Netrunner: Free Mars Review

In this series of articles Marc and Chris, our resident runners of nets, review the latest expansion for Android: Netrunner. In these articles Marc and Chris will introduce their favourite cards from the newest pack and then give a whistlestop tour of the rest of the cards. There are a lot of card names mentioned in these articles. If you don’t recognise a particular card, or need a refresher about what it does, we recommend either searching for a card on NetrunnerDB or installing this Chrome plugin to let you quickly look up what the cards do. Without further ado, let’s jack in…

Pack Summary

The pack contains very powerful Runner cards that will almost certainly see tournament play. Bloo Moose is one of the best economy cards in the game, and ‘tag-me’ Runner decks are given a couple of cards to support their strategy. All the Runner factions either get strong cards, or cards that provide an interesting deckbuilding challenge. The Corp side of the pack is much more of a mixed bag, with a few cards likely to see regular play and the rest leaving people scratching their heads thinking whether there’s a way to use them effectively.

Flashbang is a completely unique Icebreaker, in that it doesn’t break ICE at all! Instead, for the cost of 6 credits, and whatever the cost to get it up to strength, the Runner can derez the Sentry ICE being encountered. An important rules point is that because the Runner is encountering the ICE, the Corp cannot rez the ICE again this run. Derezzing ICE is a Criminal trick that has received a lot of support recently, with cards such as Rubicon Switch, Keros Myintyre, and Maxwell James. The strategy of these types of decks are to try and keep a Corp poor by making them rez ICE multiple times so they don’t have the economy to protect and advance agendas. Now, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen an icebreaker that can derez ICE; the Flashpoint cycle had a suite of breakers named after birds of prey that all had this trick. I’ve crunched the numbers and found out that for the majority of ICE it is cheaper to derez the ICE with Flashbang than it is with Golden, the bird Sentry breaker.

However, a key difference between the icebreakers is that Golden can be used to break ICE subroutines without derezzing the ICE, whereas with Flashbang you have to derez the ICE or face the consequences of the subroutines. Now for ICE the Corp has ploughed large amounts of resources into, like Janus 1.0 or Brainstorm, it makes sense for a Runner to pay the costs to derez the ICE. But for an Owl, say, it’s barely a bump in the road for the Corp to rez the ICE again, so it doesn’t make economic sense for the Runner to derez it. The reason I like the design of Flashbang is that it forces you to make a decision when you’re building a deck based around derezzing ICE. Do I go for the monetarily efficient way of derezzing Sentries with Flashbang, but have to have another Sentry breaker in my deck to deal with cheap to rez Sentries? Or do I go for the flexible Golden that can break the cheap Sentries and derez the expensive ones? I’ve been having fun with this Los deck, that uses Los’ ability and Keros Mcintyre to mitigate the cost of using Flashbang. Rosetta 2.0 and the draw of Daredevil helps you to find both Flashbang and Mongoose, slightly mitigating the problem of needing both.

My pick of the Corp cards is a piece of NBN ICE, Data Loop. Just looking at the numbers on the card, it seems bad. A 4 strength Barrier with two “End the run” subroutines, one of which is conditional on the Runner having a Tag. This will cost Runners using Paperclip or Corroder, two very common Barrier breakers, 3 credits to break, which for a 7 cost piece of ICE, is pretty rubbish. Bastion is a neutral ICE with an identical break cost for the Runner and costs just 4 for the Corp to rez. So what are you paying for? Well, the power of this ICE is what happens when the Runner encounters it; the Runner has to choose two cards in their hand and put them back on their deck. This is powerful as it causes the Runner to lose tempo. Tempo, in a card game, represents how capable you are at responding to threats, or how in control of the game you are. Having tempo as a Runner means that you have lots of options on your turn; you can break into an server and play any card in your hand. Putting cards back on top of your stack slows you down, as it removes some of your options and you have to spend time drawing those cards again before you can get at fresh cards. The power of this ICE will vary depending on how easy it is for the Runner to draw cards, but the best case scenario is that this ICE costs the Runner two clicks to draw those cards back into their hand, which is a pretty big hit. However, this is my card pick as it gives a huge boost to a deck type that I find really interesting; damage based glacier, which tries to score Agendas behind ICE over multiple turns. Runners nowadays are rich, as a result of cards such as Bloo Moose and Temujin Contract. What this means is that it’s difficult to tax out the Runner’s credits; they’ll nearly always be able to get into your remote scoring server. So, what my damage based glacier deck tries to do is tax out the Runner’s cards. The ID Jinteki: Personal Evolution, combined with cards like Ben Musashi and Obokata Protocal, mean that the Runner needs cards in hand in order to steal Agendas. Data Loop, Kakugo, and a scored House of Knives allow you to get the cards out of the Runner’s hand mid run. It’s not a refined deck by any standards, but there’s something there!

