Article: Future Proof Card Ratings

Discuss the latest Stimhack article that evaluates the new Future Proof Data Pack here.

Agree with the ratings? Post up your own or just discuss the new cards in general.

My Thoughts on Future Proof

Retrieval Run
This seems like it has potential to be very strong in the future. Right now the only strong synergy seems to be with quality time and discarding.
Rating: 2.5/5

Data Leak Reversal
This card seems super situational. Even in the dedicated virus mill noise deck I would not play this card. Encouraging the runner to tag himself is not worth it imo.
Rating: 1/5

Faerie
Costs nothing to play and is a very efficient breaker the one time you use it. Faerie seems like it could possibly be playable in Andromeda but is otherwise not worth the card slots.
Rating 2/5

Mr. Li
Card selection for criminal seems quite useful; however criminal decks already have no deck space. I would actually prefer to see this as a draw 2 and discard a card so it would have synergy with retrieval run.
Rating 2/5

Indexing
I would never play this in any deck to be honest. It is certainly worse than maker’s eye and R&D interface. A very win more card In a deck that has no deckspace.
Rating: 1/5

R&D Interface
I am so glad they made this a shaper card. It fixes a lot of problems with shaper and seems to be a huge addition to the shaper game plan. Maker’s eye every turn seems quite strong.
Rating: 5/5

Deep Thought
The ability seems fairly lackluster in shaper and the influence cost is too high for Noise.
Rating: 2/5

New Angeles City Hall
Probably the worst card in the set. Potential synergy with Joshua B. Even in that scenario it is not good.
Rating: 1/5

Eli 1.0
This is everything we could want in a Bioroid: cheap to rez, high strength and 2 subs. Eli is a solid addition to any HB deck.
Rating: 4.5/5

Ruhr Valley
This card is hard to evaluate. It is strong with bioroids and potentially very strong against mediums. The cost is very prohibitive and the trash cost is low enough that I think it is mediocre.
Rating: 3/5

Midori
I feel that this could be quite strong in the future. Surprise Katanas from your hand is a great trick.
Rating: 3/5

NBN- The World is Yours*
I feel that this identity is a very strong base to build a fast advance deck upon. Only needing to play 18 or 19 agenda points in your deck significantly increases the quality of agendas for NBN. You draw astroscripts more frequently and can fast advance them more frequently leading to more wins. This deck will be fairly pourous and needs to race the runner.
Rating: 3/5

Midseason Replacements
This card is absolutely frightening. Sea sources’ bigger and meaner Brother. I imagine this card will lead to many PSF locked games.
Rating: 4/5

Burke Bugs
Another addition to the long list of nearly unplayable Weyland ice.
Rating: 1/5

Flare
Much like tollbooth, this card will be extremely expensive to break and gets bypassed by a femme for 1 dollar. That being said a tollbooth/flare oversight deck might be reasonably good.
Rating: 3.5/5

Darwin
To play Darwin effectively you need to play a lot of other suboptimal cards. Other than being a 3 cost virus I do not think he is very good.
Rating: 2/5

Project Beale
Amazing. The power level is quite high and I would play this as a 3 of in every NBN deck. With a side benefit of making psychographics significantly better than it already was.
Rating 4/5

Corporate War
I think people will often look at this card and see only the upside. The downside is actually quite severe and anytime you score this without the requisite money you will probably lose the game. Another win more card that is quite good in the richest of corporation decks.
Rating 2/5

Ronin
It adds a new dimension to the Jinteki trap bluff game. Do I run the double or triple advanced card? Will lead to damned if I do, damned if I don’t situations and force bad runs.
Rating: 2.5/5

Dedicated Response Team
This card will make data ravens and snares frightening in Weyland. Weyland currently lacks good bluff cards to place in remotes. This fills that gap nicely.
Rating: 3/5

My Spoiler Thoughts:

Retrieval Run:

This card is better the more expensive programs you play like Fem and Morningstar. While I think it has some interesting interactions, at 2 influence I am not sure how viable it is to splash anywhere. Noise Workshop probably doesn’t have space for this card, but Whizzard might be able to use it.

2.5 stars

Data Leak Reversal

I really do not like this card at all. It could be cute with a reprint of Drone for a day. And it might be cute against data ravens. But as is, this card is pretty bad. It isn’t even good with Joshua B, since the tag comes at the end of the turn, allowing the corp to kill it before you can even make use of it.

1 stars

Faerie

Not the Wild Card reprint we were hoping for. Killing itself after use is a pretty large downside, but this can still allow for early aggression that doesn’t really care what you run into. Might see some Andromeda play as another card you can put out on turn 1 easily.

2.5 star

Mr. Li

A pretty strong card filtering effect that can help you get to what you need. The big problem is that he is a 3 cost unique resource that doesn’t have an immediate effect. I just don’t know that Criminals have room to fit him into their decks.

2 star

Indexing

This card at first seems interesting, but often is just going to be worse than a maker’s eye. I am not sure that this card has a real place, as it is competing with superior cards. Although Noise would really enjoy this effect for controlled milling, the influence cost makes this really prohibitive.

1 star

RaD Interface

The best runner card in the set by far. This card allows for Shapers to not run Medium anymore and retain their RaD pressure. This card might single handidly help to balance Shapers with the other factions.

