http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4354
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Some interesting stuff in there: GRNDL/GRNDL Refinery; Toshiyuki Sakai is… odd? I bet there’s some good tech plays upcoming with him.
I like the cut of Blackmail and Blackguard’s jib, but I haven’t analyzed them yet :).
strongbox might an in faction red herrings that wants 2 clicks to steal a card.
and at last, we’re seeing ways the runner uses bad publicity.
i just hate that they’re showing us these cards and we wont get them till 2014.
Pretty sure GRNDL is not the interesting Weyland identity we’ve been waiting for.
I’m glad they spoiled Blackmail, gives us an idea of what we’re in store for re bad pub.
Blackguard seems terrible at first glance, but maybe has some interesting interactions with Lemuria or Snitch.
Edit: In case any of you need educating about what GRNDL means.
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i love how people are saying that sakai makes exploratory romp playable -_-
I’m done with this game.
edit: does anyone want to buy any of my promos, I have 3-6 of everything except kate (1) and psf (0), beal mat, click trackers, etc
GRNDL Refinery:
STRONG! Its a reprint of information laundering, with +1 trash cost!
Informaiton laundering was pretty good.
Blackguard:
…
I dont like the existence cards that remove the decisions from a player. This card means the corp cant decide anymore whether to rez ice, if you combo it with snitch.
That said, its probably too expensive to be strong, and thus wont see heavy play? I dont know. Way too early to tell on such a crazy card.
Tallie Perrault:
Interesting. I need to go look at what black and grey ops stuff there is. Most of it (at least right now) requires you to be tagged, meaning that they can trash her first.
Blackmail:
Punish that bad pub! Its narrow though. Probably a meta card, but only for a meta heavy on corps taking bad pub, or in a deck that can effectively give it to the corp.
GRNDL (Identity):
Seems weak unless you can really easily get rid of that bad pub, or if you WANT it for some reason. Its like getting your Weyland id money up front but also a bad pub. Bad pub is worse the earlier in the game it comes, so you need to plan around it. You need to want it. I doubt I’ll want it, but we’ll see what other cards come out.
Edit: OH WAIT, ONLY 10 INFLUENCE. Wtf. Unnecessary drawback that kills its potential. It might have been interesting.
Strongbox:
We dont have the details, but it seems like a Red Herrings for HB! But probably bigger? Maybe a lot harder to trash?
Might work well on centrals as well!
Toshiyuki Sakai:
The mindgames! They have to run him or he does nothing, so he is like a trap. But if they access him, you can make him the trap of your choice, or an agenda from hand.
Not sure about him, but I’m sure some poeple will love the mind game.
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???
Why.
Oh crap I missed that too. Why, FFG, why?
I also have no idea how one would use Toshiyuki effectively, but Mind Games++ I guess :).
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I think the influx of gray/black ops in spin cycle will make miss perrault a little more feasible. invasion of privacy doesn’t have prereqs, i don’t think that hellion alpha test requires anything either. punitive countermeasures requires stolen agendas, so it might be one of those cards that becomes an include in certain metas.
I am hoping that like tags, that there will be cards that take advantage of multiple bad pub for the corp. Basically, if you can get through the game when the corp has 2-3 bad pub, then at 3-4 bad pub, you can play really nasty black ops cards, like if a corporation has shed it’s public facade.
Maybe that sort of card will make GRNDL a little more interesting. 10 influence pretty much means that this is not a tag and bag focused deal, but if there are enough infaction weyland cards that deal meat damage without tags like punitive countermeasures (and i also believe the cleaners agenda that’s been spoiled for weyland will deal meat damage) that maybe it’s not a huge deal? twiy released with 12 influence, and exceeded expectations (although maybe that has to do with influence density?) 12 influence certainly isn’t 10 though, and i feel like whether or not this identity is straight DOA is what sort of cards are going to be printed for weyland in between now and the release of Fear and Loathing.
LOL, I don’t think so. I think it is probably an abbreviation for Grendel, of Beowulf fame :).
GRNDL = amazing art wasted on terrible card that seriously doesn’t need -5 influence ffs
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Thought it would be kind of funny, but I think Sakai triggers Alix’s on-install ability. So if you had two Sakais in hand and the runner kept accessing the other one they could give you all the money 
The more I think about it the more I think Blackguard could be very interesting.
it’s not an infinite loop because the runner chooses to access after every swap.
@Alexfrog
between damon stone’s interview, and the constant stream of cards that exacerbate problems in the game, I feel like the game has too little competitive value to interest me anymore. The strong strategies are so linear that it’s only fun to play the game as corporation.
Runner side? Get money, get breakers, run. Everything that isn’t money or a breaker is either an unviable red herring to lure people away from winning easily/more efficiently OR it’s some huge, uncounterable fuck you to your opponent.
Corp is more interesting because there isn’t a lot of powerhouse shit that you can just slap down and win, there are actual, interesting moving parts that make you feel accomplished for assembling them into a winning strategy - this wonderful gameplay is tainted by your opponent, who gets to mercilessly whack you in the nuts with a baseball bat and your goal is to win before you fall out of your chair and vomit all over yourself.
Playing as the corporation, you don’t feel like a multi-billion dollar mega corporation, it feels like getting pulled over by the cops when you are going 5 over the speed limit, waiting in line outside of the courthouse a month later, and then working your ass off for months and eating canned beans in the dark while you try to pay all of your legal bills.
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I think I agree mostly with nearly everything that’s been said already actually. We can’t judge strongbox until we know the additional cost and trash cost, but it’s essentially an in-faction Red Herrings so probably playable. All the Bad Publicity stuff very much depends on how the two sides end up exploiting/avoiding it, so the jury is still out.
Is GRNDL Refinery actually that decent? I’m not so sure. The best you can do in a single turn is install, advance and pop for a net gain of $3, which is the same as you could get by simply clicking. So to improve it you need to leave it in play for at least a turn. The payoff is:
3 clicks -> net gain $3; 4 clicks -> $6; 5 clicks -> $9; 6 clicks -> $12; and so on… 1000 clicks -> $2994
So it starts at $1/click (net), reaches a “par” of $2/click over the course of two turns, and then eventually tends towards $3/click in the long term. I think I’d rather have Melange in most scenarios. Clearly the value of this improves with Simone Diego. Maybe there’s a bit of value in it because it’s a viable card to advance a lot, which in turn makes traps more viable. This also gives more credability to the “IAA” action, which up until now was nearly always a trap, now it could be this, a trap or a 5/3. The runner might have to run more.
Blackguard I like the idea, but I agree with Alex it removes the Corp’s decision. I think its ability is amazing (it is essentially anti-economy and a safety net), but its cost might make it prohibitive. If anything enters the environment that makes it easier to get this into play, then chances are it will also work on Monolith, so that would be interesting.
Toshiyuki Sakai seems fun, but he needs the runner to run into him before he does anything. So he doesn’t solve the problem that Jinteki have in general that the runner doesn’t really need to run remotes unless it’s match point. He’s going to get ignored a lot once the runner sees a card advanced a couple of times and then nothing… Again, I think he’s more of an enabler for other strategies than anything else - you can leave advanced agendas in play a bit safer with him in the environment because the runner will assume it’s him or a fluffed trap. I guess he does make a safe “battery” for advancement counters to use with Trick of Light, since if he does get run at the advancements are never wasted. You do need to have the balls to sub in an agenda occasionally though, if you don’t then you essentially turned him into an expensive End The Run. Interesting interaction with Celebrity Gift 
GRNDL I don’t think I can find a good word to say about. I think the $5 extra comes at a greater cost than the going rate for BP and the lost influence is a kick in the balls. Does Weyland really need a kickstart to its economy? What does it enable for turn 1-2 that other IDs can’t achieve? I guess you can rez a mean piece of ICE, so it dissuades facechecking, but then that makes it draw dependent and you can only do it once - after that you’re back to square one, so it would have to be very worth doing!
The only thing that might redeem it (and some of the HB IDs) is if at some point the keywords come into play and it happens to be more favourable to be playing a “Division” than a “Megacorp”. I think we’re a long way off that though.
Why breakers?
what card do you see in this new pack makes anything crazier for the runner? all i see here are moderately strong corp cards. Blackmail is only useful early game, when you don’t have anything rezzed. That part of the game is also the part that (unless there’s a lot of radical shifting) it’s the most difficult for the corps to amass BP, other than GRNDL weyland or weyland out of desperation scoring a turn 1 or 2 hostile takeover.
I agree. The spoiled cards are better for the corp. I dont think blackmail is that big of a deal. Its a reasonable 1-of type surprise, to get into their remote, but thats it. Doesnt help you attack centrals. Doesnt help if they dont play bad pub and you cant manage to give them one efficiently.
Mixed reactions on this pack. Nothing is jumping out at me as amazing besides maybe refinery which I am quite a fan of.
I agree with Alex that the design of the new console is bad. It might not be good, but with a Snitch it really removes an aspect of the game from the corp.