Hopefully we’ll be entering spoiler season soon, but we have been given a few teasers already about what will be in the upcoming set. NSG have announced that the new set will contain:
Lots of new connections, so you can build your revolutionary crew.
A cycle of sysops that all share an ability.
A Shaper run event that targets HQ.
A new 3-point agenda (sort of) for every Corp faction.
Three new weapons.
A subtype combination that has only appeared on one other card.
The first bioroid Corp card outside of HB, and the first card with both the clone and bioroid subtypes.
I’m wondering if the new sysops will have an ability like Georgia Emelyov, allowing them to bounce around servers for a cost and stay on the board for longer. Maybe 1c instead of 2c this time?
Given how Borealis reworked a lot of ideas and mechanics from earlier sets, I’d expect to see something similar here, since we are losing a big chunk of cards (Flashpoint Cycle and Data & Destiny box).
Personally I’m very keen for more characters, especially sysops. I like that we saw some more human faces from the corp side in Borealis.
Definitely some kind of HHN replacement. Not necessarily with tags and hopefully a bit less of a blowout but corps are gonna need some kind of punishment for runners being too aggresive.
I think we could get something that uses the new scaling mechanic - like, win a trace, give the runner X tags where X is the number of agenda points in their score area. Then it has less teeth in the early game which addresses some of the complaints people have with HHN.
Yeah I’m excited to see how the scaling mechanic works.
Another thing I want to see is a good way to get more MU. There’s all these cool utility programs but so many of them don’t see play because most rigs don’t have enough MU to play more than your breakers and maybe a Stargate or like a Cezve.
Not necessarily hard hitting news but some form of multi-tag card. MAD just isn’t going to cut it by itself and without some punishing card runners are just going to be on top of corps. I think a change from “run” to “successful run” on HHN helps it but still would cause similar gripes in the player base.
Some sort of Boom! replacement would be nice too. I’m not sure EotL is enough as even though it’s not trash able getting 2 and 2 tags is too big an ask and makes kill strategies too weak.
Then for my Ob fans a 3 cost sentry so you can tutor it off of Border Control. Asking for it to say ETR is probably too much but having it be more relevant in the early game than trash 1 program would be nice
I’d still like to see an Anarch card with hosted credits you can spend directly, since Twinning currently has no in-faction synergies in Startup. More support for the Jinteki non-grinder strategies as well, it feels like they’re almost there. Flavor-wise, I’m hopeful for some Criminal and/or Shaper cards tying them to the main conflict even if their primary motivator isn’t political. Perhaps a criminal taking steps to be able to shelter someone they care for who would be enslaved under the Initiative.
A lot of people want immediate replacements for HHN and Boom! And somewhere else I saw people wanting replacements for the bin-breakers. I hope we can go (for at least one cycle) with other meaningful ways to win, since all those where such staple cards. I’m super excited to see a greater variety of breakers, and surely there will be other ways for NBN to win, without ye olde HHN-Boom! combo?
Very excited about the new scaling mechanic. I assume it will have to do with agenda points, like Brainchip. I can’t really imagine another simple scaling method, since counting turns would be something more to track.
The flavour of the coming set sounds very promising. It has a good Bladerunner vibe, that’s my jam.
While I do like, that NSG is softening the runner faction stereotypes (Crim->HQ, Shaper-RD, Anarch->Archives), I hope they don’t completely do away with it. I.e. Wake is such a well designed card: Crims benefit from HQ runs, yes, but only to make RD runs more effective - brillant! I’d like to see a new way for Anarchs to profit from Archives.
I won’t be disappointed if there is no HHN replacement, but I think part of the design philosophy for Borealis indicated they are quite interested in bringing back and tweaking rotated cards. I have to agree that MAD is not enough for a tagging strategy, so I suspect there will be something that gives tags in the new set, and it makes sense for a scaling HHN to be one of those tools. Especially with Freedom of Information not being very good, I’d like to see individual tags become less meaningful so that we can do more with them than just win the game if you have 2 or more. So I would not want a BOOM! replacement.
I don’t want replacement bin breakers. Anarch needs some new tool for breaking ICE.
I think with androids having a focus in this set it would be good to get some new Psi cards to help diversify Jinteki’s non-grinder options. Maybe a new Deflector to help with glacier since DNA Tracker and Chiyashi are going.
I think Mutually Assured Destruction gets a lot better when Misdirection rotates. Suddenly 6 tags is very very difficult to deal with, even with a full turn.
I want a replacement for HHN in that I want the corp to have powerful, threatening operations that the runner has to respect when thinking about trashing cards, or otherwise making runs. I don’t need that to result in tags.
I want to see the minifactions preserved, somehow. They’re an important part of the game and the world, and rotating them without a proper send-off just feels sad.
At the very least, something like The Nihilist/The Class Act/The Artist from the Ashes cycle, but I’d strongly prefer they remained part of the game in a larger way.
I think chances are high that there will be some new card similar to HHN, using the new Threat mechanic. I guess scaling tags with the game-state might be an option – or increasing some number of credits required to avoid them…
Agreed, and it avoids the problem that @TheBigBoy identified in the HHN Retrospective Thread: the highest win% play can be to assume your opponent just doesn’t have it yet, and then some percentage of your games are miserable because you eat a face-full of tags.