5 star

Deep Thought

If this was one influence it could be pretty viable for Noise, but at 2 this card won’t be splashed anywhere. At this point, with maker’s eye, RaD interface, and indexing, do we really need another RaD attack card? I don’t think it will make the cut.

1 star

New Angeles City Hall

A card that punishes you for being aggressive and doing well. There are already a plethora of cards to help deal with tags and I don’t see playing this one in any of my decks. It is cute with Joshua B, yet even there you are paying 2 credits a turn for the extra action. And the second you score an agenda you have to stop. The downside on this card really limits it.

1.5 star

Eli 1.0

This is my favorite corp card of the set. I think it is easily one of the best ice printed in a data pack thus far. Eli is cheap, effective, and works well with other bioroids. Against Corroder, he costs 4 to break, only 1 less than Wall of Thorns. Eli is going to see lot’s of play, and the 1 influence cost means we will probably see him out of faction as well.

4.5 star

Ruhr Valley

An expensive card with a decent effect for Bioroids. If you only get to do this once it probably isn’t worth it. But this card really enhances bioroids in this server. Ruhr Valley makes it so that the runner cannot just click through a heimdall, and that is an effect that cannot be ignored. At 3 influence, I really don’t see this getting played anywhere else except for maybe Replicating Perfection.

3 stars

Midori

A unique effect that can really screw with the runner’s math. As long as the Corp isn’t having credit problems. this can allow for some surprising plays to keep the runner off guard. At 0 to rez and 3 to trash this card doesn’t have much downside besides the deck space. We will have to see if the effect really warrants inclusion over something else.

3 star

NBN: The World is Yours

A surprisingly difficult card to evaluate that looks to play a different style of deck than core NBN. The +1 hand size is not a particularly strong ability, but can occasionally provide some value. The 40 card minimum deck size is the real draw, allowing less agendas and a more streamlined deck. Unfortunately all of this costs 3 influence, and only having 12 really limits your out of faction power. Overall a very strange identity that will take some testing to determine it’s full potential.

3 star

Midseason Replacements

The ultimate pairing with Psychographics, here is a card that really wants to play with the original identity. This card seems particularly strong, and can really punish a runner who bankrupts themselves scoring an agenda. All of that said, it is very costly on it’s own, and NBN could easily find itself simply unable to bank the credit pool needed to capitalize. I would be very suprised if this doesn’t see play in NBN or potentially Weyland.

4 star

Burke Bugs

Ugh. A 0 cost ice would be perfect for something in the early game, except that this card does nothing when the runner is face checking your early defenses. Furthermore a trace of 0 is just really poor, especially with Andromeda now on the scene. I don’t really see anything redeeming about this card.

1 star

Flare

Wow, this ice packs a punch. One of the best expensive end the run ice printed so far. I cannot wait to play with Flare, this is an ice that can really punish a runner running with just a Desperado.

4 star

Darwin

This card is like a bad Crypsis that requires other cards like Personal Touch to reach it’s potential. I think that while lot’s of people will be trying it out early on, it probably won’t amount to much.

2 star

Project Beale

The absolute nuts. Should see play in every NBN deck. A 3/2 agenda that makes psychographics terrifying.

5 stars

Corporate War

A risky agenda that probably only will work out in Weyland or HB. 2 / 4 s aren’t the best, but it is better than Private Security Forces for Corps rich enough to manage the downside.

3 star

Ronin

An interesting “trap” that punishes runners for not running. I honestly don’t see Jinteki having room for more than one of these in their decks, but it will see some play to punish caution in runners.

2 star

Dedicated Response Team

I am not a fan of this card. It only really works well with Data Raven / Snare, and is otherwise a dead card for the most part. Might be good in NBN, except that 3 influence is very costly.

2 star

Interesting. Seems that the biggest differences in our opinions are on Data Leak Reversal and Indexing. You guys hate both of them. I think they both have a lot of potential in the right deck, though they arent universally good.

Data Leak is super build-around-me. But I think it might be good in the right deck. If you can manage to get 1 access for just a click, several times, and then force them to pay $2 and a click killing it, that could be great.

One of the Anthony’s says Indexing is ‘win more’. I have the complete opposite impression of this card. This is a huge ‘dont lose’ card for a developing shaper. What does a controlling shaper deck with an awesome lategame NOT want to see? You rushing agendas. What does indexing do? Tells you if there are agendas in the next FIVE cards, and let you put any that exist on top so you can run them again. That can make it so you cant draw the needed agendas before the shaper gets set up with R&D interfaces, and locks you.

On a side note, I generally dont feel that the “Win more” concept is useful in netrunner. Its already wrongly applied a lot of the time in Magic, but in Netrunner, sometimes attacking rediculously hard, when things are going well, is exactly what you need.

The thing is, in Magic, a dominant board position is dominant. It generally doesnt need to become even more dominant. In netrunner, a Dominant board position is generally only dominant for a short period of time. If I have a server you can’t break, I have a window of time to use it to score agendas, before you CAN break it. If I can hammer R&D with a medium while you are broke and cant rez ice, then I have a limited amount of time to hammer it before you CAN rez ice (and then clear my medium counters). So in netrunner, when you have the advantage, you need to press it SUPER HARD. Capitalize on it. Cards that let you gain a ton from a position where you have the advantage are suepr valuable. They win the game before the other guy cna naturally stabilize by getting money or playing what he needs.

I actually agree with this a lot. I do think that indexing is the card that I think is most likely to be better than I gave it credit for, it just competes for tight deck space in my eyes.

The number of threes awarded in this article, IS TO DAMN HIGH!!!

Retrieval Run
More recursion, though program specific and it puts it into play, reduced the fear of the trashing.
3.5/5

Data Leak Reversal
i was really excited, then really disappointed in this card when I realized Joshua gives you a tag at the end of the turn, so I cant just straight up combo out. I believe there are a few cards in First moves of the spin cycle has some cards that benefit the runner while tagging them, but until then, this card is sub par.
2/5

Faerie
Eh it’s a one shot “save me”, or “fuck your ice i’m getting through” sentry breaker its pretty damn effective since you can break archer for 4 credits. And then it trashes itself. It probably will be strong in Gabe aggro.
3/5

Mr. Li
meh, he costs three so you gain a scry mechanic, helpful for you to get what u want faster, but they would be more helpful in a combo deck like nosie workshop…who cant waste the influence for this card.
2/5

Indexing
Ughhh this card is boring and this is exactly how it will play out, I index turn 3-5 if single agenda, i put it on top, i score it if i cant score it this turn i put it down three cards so i can build up to get it or the opponent wastes time drawing to get it, plural agendas, Makers’ eye, gg, or whiff, that was a giant waste of time and recources and now he stacks up defenses on the deck.
1.5/5

R&D Interface
More deck dig so runners can force the issue, and dear jesus is it strong, base +1 to the number of cards you can access stacks with both medium and Makers eye, card is super strong and will put shapers back into the meta with a vengeance… and right before a damn big box.
5/5

Deep thought
It is cutsy card that once you have the counters you sneak a peak at the top of RnD, so it’s basically a 1 mem alarm clock that says. “its time to run stupid” Like all viruses, Noise would have been happy to pick it up…if only it had be one influence, unfortunately it is two so it will sit at the wayside.
2//5

New angeles city hall
yay i pay the price to remove a tag to stop a tag, but then i lose it the second i get an agenda.
2/5

Eli 1.0
Ya this card is one of the stand outs it the set, it took an entire set, but HB finally got a new bioroid that doesnt suck, high strength, low cost, dirt cheap influence of 1! double end the run! and he cant be yog’ed because hes a barrier, and costs corroder 4 if the player doesnt want to click through!
4.5-5/5

Ruhr Valley
eh I expect them to come up with version of this card in the big box, withholding that, It is the middle ground of the regionals with amazon, or chi-lo being the worst, and sansan being the best
.2.5-3/5

Midor
I don’t personally like her. Its better with personal evolution in my opinion, That included, jinteck would have been better off with some new ice that isnt terrible instead of a new ice trick.
2/5

NBN- The world is yours
Conclusion after extreme testing-
?/5

Midseason replacements
Expensive in more ways then one, but holy shit!, if this tags you, it will be ages and a fortune before you ever get un-tagged. run a psychographics and you have a unstoppable one turn.
4/5 only reason it doesnt get a perfect score is the requirement of having an agenda stolen.

Burke Bugs
And the bad Weyland ice continues unabated.
0/5 It’s strength is zero, it’s cost is zero, its trace is zero, Lets just take this full circle shall we.

Flare
Badda-bing badda-BOOM flare the new high cost doom ice of nbn, if its trace 6 is successful “trace 8 in original NBN” it does 2 unpreventable meat damage “fu*k you plascreate” trashes a hardware, something no corp card does well, and then it still ends the run. The only down side its its cost of 9.
4/5

Darwin
He’s a killer whale with legs! god i wanted this card to be as awesome as i thought he could be… but he’s not, you can only advance him once per turn much to my sadness, he needs personal touches to be something great, and even then, he can be slowed or stopped by a well timed purge.
2/5 until further notice.

Project Beale
Fast advance thy name is NBN, finally the monstrous speed and strength of 3/2 agendas has been added to NBN and this over level means business, adding extra agenda points!!!
4.5/5

Corporate wars
its a 4/2 agenda this is hands down a win more card, all it does is exasperates your dominate position, or you just wasted all your leftover credits.
2/5

Ronin
Any time damage is good, he is free to rez, costs two to rash, but he requires 4 advances and then for you to trash him to do three damage, I will however maintain my stance that jinteck doesnt need new tricks, they need better ice,
2.5/5

Dedicated response team
Weyland got a new “stop touching my things” asset, which says, “now you cant even afford to be tagged or I WILL zap you” To bad they cant get real ice past the core-set.
2.5/5

You could call it win more because when your behind and r&d hits are not feasibly cheap or sustainable the card is terrible. However, when you can already get in relatively cheap it shines. That is, by my definition, a win more card

1 Like

I actually disagree with a lot of the ratings for some reason.

  • Ronin 4.5/5
    A game-changer for Jinteki’s traps. When an asset is advanced, 97% of the time, if it doesn’t get run the next turn, it never will. This is the case due to that if it is an agenda, the corp will advance it to score the next turn, whereas if it’s a trap, it’ll just stay on the board. Ronin is powerful simply because the threat of ANYTHING being a Ronin. Didn’t run my twice-advanced Aggressive Secretary? That’s okay, I’ll wait a few turns, advance it twice more, and leave it there. Not to mention that the card itself isn’t half bad either! The only trap Jinteki needs now is one that takes 0c to spring (and as always, ice).

  • Faerie 4/5
    Amazingly paired with fixed strength breakers. This will really save your bacon if a Janus or Archer gets rezzed on you. Not to mention this is practically a direct counter to Oversight AI.

  • New Angeles City Hall 3.5/5 (5/5 in the right deck)
    Finally a card that makes Joshua B playable. Think of a virus mill deck with 5 clicks a turn. Now everything will be set up 25% faster, and that inevitable Archives run for the win will happen before many fast advance decks win.

  • Mr. Li 4/5
    Finally Criminals don’t have to go out of faction for Diesel/QT. In the long run, Li will be far more useful than the other two and won’t force the runner to trash anything. The major downside however is that it doesn’t load your hand efficiently, so Jinteki will be a bit more difficult to play. Finally 3-6 influence Criminals can spend elsewhere.

  • Indexing/Deep Thought 3/5
    They definitely have a nice effect, if it fits in a deck. I sincerely hope people underestimate them though, as they would shut down many Jinteki decks.

  • R&D Interface 0/5
    Could you imagine? Just kidding.

  • Midori 2/5
    Finally, we get Sunset 2.0! Seriously, not a good card. It’s better than Sunset in that it’s more threatening to the runner, as it’s more of a surprise. It’s worse in that the runner has to choose the server first. Both get a one time use (Midory might get a two time use).

1 Like

It isn’t too surprising that our opinions don’t all line up. I fully expect that many of our initial ratings will be revised one way or another after testing and experience.

Additionally I tend to be fairly pessimistic on initial card evaluations. Especially now that deck space is so tight, otherwise decent cards just might not make the cut. That said I wouldn’t be startled at all to see some of the cards I dislike really breaking out and seeing tons of play. I terribly mis-evaluated Vamp when it first came out.

I think Faerie is probably the card that I expect to see do the best compared to my initial evaluation.

1 Like

Los Angeles grid is very valuable if you’re playing a Big Turn deck vs (currently) Weyland or NBN – plunk it down and you don’t need to fear the corp tagging you with an agenda on its turn and disrupting your buildup.

I think, overall, this is one of the stronger data packs to date. I’m mostly in agreement with the article author, although I think I see a little more potential in some of the cards. I also think there are a couple of “sleepers” here, i.e. cards that will grow in power as the game develops and the card pool grows.

I also like to think a bit beyond the card text and consider how a card will affect deckbuilding and gameplay, or how my opponent’s psychology might change given the presence or threat of a card merely existing within the card pool - whether or not it’s even in my deck - I think a lot of Jinteki tricks fall into this category.

Retrieval Run This really isn’t cheap or efficient enough for anarchs to use to recurse the programs they really want to see over and over again (parasites and imps). I think it’s probably better as a splash for the other factions to cheat bigger programs into play. Andromeda probably likes this as she is likely to be discarding on turn one. This could be like a fine wine that ages well with time, but equally it could sit at the bottom of the barrel and slowly turn sour.

Rating: 2/5. For now, but I think, given time, it will mature to around a 3.5

Data Leak Reversal On first glance I thought this was weak. I still think it’s quite situational, but actually I can see some potential with it now I’ve had a chance to think about it. It actually interacts quite interestingly with other cards in this pack, but I think it works better out of faction; mostly because Noise gets the equivalent effect simply for installing a virus, but also for the surprise value as the Corp won’t be expecting to need to ICE up the archives. At an influence cost of only 1 this is a viable splash in the right deck.
It has combo potential: how about “Indexing” to run R&D, reorder the top of the deck and play this to siphon off all of agendas into archives (which are surely unguarded vs. a shaper or criminal). It’s not quite as versatile as a medium dig (because you don’t get to trash a bunch of other cards), but it’s much safer as you’ll never accidentally run into a snare and you won’t access a Fetal AI until you’re ready to do so. A similar argument applies (to a lesser extent) to this card in combination with Deep Thought.

Rating: 2/5. I think this is a combo piece rather than a stand-alone tool.

Faerie It’s a nice Icebreaker and no mistake, but I doubt this will see play outside of criminal with an influence cost of 3. It’s an early game card and anarchs and shapers are in for the long haul usually. This will mostly be useful as a free play for Andromeda on turn one, to save as a get out of jail (almost) free card when she’s running aggressively. I wouldn’t expect to see this in every deck, at least not until there is viable automated recursion.

Rating 2/5. If they ever reprint something like “Microtech Backup Drive” from the original Netrunner this will be a lot more viable.

Mr. Li I think this is the weakest of the draw tech we’ve seen so far. It’s not horrible but, in my mind, there are two considerations to card draw - quality and quantity. Mr. Li only makes a net gain of one card, and in Netrunner cards in hand = life points so quantity is important. He doesn’t necessarily deliver on quality either - I’m sure there will arise a number of situations where you will draw two decent things at once and have to lose one of them, or two bad things and wish you had played Diesel instead to pick up cards faster. He would have been much better if his effect was draw two then bury a card from hand to the bottom of your deck, so that you can offload your duplicates and the stuff you no longer need.

Rating 2/5. I’d rather go out of faction and draw 5 blind cards with Quality Time. He certainly won’t see play in shaper or anarch.

Indexing This is one where opinion seems to be divided, but I think this card has huge potential. Firstly, if nothing else, it gives you information and control over the corp’s next 5 card draws - that is actually huge. You know which icebreaker to Special Order; you know when to mill a card with a virus / Data Leak Reversal to deny them what they need or give you access to what you want; you know what resources the corp will have for the next few turns and specifically what ICE threats they’re packing; you won’t accidentally run into a Snare or Fetal AI when you’re unprepared; you can bury their economy to slow them up for a bit and make your next few turns easier because they won’t be able to rez all their ICE. The list goes on. Yes, you get some of the same information from a Maker’s Eye or Medium dig, but they cost credits and (in the latter case) take time to set up - whereas this baby plays for zero!
The other thing to mention is that the shapers can now afford to drop Mediums from their deck (because of this and R&D interface), which saves influence and makes other cards more viable.

Rating: 4.5/5. Huge amounts of information from a limited investment, plus massive combo potential with mill tech.

R&D Interface I am in agreement with basically everyone else that this was the card shaper needed to get them back in the game. I also share the author’s frustration that all the R&D tech came in the last pack of the cycle, rather than being drip-fed to us over the last six months. Anyway, nothing further to add to previous comments - it does exactly what it says on the tin (apologies to anyone overseas who don’t have “Ronseal Quick Drying Wood Stain” in their hardware stores and don’t get the UK advertising reference).

Rating: 5/5. It’s even hardware so you can Replicate. S**t just got serious.

Deep Thought This is a bit of a shame to be honest. It’s definitely eclipsed by the previous two cards I just discussed. It is a nice ability, I would certainly like to know what’s on top of R&D but I think the investment required is prohibitive. Three runs on R&D or one and a Surge? That’s too steep for what it gives you and it could be cleared by the corp - although it’s unlikely to be if this is your only virus. The other thing to note is that, although knowing whether the top card is worth running on is useful, it probably only saves you making a wasted run if you would only be accessing one card - but since most shapers now will be running loads of R&D dig tech to access a bunch of cards they’re probably still running irrespective of that information. So what deck does this actually help? And it’s hard to see where shapers are going to find the MU to host it - three breakers and Opus is 5MU already (unless you run the 0MU breakers with link).
Maybe it would stand alone better if it only needed one virus counter to switch on, or if you saw one card per counter over two - so there was incentive to keep running. But as it stands this needs a little help to be any value. Perhaps if there was more virus acceleration tech, or something that rewarded the quantity of viruses/counters or interacted with the mechanic of revealing/looking at cards this might be viable in the future.

Rating: 1/5. I can’t see this being useful to any faction or deck archetype at the moment.

New Angeles City Hall I’m not in agreement that this is “probably the worst card in the set” as @asroybal put it, but it’s not as great as it might be. If it didn’t have the downside it would definitely be viable for a lot of decks and IDs. Criminals will love this with Account Siphon. I think the synergy with Joshua B. is not to be underestimated - Noise Workshop would love an extra click and not have to worry about the workshop being burnt down. Finding the card slots for it isn’t perhaps so easy but it can probably afford to drop a couple of duplicates (Grimoire, Crypsis) as the extra click is pseudo draw.

Rating: 2/5. It’s not a game changer but it’s not useless and it will see play. It’s a natural counter to Dedicated Response Team (or rather the surprise tag that triggers the DRT).

1 Like

Eli 1.0 Nothing to add that hasn’t already been said.

Rating: 4.5/5. It’s only not a 5 because it doesn’t have 3 (or more) sub-routines

Ruhr Valley I agree with the @asroybal who said “this card is hard to evaluate” and I think it will make some surprising appearances in weird locations. It’s expensive for the corp to rez though, and you have to pay for it up front rather than waiting until you need it (like SanSan) or flipping it as a surprise (a la Troubleshooter or Ash). I disagree that it’s strong against Medium as this will be predominantly be an anarch strategy now, so the runner will trash it with Demo Run at the first opportunity on the turn he is digging deep. However I predict that the landscape will change now due to R&D/HQ Interface, so it might have a bit of value against them.
This could have some weird value protecting archives - punishing the “easy” runs the runner will make to get Data Sucker counters, using Sneakdoor (or perhaps Retrieval Run?) or to negate Replicating Perfection’s ID ability. But I think if this is protecting a server the runner wants to run at repeatedly the runner will invest to trash it ASAP and will make a run specifically for that purpose. I don’t really see this costing the runner more than the extra click and $4, so it’s probably a negative proposition for the Corp to play it (since corp money is regarded as more valuable than runner money) unless he can combo it with Ash so that it’s never accessed, and thus keeps costing the runner time. Maybe the value of this card is in the fact that the runner WILL want to trash it, so it will change his play for a turn to make sure he has the economy to do so.
Nevertheless the surprise value of the card is limited - it would have to be expertly timed and you would have to have the money sitting there ready to go (and not get Siphoned or Vamped) to pull it off and actually stop the runner from running on his last click (not that many would vs HB anyway). The only thing I can think of that is in its favour is that installing this face down might induce a run AND get the runner to pay to trash it before you’ve rezzed it, in which case great, but equally it might as well have been an Adonis Campaign and the result would be the same.
Finally, it’s hard to see how this fits in with the current dominant HB strategy, unless it’s to protect R&D. Most fast advance decks don’t need a highly protected server to hold agendas in play or hand and the only bioroid they run is Ichi so they don’t care about the time too much. Of course we have Creation and Control on the horizon and Eli 1.0 in this pack so things could change.

Rating: 2/5. Really hard to call but my instincts tell me this isn’t great, but it’s not useless. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

EDIT: I thought of this while writing some of the Jinteki stuff lower down. If you put this upgrade on a remote server in a Jinteki - Replicating Perfection deck, you can use False Leads to ensure that the runner is unable to run on that server for a turn. I haven’t decided whether that’s useful really, but worth bearing in mind.

Midori I quite like this card actually. It’s not a game-changer, but it will be a game winner on occasion. Yes this can help to make the Jinteki combo kill more efficient, but I don’t think that’s the best way to use her. Combo kills look great when they work, but when they don’t you lose 7-0 and look a bit dumb. Midori has huge surprise value and works in two ways: you swap in a run-ender they can’t beat to save your agenda at the last second, OR you swap in something that smashes their rig. The latter option will create a lot of tempo for you, as the runner will take a long time to rebuild from the unexpected loss of a couple of programs.

Rating: 3/5. She’ll get better as the ICE pool grows too.

NBN - The World is Yours I didn’t like this when I first saw it and I still don’t think it’s that grand but I’m warming to it. I said as much on my local shop’s Facebook group and a lot of people shot me down, so maybe I was quick to judge… time will tell. OK so 40 cards means you only need 18 agenda points in your deck. The classic fast advance will therefore need to stock nine 2-point agendas in their (presumably 44 card) deck to meet the requirement. 9/44 = 20.5%, compared to 18.4%, 20.4% and 22.4% for 9,10 and 11 agenda cards respectively in a 49 card deck. So, in percentage terms, your chance to draw an agenda is the same or slightly less than it would be if you had a regular 10 or 11 agenda deck, but you haven’t had to stock any 5/3 agendas that become a liability. Maybe that in itself is a fair trade off for the deck size, but was it worth losing 3 influence? NBN has to outsource for ICE, since theirs is fairly porous, so if you recruit some of the nice cheap walls (Ice Wall, Eli 1.0) there won’t be a lot left for anything else. Maybe that’s enough though?
I don’t really see that the +1 hand size interacts particularly well with the fast advance build, but maybe there’s potential for combo decks to draw aggressively and keep cards in hand. Of course, with less influence than the core ID it’s harder to squeeze in combo cards.

Rating: 3/5. This will see play and success but I think it’s too early to tell how much. My main worry is that R&D hits just got really strong and this ID is more vulnerable to them.

Midseason Replacements This could go either way to be honest. It looks like it should be a game-changer and I’m sure when the Corp pulls it off it will be huge for them, but I have a feeling it won’t be as useful as it might appear at first glance. Most of the time you can’t play it and a lot of the time when the window of opportunity opens you won’t actually be able to afford to play it. The savvy criminal will be able to control your economy well enough to keep this card at arm’s length, and most good anarch builds are going from 0 to 7 in one go, winning on a single big turn so you’ll never get the chance to play this. Shapers beware though…
Furthermore, to make this card really work you have to land an amount of tags that will stick and you can only do that if your economy is much greater than the runner’s. If you can only just afford to play it (or have to click for cash first before you do) then even with 6 tags you can’t trash any of his rig or play Scorched Earth because you lack the money and/or the time. I think in most likely scenarios when the corp pulls this off, the runner sinks his economy into it and gets away with a couple of tags and probably loses them by the end of his next turn if he’s not punished immediately. I would view this as a reverse Vamp for the corp in most cases, which makes it less than ideal because corp money is regarded as more valuable than runner money.
There is synergy here with Project Beale and Psychographics - but now we’re talking about a three card combo where the key piece is very situational, and it’s very vulnerable to hand destruction from anarchs.
It’s slightly better using the core identity as it gives you a head start on the trace, but I think as the game develops and we see more link cards in the environment the usefulness of this card will decrease.

Rating: 2/5. This will see play and occasionally success. I expect to one day face a corp who brags after the match how he landed 13 tags and won with a single Project Beale. I will console myself with the thought of the 20 games I win where this was a dead card for the NBN player.

Burke Bugs I think this is the worst card in the pack. Of course, you never know what will happen in the future to change the landscape of the game, but right now it’s not really viable in any sane build I can think of. It might catch out an unsuspecting runner early on, but you still have to invest in the trace and the runner chooses which program gets trashed so it’s never going to do more than scratch their rig.

Rating: 1/5. Disappointing.

Flare This ICE looks like it should be reasonable, but having only a single subroutine makes it vulnerable to Femme Fatale. Like so many of the tracing ice it’s probably better to let the subroutine happen and pay to win the trace - especially for decks that are running solo Crypsis and don’t want to give up a counter.
I’m not sure how good this will be vs shapers as I think we’ll see some hardware heavy Kate decks packing a lot of link because they’re worried about this. In turn that will devalue other tracing cards, and could be another argument against Midseason Replacements.
On balance though I think this is well priced and is solid at 6 strength because it means it costs 7 for Ninja to break it. Someone suggested there could be a neat combo here with Oversight AI, I also think that it might be viable to have a Chum in front of it.

Rating: 3.5/5. At last some solid protection for NBN.

Darwin I actually quite like this card, but I think its effectiveness depends on your opponent and his willingness to purge virus counters - which in turn depends on what the rest of your deck is doing. I will definitely experiment with replacing some of my Crypsis with this in my Noise Workshop build, but I think Darwin’s effectiveness is compromised by running other viruses because the corp is far more likely to wipe the counters. I think it will be reasonably successful in red decks but I actually think it’s more likely to work better outside of anarch.
I think shaper will do well with Darwin, they can boost it to a base strength of 3 with Personal Touch, which means it’s strength 4 guaranteed on your own turn irrespective of the corp’s actions. You could also host it on an Omni-Drive (forthcoming in Creation and Control) which takes care of its MU requirement and pays for its strength each turn. It interacts nicely with Cyber-Feeder too. Although these are all combos with what @asroybal describes as sub optimal cards, you have to bear in mind that they’re also all hardware which means Replicator(s) will fetch all of the copies when you install one. This makes hardware decks super efficient, as it gives you free cards and strips out redundant copies from your deck which purifies your draw. I realise I’ve digressed from Darwin a little there, but a card is only as good as the other cards in the environment.

Rating: 3/5. Situationally usefull, it has benefits over Crypsis and strong utility for shapers in my opinion. Will definitely see play.

Project Beale I can’t add anything that hasn’t already been said. NBN have been waiting a long time for this. I don’t think anyone will be winning games in one hit with it using Psychographics, but it’s definitely an over-advance ability that’s worth using rather than treating it as a 3/2 blank.

Rating 5/5. I would define this as game-changing actually because it completes an agenda suite that makes NBN fast advance viable.

Corporate War I’m in agreement with other commentators that say this card is not as good as it looks. The upside is amazing, no doubt, but the downside hurts. If you score it with anything less than $7 in the bank then PSF is strictly better, so you need to be damn sure you’re getting the benefit. I very rarely find I’ve got a lot of money left over on the turn I score an agenda but I’m coming from a fast advance mindset. This card might actually be exactly what Jinteki needs - a card that can sit there with a couple of counters on it looking like a trap that’s actually a huge cash injection waiting to happen. It could work for Weyland too, but it’s not better than what they already have so I can’t really see it at the moment.

Rating 2/5. I don’t think it’s great, but I think it has potential in the right deck. I wouldn’t forget about this though, I think it will improve as the game develops.

Ronin Again, I’m in agreement with everyone who says that it’s an interesting card with a neat effect that adds to the psychology of playing against Jinteki, but it’s just not what they need right now. They’re desperately lacking economy and ICE that has slightly more stopping power than Swiss cheese.
Nevertheless, Ronin is an interesting card. The threat of Ronin will be enough to change runners’ play even if it’s not in your deck (unless they know it’s not in your deck), which means you might be able to suck them into running into a lethal Junebug. However 4 advancement tokens is not cheap to achieve so it’s quite an investment - the most efficient method I can think of is 2 x Shipment from Kaguya and then a Trick of Light.
All in all I don’t really know how to rate this card as I haven’t really experimented much with Jinteki, mostly because I think their game is currently unsuited to the tournament scoring system. When you lose it’s often 7-0, when you’re on top the game often drags on (resulting in running to time if you’re playing corp second). However I’m also not sure how to play against them very well (I don’t see much of them, probably because they are a bit off the pace at the moment), but my strategy so far has amounted to “throw in a copy of Deus X to deal with Snare and large Bioroids”. It’s worked pretty well for me up until now, but sadly it’s also the best counter for Ronin so I won’t really need to change what I’m doing.

Rating: 2.5/5. I think it’s too slow, inefficient and vulnerable at the moment, it might change the way the runner plays though.

Dedicated Response Team I think this is a decent card, but not to be over-estimated. It might possibly be better for Jinteki than it is for Weyland and is a card that, to my mind, has a huge psychological impact on the game.
Firstly, I think Data Ravens will get a lot more respect in Weyland decks if you have facedown cards in remotes. The threat that you might have a DRT means that the mid-run tag is no longer safe and the possibility of a Snare means that multi-accessing R&D or HQ is now extremely risky.
Once the DRT is revealed the runner will probably go after it, unless he has a way to avoid tags and/or meat damage (another case in favour of New Angeles City Hall not being the “worst card in the set”). This means the Weyland player probably has to divert ICE from centrals to protect the asset, which isn’t ideal.
Jinteki, however, can probably afford to play them naked and not have them run against until rezzed. Jinteki will automatically have three Snares, whereas Weyland will have to use almost all of their influence in recruiting out of faction ICE, ops and Snares to get the tags on mid-run - if they do that it basically becomes a combo deck looking for the kill rather than the agenda win. If that really is the situation then my intiuition tells me they should just play Jinteki - after all, if Jinteki can’t dominate that strategy then they’re a pretty poorly designed faction.
The other argument for Jinteki playing DRT is that runners will be disinclined to play their anti-tag and meat damage protection cards - expecting that Jinteki probably has no way to exploit tags, thereby saving the money and retaining cards to soak surprise net damage. This is good news for Jinteki and the DRT will have huge (possibly lethal) surprise value.

Rating: 3.5/5. It’s a decent card, but not one to build a deck around. I’d be content to run them as bluffs in Weyland, hoping the runner uncovers one and pays to trash it, then treads carefully henceforth.

I think that concludes my analysis of the cards. Discuss :slight_smile:

1 Like

The only cards I disagree with you on is Mr Li and Faerie. Faerie offers even more legitimacy to Andromeda builds that utilize fixed breakers, and functions as a “get out of jail free” card. Additionally, it nips an early Oversight AI in the bud.

Mr Li is great for factions that focus on the long game. Criminals focus on early bursts, and Quality Time is therefore the better option. Wyldsyde essentially does the same thing, though Li offers more flexibility with pacing at the expense of not loading the hand as much and forcing a card to the bottom. This leaves Shapers. Li pairs very well with Quality Time for Shapers, and in decks that want a full rig up as quickly as possible, Li is your man.

As a side note, I think people are interpreting Retrieval Run incorrectly. I do think we’ll see programs that have a prohibitive install cost that’ll benefit from Retrieval Run, but on the other side of the coin, I think RR may possibly reveal an intent to enable corps to inflict net damage or program trashing more easily. For example, imagine a Jinteki card like Data Raven, where on encounter, do 1 net damage, and trace4, hosted counter that does 2 net damage.

@Lysander: Did you mean you agree with my assessment, or previous posters’?

I definitely see your point with Faerie and I was probably a bit harsh giving it only 2, on reflection it’s probably a 3. It fulfils its role very well, but it’s not a game-changer or a card to design your deck around. I stand by my point that it won’t be in every deck and very unlikely to be seen out of faction. When it’s used it’ll be successful, but equally I’m sure runners will find other cards that can utilise the deck space just as well.

I’m still struggling to find love for Mr Li. If you just think about his ability in isolation: 50% of the time it’s no better than clicking to draw a card, i.e. half the time you would keep the first card rather than the second. The ability to bury the other card is largely neutral; I would guess that you’ll end up burying something you want about as often as you get rid of something you don’t need. This, of course, assumes the corp hasn’t been messing with your deck order in some way - which may happen in the future but isn’t really a strategy yet.

I guess my main problem with him is his inefficiency. You’re probably playing multiples of him in your deck (let’s be honest here, if you’re worried enough about your draw quality to think you need this guy then you’re not leaving it up to the gods of probability as to whether he shows up or not). So say you’re running two copies; you now have a dead card in your stack, which admittedly isn’t an issue since Mr Li himself will see to it that it goes to the bottom, but it’s a card slot that’s not doing anything for you - if it was in your hand then it would at least be a point of health or a safe end of turn discard, but ideally it would be a different card that gave you more options.

Let’s compare him to the other conventional draw that’s available:

Quality Time ($3, 1Inf -> 5 cards / click)
Diesel ($0, 2Inf -> 3 cards / click)
Wyldside ($3 3Inf -> 2 cards / click, once per turn)
Mr. Li ($3, 2Inf -> 1 card / click, choice of 2)

If you really need to get to a specific card (for a combo, say) then Mr. Li will get you there in the same number of clicks as Wyldside (although of course Wyldside is only usable once per turn). If you compare it to Diesel or Quality Time it’s really not so good:

Mr. Li [1] 0, [2] 1-2, [3] 3-4, [4] 5-6, [5] 7-8, [6] 9-10, [7] 11-12
Diesel [1] 1-3, [2] 4, [3] 5, [4] 6, [5] 7
Q.T. [1] 1-5, [2] 6, [3] 7, [4] 8, [5] 9, [6] 10, [7] 11

This model compares Mr. Li click-for-click (including the click to install him) with one copy of Diesel or Quality Time, which then click for single cards after the initial event. Mr. Li only catches up with Diesel on click 4 (i.e. if the card you wanted was 6th in your deck you would do equally well with either card), and overtakes it on the 5th click when Mr. Li sees the 8th card but Diesel does not. Although this doesn’t take into account the click value of the $3 you paid to install Mr. Li, so in real terms he’s probably still slightly behind. Quality Time has the same cost as Mr. Li, so the comparison is fairer - but now you have to wait for the 7th click for Mr. Li to overtake QT, i.e. the card you need has to be 12th (or deeper) in the deck for Mr. Li to be better at fishing it out.

In practice most decks will run multiple draw events - this makes the comparison a little trickier but broadly speaking 2 x Diesel makes the situation identical to 1 x QT + a click (i.e. Mr. Li is ahead at the 7th click); one of each puts Mr. Li ahead at the 9th click and 2 x QT puts Mr. Li ahead at the 11th click.

You must be using him to fish for specific cards! He doesn’t generate any numerical advantage over blind clicking, so the only reason to use him is to get to specific cards faster; but he only achieves that if the card you need is hidden deep within your stack. This means that the more duplicates you run of the card you’re looking for, the worse Mr. Li becomes (since the chance of the next copy being near the top of the deck is greater, which makes Mr. Li inferior to using the events). So to make Mr. Li better you have to run a single copy of the card you really want - go figure.

Bear in mind that the events draw every card on route to the one you want, so they offer you more play options and more health to absorb damage. The only disadvantage of events over Mr. Li is when you find yourself discarding a card at the end of turn that you would actually really rather was on the bottom of your deck - this surely has to be a low percentage scenario. In any other scenario more is better - until such time as other cards are released that punish cards in hand or make use of stacking the bottom of the deck. So you had really better need that card you’re searching for to justify including Mr. Li.

Given his influence cost of 2 I really can’t see shaper using him when their own events are vastly superior. Mr. Li only has a place in criminal decks, and only then if the runner can’t afford the influence to stock the shaper events instead.

Cliff Notes: Mr. Li is bad at what he’s designed for. In most cases drawing blindly in quantity delivers quality more efficiently than fishing for specific cards.

2 Likes