Kinda disappointed in the Khan cards. Barrier breaker is underwhelming. 6 to break Eli? Goes to 4 with a Datasucker token but it’s still not that impressive. 5 to get through Spiderweb. Really, against anything but Wrap/Vanilla/base Resistor, it’s not that great and absolutely needs Datasucker support.
Her console does nothing to help her breakers. It’s a cool effect that punishes people for stacking easily-broken ice on HQ, but it’s an expensive console and Criminals aren’t exactly short of ways of accessing lots of cards in HQ.
Happy to see the return of Reina and En Passant! Though that card is going in every DDOS deck ever.
EtA: Also, En Passant in Blackmail decks. Saves you extra blackmails when running a server (like R&D) repeatedly!
Frantic Coding is going to be seriously underrated. Speaking as a MaxX fanatic, in the right deck milling yourself can be just as good as drawing the cards. (But for Ark Lockdown, I’d say it’s time for the return of MaxX doubles.) Add that to getting a breaker at a credit and click discount, AND probably dumping some WWII breakers into your bin as well, and it’s going to really add some scary options to Anarch.
We were just talking about barriers, thoughts on Bulwark and Data Ward?
First impression for me is Bulwark is a bit too expensive, especially for being illicit, Data Ward could be good, especially behind Data Raven or Bandwith.
Data Ward looks great out of SYNC…
Bulwark isn’t the worst, just because it can eat programs, though the Runner chooses (that’s why it’s not a Destroyer, btw.) The biggest problem with Bulwark is the 10 rez cost.
Other notables: En Passant goes with the Khan breakers very very well.
Like others, Frantic Coding is probably really good, and Khan’s cards look poor (though, having played with Khan, I really just need a way to de-rez Barriers too, so the bird might still get played. Still working on solving the install cost issues.)
Top Hat is a combo with Data Breach/Mirror. Probably not a good enough combo, but still… (Also note that the first run in can be a Top Hat run with Medium installed, and the second Data Breach can be a normal run to see top 2.)
Government Investigations is… Interesting. I don’t think it’s playable.
Corp side!
AoT good.
Jinteki gets two mediocre cards to follow up the PU and DNA Tracker cards from last set.
NBN gets a Probably Good card and a Probably Bad card.
Weyland finally has a use for Helium-3 Deposits. I don’t think she’s actually playable. If it weren’t for the Illicit tag on Bulwark, it’d be a really good card, I feel, if expensive. As it is, I think it’s too expensive to play. (Unless you’re dedicated to Bad Pub removal, in which case Valencia hates you, at least.)
Best Defense is definitely a good offense…
Preemptive Action is not Howard. Probably not playable. At least they learned from Museum of History and made it RFG itself.
Overall? FFG keeps it coming with good packs that contain cards for new strategies. Existing strategies don’t really see any improvements here, except Stronger Together just becomes a worse version of AoT. Oh, and Smoke. Smoke is obviously the most busted card in the pack.
My primary reaction to the pack as a whole is: Do we really need more ways to wreck the runner once they’re tagged? I guess it might matter more when Midseasons and PsychoBeale rotates.
The cute play is that you can use Best Defense with 0 tags to burn a Scheherazade or Net-Ready Eyes or even an SMC… Or a Directive if they’re playing Adam for some reason…
Hitting any installed card is ridiculously powerful. And in honesty, if Scorched Earth had never been printed, this card would look a lot better too.
Pretty nice behind a Hive early game in a rush deck. But hard to leverage that into a flatline because runner will either find a way to trash her or make sure to end their turn with 5 cards. Might work with Hive or another 5 sub ice in Cybernetics Division. Or, if you found a way to reduce grip to 4 or less.
Maybe decent in a low-agenda Weyland, while you’re waiting to assemble the kill combo and runner is just bouncing off centrals. Discourages non-Snitch Turning Wheel counters and counts against bypass effects.
Likely have to build 2 remotes to defend her and still push out agendas. Very hard to make her worthwhile consistently.
There are a couple ways to make her more deadly. You can stack her up to 10 counters as she doesn’t trash herself. It’s a nice way to ensure that a Punitive Counterstrike, even a Consulting Visited one, is deadly. Neural EMP for the finish.
There’s also an interesting idea in slapping down a Chief Slee behind a Tour Guide. Easy to imagine in a Gag deck that she could be loaded in just one encounter…
I think The Gauntlet might be quite good in stealth shaper. It’s 1 influence, forces the corp to put more ice over HQ, and you going to break all the subs on most ice since you are running a stealth rig, AND it’s 2 memory. Definitely a possible substitute for Legwork in those decks.
This argument I like.
Especially since it’s only one influence. Easily replaces Legwork at that point. The only sticking point is the 5 install cost, but I tend to agree that it looks a lot better paired with Stealth Shaper.
Wait a minute. Does this mean Anarch got a card for Khan, Crim got a card for Smoke, and Shaper got a card for Omar? (Top Hat strikes me as more Anarch-y…)
Yep. It also helps you if you are packing Pheromones as it allows you to pull out the surprise sneakdoor play at least once and gives you extra mu to pack Pheromones.
Its too bad these breakers are so inefficient. They require datasuckers in the spots that should just be pheromones.
No idea how to make her competitive with these things or even playable.
Bulwark is way, way more playable than Hadrian’s. If the runner face checks and bounces, it only really cost you 6 to rez (+ a bad pub), unless they have AI, in which case it really only cost you 4.
Seems pretty good if the runner doesn’t break it. It will also eat a D4v1D, or cost the runner about seven credits to break via paperclip.
Its also a piece that won’t be in Blue Sun or Gagarin. So that is pretty exciting to me. Seems pretty good. Probably not as good as the NBN one though. Jeebus stop giving yellow all the good stuff.