The schedule for preview season is here:
Today we’re also publishing a piece of fiction by Calvin introducing the new Criminal identity:
and a design article by tberton, member of the playtesting team, exploring the mechanical themes of the faction for the set:
So Leela is a console now.
And a cheap one too. But how many copies do you need to include, to draw it early enough for it to be relevant? I like the synergy with the ID though. Would also work with older derez decks, I suppose.
Today’s previews will be published a few hours apart. First up we have an article about the new Threat mechanic.
Oh, I love this! Such a cool way of gating some abilities for later in the game. Excited to see how it will be used on other cards
Threat is elegant design and potentially solves so many problems around certain cards being too impactful early or too weak late. I’ll reserve final judgement until we see what they do with it, but my initial reaction is “I hope it’s evergreen”.
One curious thing I’ve noticed is the wording on S-Dobrado vs Inside Job.
S-Dobrado:
Run a central server. The first time you encounter a piece of ice during that run, bypass it.
Inside Job:
Run any server. The first time this run you encounter a piece of ice, bypass it.
Emphasis mine and I’ve left out the Threat text to keep it clean for the sake of comparison.
Why the difference in wording between the two cards? S-Dobrador is effectively identical to Inside Job, so why wasn’t the wording simply copied and expanded upon?
Functionally they are the same but it’s just a little annoying that the wording is inconsistent.
Second part of today’s previews! First we have Arissana’s fiction:
And next Zoe’s design article about how the ID and faction mechanics arose:
Is it just me, or is there something weird with Arissana? Probably that frog on her shirt. Or the story where she just scribbles her signature and calls it art. How is that beautiful if she didn’t put any effort into it? It says “her talents go unrecognised.” Anybody can scribble their signature. At least the ability looks fun.
It’s Null Signal Games 
What’s wrong with Arrissana? O.o
She’s cool.
I, personally, am very happy with both backstory and theme and am glad that NSG is showing a cosmopolitan and queer future.
More generally, ‘disgusting’ might be a phrase I’d choose very carefully as it might be – frankly – insulting.
Please clarify what about this Runner identity is so “disgusting” that you believe Netrunner is ruined and Null Signal should rush a “fix” to the theme.
She won’t be “fixed” because she does not need fixing, and the organization’s name is Null Signal Games. And ruining is a strong word for an organization that has regrown a thriving community. If you don’t like what NSG does, leave. You aren’t needed in the Netrunner community.
I’m really excited for Arissana, as mechanically, I love the idea of trojan’s being like graffiti. It fits very well and I have always enjoyed installing lots of stuff, especially at instant speed. I wonder if Hippocampic Mechanicites will be good with her, as having a larger hand size would allow for holding more tools until they are needed.
The ability is a neat way to replace the bin breakers, as you effectively get all the same value and more (except that you do care if they get discarded or trashed by damage), which is fine because you’re Shaper and not Anarch.
The ID art looks really good, love the use of all the colours on her, contrasting with the deep green of the ID background. Slam dunk for me.
I think that isn’t inconsistent, let me explain my thinking. Inside Job is a run event, so one could say it is a run. S-Dobrado allows you to make runs, but is not a run itself. So it makes sense that Inside Job uses this, ro refer to itself, while S-Dobrado uses that, to refer to the runs it produces.
I trusted my memory but remembered wrong.
S-Dobrado is a run event though. It’s functionally identical to Inside Job except for the central only clause and the Threat condition.
Not sure I’m getting what you’re saying, sorry.
Sorry, I just trusted my memory and confused S-Dobrado with another revealed card. I should have just checked, you’re absolutely right.
Yeah we went to great lengths to ensure that Arissana’s visual design really represented her, as well as being very oldschool style Shaper with the whole artist aspect of her character! I’m really chuffed to see how many people are loving her design, I’m so proud of our Art team 
Corp reveals today! First up is Jinteki, with this fiction by Chouxflower in which a veteran A Teia operative recounts the case of chasing their first escaped psychic clone:
And this accompanying design article by Kobayashi does a deep dive on all the tricks A Teia has up its sleeve and shows off a powerful option for that second remote: