Future Proof card ratings!
I’m going to give a rating from 0 to 5 for each card.
5: Best of the best. Game defining cards. Ex: Account Siphon, Crypsis, Melange Mining Corp.
4: Strong staples. You want it in most decks of this faction and many decks of another faction. Ex: Sure Gamble, Corroder, Ice Wall.
3: Playable cards. It might make the cut, or be good in the right deck. Ex: Armitage Codebusting, Enigma.
2: Niche. It’s only good in the right deck, and even then it’s not amazing, just reasonable. Ex: The Helpful AI, Peacock.
1: Bad Cards. It’s always bad, and only in its best conditions does it rise to reasonableness. Ex: Aurora, Shipment from Mirrormorph.
0: Terrible cards. You actively hurt your game by using it. Ex: Data Dealer, Tyrant.
Loki 1.0:
OH WAIT. The 4chan “spoilers” were lies. Who would have guessed? 🙂
This is a serious blow to 4chan’s credibility! Its sterling reputation is now tarnished! But they are good at making cool gifs of Scorched Earth.
On to real cards…
Retrieval Run:
2.5/5
I feel that the primary function of this card right now, is to get a free Femme Fatale into play, after having intentionally discarded it, due to having 6 cards in hand. This could in fact be a legitimate strategy for Andromeda on turn 1!
Paying $3 to essentially save $9, if Archives is undefended, is better than Sure Gamble by $2.
It also has utility just in case you get wrecked by a program trash effect or damage that makes you lose a key program. It also combos with Datasucker and Desperado, giving more value on that Archive run. However, this is really best in a deck where they won’t ice archives, since ice there reduces its efficiency. It could be good in a Shaper deck as a way to cheaply pay for Femme.
Also, the addition of any future very-high cost programs increases its potential.
Right now I feel it’s okay and mostly usable for cheap Femmes. It’s not universally usable in anything. If it was a shaper or criminal card it might get more play. Especially shaper, as a way to make them maybe want to ice archives, or simply to take advantage of the face that they don’t.
This card could get a LOT better in the future, if we get more ~10 cost programs. Until then, it’s only really efficient for Femme, so it’s just okay.
Darwin:
3.5/5
This is more conditional Crypsis. Paying $2 per subroutine is often better than $1 and losing a counter for the ice, since those Clicks on Crypsis are a pain. But he doesn’t have the 1: +1 Strength ability; he can only slowly gain strength at the start of your turns. On the plus side, his strength remains until a Virus purge, so he can force the opponent to lose turns. However, after they do, they might be able to freely score agendas, so that’s a weakness. He is also weak to troubleshooter, whereas Crypsis provides a solid troubleshooter defense if you have money.
The main drawback compared to Crypsis is that you can’t go ‘Play it, counter, counter, Stimhack’ and know you can get through. Darwin doesn’t have strength at first, so he both isn’t a surprise, and isn’t as reliable. However, he is still solid, as any AI breaker that is reasonable to use is a potentially strong card.
He works well with Cyberfeeder, as it not only reduces his cost; it also pays to put virus counters on him each turn, since its ‘using an icebreaker’. It could be pretty strong, in a deck with limited viruses, to simply put him out there and use a Cyberfeeder to pump him, making them want to purge viruses every few turns so he can’t just efficiently break large ice. He also seems strong with 3xPersonal Touch, maybe if you put him in a Replicator deck or something. His strength will then get to huge values very fast, and they either live with it, or purge constantly.
Data Leak Reversal:
3/5 ?
A tricky one, it requires tagging to use, but it’s a resource! Clearly the goal here is to self-tag with things like Account Siphon, Vamp, or Joshua B, and then use this. Hopefully, you broke them, so if they want to kill it, they have to spend their entire turn getting $2 and killing it. (Note: Joshua B himself doesn’t turn it on during that turn, you get the tag at the end of turn. But he contributes to the strategy).
As a way to simply tax the corp, it seems decent. Put it out for free, and then they have to lose a click and $2 sometime fairly soon. They might have to kill Joshua B first, or not be able to afford it.
However, if you do manage to Vamp them to $0, a Medium dig is probably a lot stronger than this.
Overall I think it has potential, but it’s not like clearly overpowered or anything.
If this deck turns into a major thing, you know what gets even better. Freelancer! The card that seems to get better every set, as we get more heavily played resources. People are actually playing that card now!
Maybe a good way to play this card is simply to sit it in play, and then do things like: 1st click run, take tag on your (Data Raven/etc). Activate twice. Clear tag. You could keep doing that a lot over the course of a game, and that might make it awesome.
Faerie:
2.5/5
Faerie seems decent, it’s like an insurance plan. For free, you drop her, and then the first Sentry you run into that would destroy you, you break for cheap. And then you know it’s there. Maybe it’s an archer, and you then just Shutdown it. Sometimes the problem with playing Femme Fatale (without workshop) is that you don’t want to play it early, because you don’t know what ice to target yet, and then you run into something where you need it, but she isn’t in play.
Also, if you play Pawnshop, Faerie can be an Easy Mark as well, which is useful if you didn’t need to use her. Versatile Easy Marks are good Easy Marks!
Mr. Li:
2.5/5
He is expensive but could be solid in the right deck. Li avoids duplicate card draws, which saves you a lot of time, and also improves card quality. It helps you get your breakers a lot faster. Or you Magnum Opus, or whatever.
You can go through your deck efficiently, and then leave a pile of backup copies of things you have on the bottom of your deck, just in case you lose your current copy. That’s neat, and if you pawn him later after drawing through to what you need, then he isn’t expensive in the long term.
I feel that Quality Time is a more efficient card though. Actually just getting 5 cards for that price is a lot of cards. Though Li helps with not having to discard them.
Indexing:
3.5/5
It’s pretty good, especially early. I wish this card had been out while R&D interface was not a card, because I would’ve probably played it a lot. But now R&D interface comes out, and makes me want to play it instead.
Indexing is a solid, free way to get strong R&D control over the corp however. You can see any agendas in 5 cards, which is nice, and then you can stack them and run again. It severely punishes an open R&D on turn 1. SEVERELY. It does something shaper wants, which is help prevent the corp from drawing agendas, so they can’t rush against you, while you build up. A shaper is happy to see both players build early on, because of their strong lategame, they generally fear people rushing agendas through, but don’t really fear a rich corp.
I feel that Noise would really like this. Look at 5, and then stack the agenda and mill it by playing a Virus! And know where other cards that matter are too, to mill those. Pretty cool. But its 3 influence, and doesn’t really combo with Medium.
Don’t underestimate R&D control cards, they can be very strong!
R&D Interface:
5/5
Like this one! This isn’t just the best card in the set, it’s the best shaper card period! At least for Shapers. Noise loves the workshop more.
This card gives shapers one of the things they desperately need: A strong lategame attack, which also R&D locks the corp so they can’t draw agendas and win.
Previously, a good shaper deck probably needed to play at least 2 medium. I felt this was basically a requirement. Then you had to draw one of them, and it cost MU. And you had to hit R&D multiple times to get it to work, and then they cleared viruses. Which was nice, but what you really wanted was to just be able to hit R&D once every couple turn or two, and see lot of cards, and thus stop them from drawing agendas.
This card gives Shaper the R&D attack in the way it wants it, consistent, and as a Hardware. That means your MU is freed up for Opus and breakers, and you can fetch copies of it with Replicator.
This card makes Replicator strong, imo. In fact, I might play 3 Replicator, 3 R&D interface, a couple consoles, and no other hardware, or almost none. The replicator would still be worth it! Fetch all 3 R&D interfaces and then Pawn it. Don’t dawdle around playing 100 pieces of hardware, while you lose the game. Just get your R&D interface set, and attack hard. I feel like 3 R&D interface justifies replicator by itself, since drawing them all is so good.
Also, Modded works really well with Replicated R&D interfaces. You can just play any number of Moddeds that you draw on them, and if you are Kate, then it’s free.
This card helps give Shaper a lot more influence to spend, since you don’t need to spend 6+ on Mediums. What will you do with it? Probably improve your early game, and/or your ability to hit multiple servers. Sneakdoor, Account Siphon, Shutdown, Inside Job, more copies of Corroder/Femme, Stimhacks, maybe even Darwin, to go with 3 Replicated Personal Touches. Maybe Special Order to get your breakers fast. Maybe a bunch of Parasites and Datasuckers, to pressure the corp and keep their R&D defense weak for longer.
Whatever you do with it, shaper just got a lot stronger. This really helped balance them with the other factions. Also, while before good shaper players knew they needed Medium because they had to have a win condition, bad shapers would play with no way to ever access more than 1 card, except for Makers Eye. But now, a lot more shapers will play with a win condition, because this card is in faction and they can easily put it in. So I expect to see improved results from shaper players.
Still, shaper can be slow and vulnerable to things like Fast advance, NBN rushing like crazy, etc. I’d recommend spending that freed up influence improving your early game!
Deep Thought:
2/5
Why did you wait to give us all the R&D attack cards at once? R&D interface kind of overshadows the others. Couldn’t we have been playing with these for the past few months, before R&D came out?
Oh well. I’m not enamored with Deep Thought, as it requires several runs before it starts doing anything. And then they can purge it. A Medium would’ve done a lot more. Or just an R&D interface.
That said, this might be good as your only virus in a shaper deck, as it kind of forces them to purge it, so it gives you more value from R&D runs. For Kate with Pawnshop it’s an Easy Mark, so it’s not terrible. But I don’t think it’s great either.
New Angeles City Hall:
3/5
A solid way to avoid any amount of tags, at any time. This would be better if it didn’t go away when you scored an agenda. It also helps you reduce tag removal costs. It’s much better than Networking, both because it’s instant speed, and also because it costs $2 to remove the tag, while Networking costs $1 and a click (if you keep it). A Click is better than a credit! For a Magnum Opus player, this essentially cuts the cost to avoid/remove a tag from 4 to 2, since the click was $2.
I feel that Plascrete is a better Scorched Earth defense, since it doesn’t go away when you get an Agenda, but this is better in a deck that mainly wants to not be tagged to protect its Resources. It might be great in a Resource economy Andromeda, who wants to play Account Siphon, but needs to remove the tags afterwards. In general, it’s a decent anti-tag card, if you need that. Better than things like Decoy.
Eli 1.0:
4.5/5
Wow, this is amazing! Not R&D interface amazing, but just extremely solid and efficient.
For only $3, I get an ice that costs about 2 clicks or $4 to break. Corroder, the most efficient barrier breaker, takes $4 to break it. That’s not really better than 2 clicks!
Any ice that can consistently make the runner pay MORE to break it ONCE, than its cost, is pretty awesome! And it combines well with other Bioroids. If they click your Ichi, then they need a Corroder and $4 to break this afterwards.
Basically, it’s similar to Viktor, but $1 harder to break in general, and without the Yog weakness! It can’t damage them, but that’s okay, it’s just super-efficient.
Since Clicks are generally significantly better than just a credit (more like 1.5 to 2 credits usually), this is a $3 ice that generally costs $3-4 worth of resources (time or money), to break. That’s just awesome.
It’s a great central server defense, efficiently making it inefficient to run through to see one card.
At a cost of 1 influence, I’m probably putting this in everything. Jinteki Replicating likes it on their remote. After running a central, and then running it, if they spend 2 more clicks breaking it, they have no actions left and are thus vulnerable! NBN can pick up some efficient protection for centrals. Maybe Weyland has better things to spend influence on, but most decks would at least consider this card, I think. It’s simply one of the most efficient pieces of ice in the game. It instantly goes into my top 5 favorite ice.
Ruhr Valley:
2/5
This is pretty expensive to just cost them 1 click, though if they trash it things do get better. One problem with this card is that you have to rez it before they run to get the benefit. Still, it’s an upgrade, and all upgrades can be great by inducing a run.
The best thing about this card, I think, is that if you’ve got an agenda there, and the opponent needs to build up before they run, and they spend their first 3 clicks, and are now ready to run it, then you just flip this up, and they can’t run that turn. Then you score your agenda!
Still, $6 is a heavy cost for only a relatively minor speed bump to the run. Generally, $1 for the corp is more valuable than $1 for the runner, since it’s harder for the corp to get good economy. So the $6 you spend is actually significantly more than the $4 they spend killing it.
I don’t think it’s all that good, it’s really expensive.
Ronin:
3/5
This might turn out to be a thing that Jinteki needed to make its damage threat work well. Or maybe it will turn out to usually be an expensive waste of time.
It definitely makes people feel a need to run your advanced remote server cards. If you put a couple counters on something, I kind of want to go knock it out. If it’s a Junebug but I don’t die, I’m okay with that, it means you can’t Trick of Light the counters later. If it’s a Ronin, I’m glad I ran it.
A Jinteki player with a 4 advanced thing sitting in paly is kind of scary. It’s too big to take out if it’s a Junebug!
This card makes me want to play Infiltration more, though they can counter that with Zaibatsu.
But this card is pretty slow. $4 and 4 clicks to set up. Then you wait for the runner to get low on cards during a run, and on your turn you make them explode. While it’s sitting there with 4 counters, waiting for the right time, it’s vulnerable, but it also threatens to be a killer Junebug. Oh the mind games! I definitely think that a deck trying to use this, should play Zaibatsu.
On a related side note, how good is Account Siphon? When they build up several counters on a thing, you can just go: Fine, account siphon you. You’re broke now? Run that thing. If it’s a trap, I kill it for free because you can’t activate it.
Midori:
2.5/5
It’s a decent Jinteki trick. You have to be very careful running Jinteki remotes now, even if you know the ice, because the ice could change! You might use this card to bait someone into running your ice wall, that they think they can break for $1, and then flipping it with something terrifying instead. Maybe a Janus. Of course, that’s expensive, but it would probably win the game if they did it near the end of the turn.
It also improves the Jinteki positional ice, much better than Sunset does. You can flip a Cell Portal into the bottom of your fort, helping make that card a bit better, though it’s still generally weak. If you had Chum in front of something that got Parasited, you can remove the Chum and replay it.
Better yet, if they run into Chum, and don’t break it, then you can swap the ice after it into something unbreakable (Data Mine lol?), and punish them.
In short, it has a lot more possibility of a surprise Ice nailing the runner (or stopping them when they had calculated that they had enough money to get through, by putting a good End the Run ice at the end, after they blew resources getting to that point). It also can cause the runner to run it, because it’s an upgrade. Basically any time you play a lone upgrade, and they run it, that was great.
So in the end, this has enough potential to make it a reasonable Jinteki trick. The possibility of them deciding to waste time and money running it, because it’s an upgrade and might be a Braintrust or Melange or something, helps it. But I think people are the least likely to run against Jinteki unadvanced face down cards, due to fear of things like Edge of World, so maybe that won’t happen much.
NBN: The World is Yours:
2/5
Bleah. I’m not excited at all by this. While going down to 40 cards is a slight benefit, you lose 3 influence, which kind of negates that benefit. And the power, +1 hand size, is pretty underwhelming. As a corp, hand size isn’t even life points. This would’ve been better as a runner power to help avoid flatlining. As it is, it seems weaker than 2 free trace $ per turn. The trace money just makes certain cards WAY better for NBN, like Caduceus, which becomes a solid money engine. It really helps to keep your trace cards viable if they get a couple link, whereas without it link just easily nullifies a lot of cards.
Some people will love the 40 card deck size, and it does let you get better agenda mixes, and draw your Astroscripts more (like 12% more), but in general I think that a 5 card deck size reduction is pretty overrated. It doesn’t really do THAT much.
A decent economy power could have made NBN a powerhouse. As it is, they got Beale, but didn’t get a really helpful identity, so I think they are only the #2 corp, still behind HB. They definitely can rush agendas really hard though, and never give them away by having to advance and then say go, so they are pretty strong. I’d just stick with the +2 free tracing power, keep the 15 influence, and use the tracing to make certain ice powerful.
Project Beale:
4.5/5
This is a very strong card, as pretty much any 3/2 agenda is. But this isn’t just a 3/2. It’s a 3/2, or 5/3, or 7/4, etc. Of your choice, and always worth 2 to the runner!
While the best thing about this card is simply the ability to put it face down, and then next turn score it for 2, a not-irrelevant ability of this card is that a runner with many tags, plus a Psychographics, gives you an easy win by placing many counters on it.
It basically means the opponent is forced to respect your Data Ravens and other tag effects, even if they have Plascrete. They have to remove those Account Siphon tags. And it potentially combos well with the new card Midseason Replacements.
I think NBN now with Beale and a couple Psychographics in their deck, does a great job of forcing any runner to pay a cost to remove tags that they receive, even if they have a Plascrete or and/no resources.
Midseason Replacements:
4/5 ?
This is hard to rate, because it might just not be playable a lot of the time, but when it works it does something outrageous.
It’s basically the greatest possible card for the ‘Flytrap’ type NBN deck, which want to sacrifice an Agenda to get the runner into a vulnerable position with Tags. Rather than having to get a tag on somehow and then Big Brother them, all you need now is more money than the Runner, and to let them score something, and you get to Ubertag them. And then possibly win with Psychographics+Beale.
Imagine this: NBN player sets up a remote that will drain the runner’s money to get through. Possibly adding some Red Herrings. Then they just keep installing agendas in it. If the runner doesn’t run, they score agendas. If the runner DOES run, they lose their money to the ice and Red Herrings, and now NBN nails them with a huge Midseason Replacements. The runner can’t possibly get rid of these tags, and loses to Psycho/Beale.
Seems like a decent plan, we’ll see if it works.
Flare:
3.5/5
This is a strong effect for a rich NBN player. Either the trace or breaking the ice is going to be expensive. If you run into this, it’s not just going to end the run, it’s going to FORCE you to either pay a lot of money, or take a lot of pain.
This card basically gives NBN the option of trying to be a rich corp, and then not having to pay influence to get big ice from out of faction to take advantage of it. With Flare and Tollbooth, you’re pretty set on big ice. Maybe you can get rich by pulling in Adonis Campaign or something, in addition to playing things like Melange and Marked Accounts.
I’ve been hoping for a Cinderella reprint since Android:Netrunner came out, and now it’s here!
Dedicated Response Team:
3/5
If this was easier to splash, I think it might get a lot of play in both NBN and Jinteki as well, but 3 influence is a lot. Still, it might happen. DRT makes a Snare essentially hit them for 5, though you have to rez it before they hit the Snare.
It makes running through a Raven much more painful, since you can then Rez DRTs and make them take 2 damage. Then they kind of have to go kill the response teams, which you could make more annoying with things like Encryption protocol or the Jinteki Replicating ability.
In Weyland, it makes your Snares and Ravens more deadly, but if you are going to just put these out face down and undefended, they might just get run and killed. Or open you up to Bank Jobs that you weren’t vulnerable to in 1 fort Weyland.
Overall, a pretty threatening card, imo. If it was less influence, I think we would see this all over the place. At 3 it’s a big investment that we still might see a lot of. It’s just so good in combination with Snare and Data Raven. I think it’s very strong in a Jinteki that also splashes Data Raven. Put a Data Raven in front of your Fetal AI. Have a couple DRTs hidden among all of the facedown cards you always spam in horizontal Jinteki. They run through Raven, you flip up the DRTs and kill them when they run into Fetal! Or bring them low enough to maybe Neural EMP.
If we see this a ton, then I think New Angeles City Hall is a good counter to it. Just prevent the mid run tag from Data Raven or Snare, and you don’t suffer.
Burke Bugs:
1/5 At most. And only because of Security Subcontractors.
It’s pretty weak, basically doing nothing without investment. Popup Window, this is not! However, it might be a reasonable trap, when a runner face checks you early on and both of you are broke. Or it might simply be a way to get them to spend $1 to go through ha $0 cost ice, because you have a ton of money and they don’t want to lose their Femme to a big trace.
Its best feature is probably that it can serve as ‘fake ice’, pretending to defend a central server even though it really isn’t, and maybe eat a Forged Activation Order, and then later on, once it is revealed to be the weak defense that it is, you can eat it with Security Subcontract for $4.
But that’s not really all that impressive, in the end.
Maybe NBN does best with it by splashing it and getting a free 2 to the trace. But I feel that NBN has better cards it could splash, with better traces. Practically every card in this set has a realistic and reasonable use in the right deck. But this thing just seems pretty terrible. If it at least had like 2 strength, it would be nice to put Chum in front of.
Corporate War:
2.5/5
It’s a reasonable neutral agenda, if you are regularly going to get rich, and don’t care about the tag power of Private Security Force. Scoring this with $7 in the bank is quite solid.
It’s no Original Netrunner corp war though. Man was that thing outrageously overpowered! (It was 3/3 and gave $12! Whee! 3 pointer for 3! And if you scored it while rich you basically automatically won the game).
It’s a reasonable choice that some decks might take advantage of. It might swap in for PSF in some decks that run that currently. But its also risky, and I think that pulls it down somewhat. If they attack it and make you pay to score it, are you still going to have 7 left?
Summary:
Best card in set: R&D interface. Shapers got a big buff.
No other really standout runner cards, but a variety of playable-in-the-right-deck things. Indexing seems like a decent way for a Shaper to try and prevent the corp from drawing agendas early, and thus prevent them from rushing the shaper player before he is set up. But it does require multiple R&D runs to do that.
New Angeles is a decent anti-tag card. Darwin is an interesting AI breaker. Not as universal as Crypsis I think, but potentially strong.
NBN got Project Beale, which is amazing, but a weak identity. Still Beale shoots them up the corp power rankings, as they have insane power to just put things face down and rush agendas. Midseason Replacements also provides a very build-around-me effect for the ‘Flytrap’ archetype, allowing a super Psychographic-Beale. If you’re willing to sacrifice an agenda or two to drain the runner’s money, and then pull it off, it could be strong.
Corps got Eli, a very solid, efficient bioroid. While this obviously helps HB, with an influence cost of 1 I think it actually helps lots of corps gain early, efficient defenses, which hold up well all game. But it’s definitely at its best when combined with other Bioroids. Eli and Ichi together in a server is actually a really tough nut to crack, and doesn’t cost all that much. Dedicated Response team is interesting and Dangerous, and powers up Data Raven and Snare, which were already great cards. But it’s expensive for non-Weyland decks. Ronin makes me want to run a Jinteki card with a couple advances even more than I did before, because if it’s a Ronin it needs to die, and I want to run it while it’s not lethal yet if it’s a Junebug.
How would I rate the runners in terms of strength?
Probably Criminal > Anarch > Shaper, but all reasonable close together, rather than Shaper lagging a lot. The strongest Criminal deck (Gabe aggression) performs well for almost anyone, since you just run a lot and get some early points, and you don’t fall into the trap of just building up while you lose the game. Noise still has the best lategame, as a full Virus setup allows efficient runs, and he is strong at attacking all 3 centrals. Shaper got a lot better with R&D interface. Maybe they will actually be able to build awesome decks now, without much early game weaknesses.
In terms of actual identities, I’d put them:
Gabe > Noise > Kate/Andromeda >> Chaos Theory (5 less deck size is so overrated) > Whizzard.
How would I rate the corps in terms of strength?
HB > NBN > Weyland >> Jinteki.
HB is solid in all areas. Strong economy, good agendas, good fast advance potential, good rushing, and also good at making strong lategame forts, if you build that way instead of a speedier version.
NBN is amazing at rushing agendas, and has three strong agendas now, Astroscript (the best!), Beale, and Breaking News. But their defenses and economy aren’t as strong.
Weyland is decent and has good economy. They can both win via agenda scoring or Scorched Earth. But they got hurt a ton by Emergency Shutdown, which is so good against their Archers and Hadrian’s Walls.
Jinteki still hasn’t gotten much economy help, or an Agenda suite that’s as good as most other corps, or enough good ice. They keep getting different ways to try to trick or kill the runner, but a strong runner player is hard to kill, because they won’t make many mistakes. When Jinteki spends lots of time advancing traps and things, it just tends to be very poor. We really need a card that says: “Operation, cost $0. Gain $1 for each remote server you have”. Then the horizontal Jinteki player that spams out 7 remote servers can get some strong economy. And it makes the runner want to go kill all those things.
Overall, this set has a number of interesting cards, which could work well in the right deck. Most of the cards in the set are things I think are playable, but not universally playable. Thats great for interesting deck construction. I’m glad that Shaper got R&D interface, because it does a lot to balance the runner factions. Runners are strong right now, though they have to be fast, because HB and NBN are amazing at rushing agendas through, and fast advancing. The strength of both HB and NBN’s agenda rushes cause slow runners to be really bad. And its just such an effective strategy, that it makes the corps who aren’t good at it, Weyland and Jinteki, lag behind. Fast advancing agendas is just generally a better strategy than trying to kill runners. If it fails, you probably at least got 4-6 points out of it, and thats just really good in a tournament scoring format. If Jinteki fails to kill you, they might just get really crushed. Its a sad fact of the tournament scoring, that it pushes already strong aggro/agenda rush strategies into a dominant position, because they tend to have better losses than slower decks, when they do lose.