Full Spoilers Below
Man, some great cards, and some very interesting roles some fill, though finding room will be a challenge.
Paper Wall is probably across-the-board the most useful for all factions - now I can save influence from Ice Walls!
Hudson might be good for NBN in particular, but will need testing. Same with Snoop.
Accelerated Diagnostics could get really scary in the right scenarios.
I think Power Shutdown merits consideration as a one-of in any deck with Jackson (in other words, all decks).
I feel as though Criminals got the most dangerous new toys. Anyone still think they should get the next box set?
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I like the looks of a lot of these new cards: nothing leaps out as insanely powerful, but a lot of the effects seem interesting at first glance rather than obviously bad.
What the heck is the deal with all these new Decoders? At least Torch is a good deal if we keep seeing good and interesting code gates in the Str 5 range – like, say, Hudson.
Expert Schedule Analyzer is interesting: I think I’d rather it’s cost be a self-trashing rather than a click, since it’s not an ability I’d want often, and when I want it is probably narrow: do you have the combo to beat me? If yes, I’m probably going to need max actions in order to try to counter it.
Grifter seems like the underworld contact Andromeda’s always wanted, but it gets worse as the game goes on instead of better. Raymond is probably meta-specific, and Woman in the Red Dress is just weird. I think I’ll play it in every deck I can until I see corp decks where it is scary for some reason. As the runner, more than half of the game is in revealing information, and she just… gives it to you for almost free.
On the Corp side, we have Isabel McGuire, who has a very interesting effect. Parasite and Caissa decks are going to hate her. Not sure what to make of Accelerated Diagnostics or Interns, but they don’t seem bad; just narrow. Paper Wall and IRS are jank; Weyland always gets the janky ice now :(.
Snoop, on the other hand, continues NBN’s new theme of expensive-but-really-handy-in-many-circumstances sentries. I think I like it.
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I think Reina is the most dangerous new Runner card ;). Her console ain’t bad either. We’re about to enter into a world of ice-denial pain, but fortunately Isabel is here to help!
Reina’s ability is great, but it doesn’t address the issues currently plaguing anarchs, and I don’t think Caissa programs are the solution either.
Isabel looks strong in the right situations, and will cripple Parasite decks even more. The designers must seriously hate Noise Parasite archetypes, we’ve had Jackson, Himitsu-Bako, and now Isabel this cycle. Each one drops the effectiveness of the deck a notch, to the point where I may consider taking mine apart. Paper Wall looks great in rush decks (NEXT Design will love it), and Interns looks amazing at first glance.
Inazuma will be coming at some point, which could indeed swing the meta away from Yog (which would be great, IMO). Gordian Blade will still be the go to decoder, though, Torch will find its way in to some Eureka! decks, though. Its a fun card, I’m glad they printed it (unlike Leviathan, which can go burn in a fire).
EDIT: Forgot to mention Power Shutdown, another nail in the coffin for my Noise deck. I’m pretty sure any corp player will gladly self mill for 2 to nail my Djinn. That’s another interesting card… some really neat Corp toys in this pack…
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In regards to power shutdown. The runner gets to pick what is trashed. So if the corp mills two you can just trash your empty imp instead of your djinn
EDIT: oh and Kit likes Torch. Self-modifying code to stimhack FTW
With the two added Virtual resources in this pack, I’d say Foxfire is definitely playable (though deckspace is a bitch, and it’d be the first card to cut).
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Power Shutdown + Jackson Howard + Accelerated Diagnostics makes for a pretty interesting combo framework, probably out of Custom Biotics or Cerebral Imaging.
I think Torch may be the most functional of the non-Femme “big breakers” we’ve seen. With Test Run/Scavenge, SMC or Clone Chip/Stimhack, or Retrieval Run you can actually get it into play fairly easily. Once you do, it’s substantially more efficient than Gordian Blade against some threats. Most notably, you break Chum for 1, Tollbooth for 2 (though the on-encounter is still nasty), and so on. While Torch doesn’t keep its strength, how often do you see multiple >4 strength codegates on the same server?
Also, Kit loves it. I actually think Torch will see some play, which is cool-- the Core Set breakers have been dominant for too long, AIs aside.
(And speaking of AIs, isn’t Knight great?)
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It’s certainly getting there; especially if we start seeing powerful decks that play a handful of the Virtual | Link cards! Corp deckbuilding feels so strapped for space :).
Why Power Shutdown? I think people are misunderstanding Accelerated Diagnostics, or I am. I don’t think the “trash X cards” is an additional cost, or all the people on BGG who think that “play only if the runner is tagged” is a cost either; right now the only “additional costs” I can think of are the doubles.
Accelerated Diagnostics into a handful of Celebrity Gifts seems pretty nice, though :). Or Accelerated Interns!
You just misunderstood me. Use Power Shutdown to trash your whole R&D, cycle three operations into R&D with Jackson, play Accelerated Diagnostics for three hand picked operations.
Not sure which combo to pull off there, but it looks interesting as a framework for something
Aha; I hadn’t even considered cycling one’s entire R&D :D. Seems… risky :). But I suppose you could Weyland it up, cycling 3x Scorched Back in with Jackson.
I guess that’s the point with combos. If you immediately win the game the “risk” is zero. But if you don’t win, you don’t start the Shutdown in the first place 
Well it’s definitely interesting. The problem is that winning the game with 3 operations is pretty hard.
Off the top of my head, I can think of:
- 3 Punitive Counterstrike if they’ve scored a 2 pter and you’re rich enough
- Play NBN with Astro scored. Drop Beale, double adv. If they run it, do above combo. If not, go for triple Shipment from SanSan and use Astro counter for 5 pt Beale. The hard part is getting the Astro scored in the first place here.
- Scorches. This requires a tag-me runner, and on repeat plays the deck won’t work.
- Neural EMP. But this is easily played around by just having 3 cards in hand.
Am I missing anything? So far, the first 2 in combination seem to be the best you can do with this combo for now.
You can get a lucky kill against non-tagme with Scorches and SEA Source, but the cards have to come out in the right order or you lose.
You choose the order in which you play the cards from Accelerated Diagnostics. So SEA Source, double Scorch is another kill option.
Quick question about Snoop.
Since the FAQ says that zero is included within the definition of “all”, does that mean that a power counter can be used to kill the runner if he has zero cards in hand? Even if it can’t deal the killing blow, it can still be pretty dangerous in concert with small sources of damage if the counters are allowed to mount up.
Here’s the big question: Can you activate paid abilities between operations played by Accelerated Diagnostics?
I.e., install JH, Power Shutdown all of R&D, use JH, play AD. AD: Interns, install another Jackson, play something else, use JH #2, chain into AD again… net 5 operations of your choice in a row if you have 3 JH, 1 or 2 AD, and 1 Intern in your deck, and can get a JH, PS and AD in hand. How many ways can you win with that?