Some truly WTF moments in these cards from here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4696
“Theophilius Bagbiter” and “Donut Taganes”… C’mon, man.
1 Like
Total kneejerk reactions:
- I really like Logos. I don’t think I like it in-faction over Desperado, though (especially since I’m probably switching, at least for a while, to Express instead of Gabe, so I’m already losing a reliable +2c for getting into hand). In the other two factions I (usually?) want more memory than +1. So I have no idea where or if I’ll end up using this.
- I’m not a fan of Theophilius Bagbiter, because I never really wanted to be Cerebral Imaging. I definitely don’t like Donut Taganes; for 2 influence, it’d be nice if he didn’t raise my costs too. These two have utterly ridiculously names.
- I’ll probably at least try Tri-Maf Contact over Armitage, but it means I probably have to end up spending more time getting rid of tags - then again, I don’t float nearly as many as I used to because Psychographics/Midseasons is all the rage in my local meta suddenly. It means I have to play Plascrete in every single matchup instead of just the expected ones, because dying to a single SEA Source + 4 credits doesn’t sound appealing. (But then again, with three of the factions reliably splashing Scorched Earth locally, maybe that’s not a bad idea anyway.)
Passport was also confirmed (worth mentioning since I think the last place we saw it was that sketchy-ass back-of-box photo that also spoiled Iain Stirling early). Still no idea what the unregistered S&W .35 does, though!
Tri-Maf contact is going to require some stones to play, though, unless people stop playing so damn much Tag-n-Bag.
Logos seems totally legit, though. Maybe especially useful vs. FA/Rush strats that are threatening to turn the corner on you?
Connections seem terrible and the Connection econ card seems pretty mediocre. Logos is interesting for sure. Not sure if it’s better than Desperado in any Criminal decks though. And I dislike the wannabe Armitage. Just run Armitage. Cheaper to install, no caveats, and no chance of death!
1 Like
Thanks for posting these! Some truly strange cards spoiled today.
1 Like
Much as I hate to say it, Im kinda glad to see Criminal getting some trash. I’d rather that no cards be bad, id rather they spread the bad cards out rather than dropping all the bad stuff in one or 2 factions.
Against the right deck, Donut could be painful. They way I play Corp, (heavy operation based econ) it could really put the hurt on quick. The trick is to build a event less runner deck. (Difficult, but not impossible) I see this as an attempt to slam the prevalence of Hedge Fund and Sure Gamble.
Bagbiter and the Tri-Maf Contact, however, are worse that crap. No one i’ve seen seriously plays Cerebral Imaging outside of some sort of crazy combo deck and putting down a Tri-Maf Contact is like putting a gun to your head and asking the corp to pull the trigger. Whats worse is you cant even Pawnshop it without making it go boom…
I guess I shouldn’t expect much from a deck that not only uses Data Dealer, but calls it out as a way to get 2 free credits a turn.
On a side note, Logos is interesting. I wanna think this is a veiled reference to Naomi and Ghost’s ship from The Matrix
Now we need a Nebuchadnezzar!
donut increases the required credit spread on any sea scorch combo, and also hurts op-econ, which is widely seen as the best econ for the corp.
basically, you can really throw a hose into a corporate strat, and unlike the source, it can’t be “played around”. criminal decks may not want it based on how many events they run, but i certainly feel like there’s room for donut.
if you play bagbiter and stablize your credits, he’s pretty anti-flatline, but unfortunately if you don’t play him at the beginning of the game, chances are you’re losing a LOT of credits/cards to play him, also a closed account can be game ending.
For people crying about tri-maf right now, keep in mind Fall Guy from Double Time is likely a connection that keeps your other connections from getting trashed.
1 Like
These are wonderful. Not because they are great, but because they have interesting dynamics in Shaper and Anarch, which is precisely what this box needs to do - make Criminals diverse and the other factions stronger.
4 Likes
I wish the card designed to counter event econ was anywhere near as good as the card designed to counter asset econ (well, actually I don’t, but yeah). FFG seems to not understand some elements of the game balance.
Calling in Favors: There is probably a connections+Hostage deck that uses it. I dont know if that deck will be good. But there are actually a LOT of connections, and some arent unique!
Underworld Contacts and Compromised Employee could be 3-ofs in the deck. Throw in Hostage for Pro Contacts, Kati Jones, maybe John Masanori…
(Mr Li is a contact too, but I hate that card) 
Add the new contacts and you could have a whole deck of them. Seems weaker than aggro criminal however.
Logos: I wish it was shaper! Would play it if it didnt compete with Desperado.
Donut: Maybe if it only hit the corp. But it increases your event cost too. AND it costs 2 influence. What the hell? Paying $3 to increase the cost of the corp’s operations, and not hurting yourself or spending influence would seem fair. This card seems horrible.
Theophilius Bagbiter:
I think that Public Sympathy and Plascrete are fine ways to keep your hand size big, why would I play this?
Is this a combo piece, where you draw your whole deck, play certain cards and get them back iwth Levy AR Lab Access? If you arent doing that, I dont see why you would need this.
Tri-Maf Contact: So if you made Hard at Work cost $2 and not mandatory, it would become okay. But not if you add a ‘3 meat damage if trashed’ clause to it! “Sea source, Scorch, Trash your Tri-Maf”, the new kill combo. No thanks.
Yeah, thats pretty funny:
For $3, 2 influence for everyone, and the cost of making your own events worse, you can make the corp’s operations cost 1 more.
For $2 you can get Imp, and trash 2 econ assets, and then pawn the imp to recover $3. And its not a resource, so you can take tags.
My best guess is that they’re trying to make Criminals appear more attractive to ‘Timmy’ players, which is only fair I guess.
Now Kroen has a new faction to create fifty threads about.
2 Likes
FFG will make cirminal win rates fall by making a bunch of bad cards. Bad players will put them in their criminal decks and lose! 
1 Like
Maybe it’s just me, but Donut seems solely intended for the crowd that’s been crying about combos breaking the game. Now, obviously this card was designed long before Power Shutdown and Accelerated Diagnostics hit the shelves, but I imagine FFG figured out there’d be a few folks not happy about the existence of game-winning combos in Netrunner.
With Donut in play, Accelerated Shutdown Scorch combo now costs an additional five credits, the seven-point-turn Cerebral Imaging combo costs an additional seven credits, the Neural EMP Shutdown combo costs an additional ten credits, etc. So I guess, if you’re one of those folks, you swap out your runner’s event economy for program/resource-based economy and throw Donut in there.
Meanwhile, those of us convinced the combos are not broken and can in fact be played around rather easily will continue about our business and ignore Donut…
2 Likes
i’m surprised at the dislike for tri-maf contact. the card seemed very good to me at first glance.
people knee jerk away from drawbacks, I think people will come around to tri-maf should a deck able to play around it become a thing
Donut is a powerful effect balanced by it being universal. my experience with magic says you build around it in some kind of denial deck and it’s strong, core weyland functionally losing it’s power means a lot. the problem being can you make a deck that doesn’t want events.
I think the thought process has to be “is Tri-Maf Contact better than Armitage for my deck”? I know a lot of players who are down on Armitage, but I still like it quite a bit, largely because it can burst-fuel my econ for very little investment. With Tri-Maf I can only get 2c/turn and I have to protect it. So it’s a different style. It’s better than Hard at Work, which is a similar card with a different set of drawbacks.
Without the drawback it wouldve been pretty good. Not being mandatory and costing only 2 is so much better than Hard at work. It wouldbe been similar to Kati Jones, without the drawback.
But the risk of 3 meat damage is a pretty big deal.
I like Alexfrog’s assessment in another thread, that runners fit into one of two caregories, “control” (Andromeda fixed breakers), and “aggression” (Knight Gabe).
My issue with Armitage is that it’s subpar in both. It’s too click-intensive for aggression, and doesn’t return much value for control.
Tri-maf pairs beautifully with Kati Jones and allows decent cash injection while waiting for Kati to pay off. This deck wants NACH anyways to prevent Kati from blowing up, and a Decoy for good measure in between NACHs wouldn’t hurt. Goodbye Accelerated Diagnostics combo.
Edit: that being said, I do like Armitage in tag-me decks, since after clicking it a couple times, trashing it is a wash for the corp. So I do think it has a niche, albeit one that continues to narrow with new resources being released.