’t get the job done on a remote by itself and NBN is kinda an ice-light faction right now. Don’t let my rating seem low though, this is definitely a good card, it just might only see play as a 1-of for slots reasons. Wouldn’t shock me if this really took off, it’s ALMOST a 7 for me.
blindidiotgod
Neat! 14/10
Threat Assessment
CrushU
Oh man. This card looks very strong. I’m pretty sure this card will see a ton of play, at least in any asset spam deck that has tag punishment. Because that’s where this card needs to be.
TheBigBoy
4/10. This effect is quite strong, but these utility slots are SO HARD to fit into decks. You gotta run your agendas, money, ice, wincons, and then you’re left with just a few slots for counter-tech and and stuff like preemptive action. This card is respectable but the sort of card it is just ends up at card #50 way too often.
Miek
Seems like a lot of the time the runner will just uninstall whatever here. Looks pretty good to me, although deck slots are pretty tight in decks that would want to use this.
Saan
The effect seems too weak to justify a slot in most decks, especially at 3 inf. As a side note, I’m a little sad that the other corps are getting these Reprisal subtypes as well. I was hoping for some good ol’ Weyland runner smashing Reprisal cards, but now it looks like it’s another “everyone gets one, and then we’ll ignore the Reprisal subtype forevermore” cards.
SimonMoon
A classic punisher card and a card with strong enough effects to potentially make it good. To play this your deck will need 2 things, the ability to punish tags and cards the runner wants to trash. What this then gets you is the ability to place something in the top of RnD, and now good this effect is will be meta dependent. The clearest deck that fits the requirements is CtM, but will see if it has the slots.
tvaduva
Like the previous reprisal, this is a tempo card. Either choice is going to set them back some. The fact that the runner most likely won’t know for sure if the two tags are game-ending is icing on the cake; 90% of the time you’re bouncing a card, the other 10% the runner has meat protection installed. Hosting cards have also lost a lot of value if this is widely played.
Economic Warfare
TheBytemaster
And you thought HHN and Stinson were harsh before.
TheBigBoy
6/10. Low effort, but mean effect. Nuts with Barney Stinson. If it was 1 influence I’d rate it a lot higher, but Weyland is a dumpster fire.
Higgs
Ban Stinson lol
blindidiotgod
heckin’ love frozen yoghurt. 14/10
CrushU
Eh. Seems good. Less brutal than other cards, but it also enables, as Bytemaster says, stronger HHN and Stinson. 2 Influence means you’ll see this pretty commonly, not just in Weyland.
tvaduva
I wish they printed more runner econ before this was released. But, maybe the data pack contents for this cycle were set before the banlist.
Saan
I think this is going to see a LOT of play right as the pack comes out, with a pretty big drop-off in the weeks to follow. It’s a great effect, and enables a lot of really mean stuff, but it is going to be difficult to slot in a lot of decks, both in terms of influence (since you almost certainly want all 3), and in terms of card slots. If a deck can reasonably find room for this, though, it’s going to do a lot of work.
Forced Connection
CrushU
This is really interesting because it means that people get to learn not to run last click against Weyland, too. I think that makes Jemison more playable, surprisingly, because of how much they like their False Lead. Amusingly I had thought this was the first Weyland Ambush, but FightingWalloon corrected me, because Space Camp exists. And is way worse than this card.
TheBytemaster
Being an upgrade is a really nice perk. A decent way for Weyland to leverage a money lead. Definitely going to keep this one in mind. Notable counter: By any Means.
TheBigBoy
4/10. Cool trap. I’m not sure if this is better than Prisec (a card I rate at 5/10). It’s definitely way worse installed because if you aren’t willing/able to trace them out then they just pay 3 and it dies which is even worse than a Product Placement. If you hit this at the wrong time in a central it’s certainly a disaster, I’m just not sure you can count on that enough to put it in your deck. This reminds me a lot of Sapper which means it will probably only win games reliably against Kenny.
Saan
The fact it gives 2 tags rather than 1 is interesting, but I’m not a fan of the trace mechanic, nor the 0 trash cost. It seems like getting it to hit at a time when it matters might be difficult. You can make it a tax, though, which might mean it can enable HHN shenanigans. Overall I’m not a huge fan, but I’d love to be wrong.
blindidiotgod
Weyland in-faction tagging! This card just wants to cuddle you forever and forever. 14/10
tvaduva
Weyland has been waiting for a card that give two tags for a while. This is not very reliable, but it’s something.
SSL Endorsement
Saan
Oh man do I love these If Scored or Stolen things. Nine credits is a great consolation prize for getting an agenda stolen, and effects on 5/3 agendas need to be ludicrously powerful for them to see play. This is a great step in that direction, and, especially since Food is on the Restricted list, might actually see some play.
TheBigBoy
7/10. Pretty cool. This card is actually kinda a herald of NPE since it’s basically a fancy hot tub. It’s gonna go in decks that aren’t trying to score their agendas ever, if those are ever possible again. That said, it could be good in normal decks too. It’s a solid option and I think it will go in and out of seeing play.
CrushU
If Bacterial Programming is playable, this is it’s sexier brother. I don’t think I have to explain why getting 9 credits over three turns is good. It’s great when it’s scored, great when it’s stolen. I’ll expect to be seeing this one everywhere that GFI isn’t. How strong is this card? It might bring back Glacier archetypes.
Miek
Technically not a defensive agenda but this is very playable. Elective Upgrades was sort of an example of how a non-defensive agenda can be playable, but I think SSL is a better card. Also especially nice with Punitive as not only does it do 3 meat damage but it gives the Corp some money to help pay the trace.
NGO Front
blindidiotgod
o_O 17/10
TheBytemaster
Undeniably strong. Solid econ and a good bluff in one card. I think the value of expose goes up a bit with this but I still have some doubts expose will ever be strong enough to be ‘meta’ outside of the occasional Deuces Wild. It will be interesting to see how people play around it. RIP Thomas Haas.
Higgs
One turn of Melange is four clicks to net six credits. This is three clicks to net six, and bluffs as a 5-for-3. Likely meta-defining for the next several packs.
TheBigBoy
9/10 Ya this card is NUTS. If it had 3 trash cost it would be 10/10. The WORST case is that they somehow guess 100% of the time correctly that this is not a 5/3 you are IAAing and then your turn was economically the same as Hedge-Credit-Credit. That’s a pretty amazing payout for a decision being made PERFECTLY by the runner. Guess what! They’re not even going to guess right CLOSE to 100% of the time! This is gonna be ruses for days since when there is no risk corps are gonna be IAA jammin’ this every time they draw it. 5/3s will be scored, runners will be tilted, and Drive-By MIGHT finally be good.
CrushU
I’ll be the dissenter and say I’m not terribly entertained here. Yeah, it’s good, but it makes R&D significantly weaker. It’s not bad by any means. When you can be compared favorably to Hedge Fund and Launch Campaign, you’re probably a very strong Economy card, so it’ll see play. I’m just not over the (Estelle) Moon about it.
Miek
This is going to be a meta defining card. Remember how last article I talked about Gene Splicer/QPM and the power of advanceable win-win threats in a remote? (Probably not? Fair enough!) Well this just took it to 11. This combos especially well with ice, and might be enough to push glacier into the playable territory. I almost certainly expect runners to start packing counter-cards in response to this, such as Interdiction, Councilman, Drive By.
FightingWalloon
This is the first Kitara cycle card that will raise serious calls for the ban list. Only Corps that never want any remote at all will leave this out. One elite player wrote on Slack that when he first saw this card, he started calling playtesters he knew to ask how it got through the process in this form.
Saan
Yes please. This is the card that Weyland especially wanted, and honestly everyone else with a remote is delighted to see. Having the runner pay, let’s say, 8 credits to get through your remote in order for you to gain 8? **Hilarious** You’ve just potentially opened a scoring window while also getting money in order to score an agenda. Don’t even feel bad dropping to near 0 credits while rezzing that remote; you’re about to get the best refund in the world: 5-8 credits and a look of crestfallen defeat from the other side of the table.
tvaduva
I think the players that missed glacier archetypes being prominent are pretty happy with this card. Instead of playing the never advance game that’s not as easy these days, you can play the IA and IAA game with this.
Distract the Masses
Higgs
Jackson Howard accelerated corp tempo by replacing flushed agendas with useful cards. This … doesn’t do that, and accelerates runner tempo by giving them two credits. I expect corp decks to continue either a) scoring fast enough to not need this or b) ponying up credits and influence for Whampoa Reclamation.
TheBigBoy
2/10 Sorry, not doing enough. Don’t give the runner money.
CrushU
I’m not exactly sure what this card is for. It does seem to look pretty bad… My guess is that it’s for Glacier decks that are (foolishly, imo) holding Agendas in HQ to flush them out, without being a Terminal like Preemptive Action. One thing it does do is that it actually manages to put more cards into R&D than it takes out. Which is why it removes itself from the game.
Miek
I’m pretty much always gonna have Preemptive in my deck before I play this. Maybe I’ll consider it over a Special Report but helping the Runner really hurts this card.
Saan
I certainly don’t want to slot in tons of these in my deck, because the effect is not a good enough Jackson replacement for me to want to, especially since I’m paying the runner for the privilege of knowing I might still have additional agendas in hand since I was so scared I had to get rid of 2 of them. Since I didn’t slot many in my deck, now the chances of me drawing one while I’m also too flooded to just play out of it (like I’ve been doing since Jackson rotated) just went down even further. Now I want to play less of them. Now I’m playing zero. That feels good. Zero feels like the correct amount.
SimonMoon
Right now the strongest runners are runners that outpace the Corp in the end game so trying to play a massively tempo negative card to get rid of Agendas is a losing strat anyway. If you have 5 Agendas and this in your starting hand you’d much rather it was any piece of ice so you could try to jam something and pray instead of doing nothing for a couple turns. If suddenly the best runner becomes stuff more likely early crim that get a ton of early accesses but slowly get locked out then this gets better (but still probably bad). The best anti flood strat atm is trying to score your agendas and any other plan just means you get behind on board and locked.
Tvaduva
To clear out agendas from HQ, this seems better than Preemptive Action. CI has the luxury to not worry about mitigating agendas in HQ, but most of the other T16 Worlds Corp decks ran Whampoa Reclamation and/or Preemptive Action. PU ran 5 of those cards, and I don’t think they care too much if the runner has a few more credits. Hydra ran 1x Whampoa, but also Medical Research Fundraisers. Some CtM’s ran a few of either, but not any Special Reports, so they probably didn’t think agendas in HQ were too much of a worry. The rush AgInfusion ran two Preemptive. This can deal with agendas and/or provide some recursion and has an a small upside for the runner, for no influence. I think it will see play in some well-placing Corp decks.