Maven is a new AI Icebreaker for the Shaper faction, and as an AI it can break all types of ICE. In Netrunner AIs have to be carefully designed so that they are worth playing without being too powerful. Maven’s restrictions are that it costs 2 credits to break each subroutine, and that its power is set by the number of programs installed. This means that it is weak against ICE with lots of subs, and that it is only suited to program heavy decks, the balance on this seems good to me as you can build decks that use it well, but it isn’t likely to become ubiquitous. Without additional memory units (MU), Maven’s strength is likely to be 3, however programs like Dhegdheer add programs without costing MU, and your console is likely to also add MU, making a 5-7 strength Maven a distinct possibility. At this strength Maven can be a great back up breaker as the high cost to break subroutines is overcome by not having to boost strength. Shaper builds that are already running more programs than average, are likely to be great homes for Maven, especially against decks running Trap and Mythic ICE that can only be broken by AI.    

This is all good, but not the reason I’ve chosen to pick Maven for a deeper look. I’ve chosen it because of its synergy with Cloud Icebreakers. These have no MU cost if you have at least 2 Link. Thus they are an easy way to raise the strength of a Maven. There are 3 sets of Cloud Icebreakers currently (Normal, Sunny, B&E), of which the B&E set is most interesting with Maven, as their strength is set by the number of breakers installed, thus they already favour the same deck type as Maven, one with lots of programs installed. B&E breakers are usually played out of the Criminal ID Geist, where in conjunction with Tech Traders, they trash themselves to make money whilst breaking ICE. This is an interesting play style with a few disadvantages, namely that you need good deck recursion to allow for playing the breakers enough times, and that it is vulnerable to being locked out by very high strength ICE. Maven helps solve both problems, as it doesn’t get trashed when it breaks ICE, so you are less depended on cycling the other breakers. Additionally because its strength is set on number of programs rather than number of breakers, it’s strength can easily be 3-4 higher than the B&E breakers making it harder to get locked out. The synergy here is great and I think Geist decks will be a natural home for Maven for a while to come. The deck I’ve made based on this idea is a lot of fun and I recommend taking a look. Of note is the way you can use Grappling Hook to break Maven’s nemesis, ICE with lots of subroutines, and Dean Lister to hit high strengths earlier in the game before fully set up.

Rover Algorithm is an new addition to an underrepresented type of card, those hosted on ICE by the Corp to make it more formidable. I’ve had fun with previous versions like Patch and Wetwork Refit, even if they aren’t very strong, so I’m very glad to see a new one that’s more playable. It raises the strength of ICE every time it is passed, thus if played on ICE on a central server, can quickly cause the costs of breaking it to skyrocket. This can really add up over the course of a game and will often lead to the runner avoiding the server with it on. It’s especially strong when playing against fixed strength breakers as it can raise the strength to high for them to deal with. Whilst it is fun to play, you do have to consider what other card in your deck it is replacing, as while it increases costs of getting into a server, so does stacking more ICE there, and you can’t play it alone, unlike additional ICE. However if your opponents are playing a lot of Yog-0 and Mimic, or if you are favouring low strength ICE with powerful subs. It might be worth trying out and watching the dog go to work! 

Of additional note is Rover Algorithm’s interaction with the ICE Quicksand, which already has a built in strength increaser. When played together, they increase so quickly that it becomes a real pain to deal with. For 5 credits you have a piece of ICE that can easily hit 10+ strength before the end of the game!

Faction by Faction

Anarch

The Anarch cards in this pack are not ones that are going to be useful in the majority of Anarch decks, however they are both powerful cards when played in “Tag Me” decks. A “Tag Me” deck relies on turning the usually negative tags into a positive force. This has got a lot of support in the Red Sands Cycle, with decks using Counter Surveillance to convert tags into accessing lots of cards. Mars for Martians is an economy card for that archetype which can gain a very large number of credits as the number of tags increases. This is useful for paying the costs of Counter Surveillance and for recovering from the Corp wiping your credits with Closed Accounts. “Tag Me” decks function best when they have a way to gain tags irregardless of the Corps deck. This packs new AI Icebreaker, God of War, is now arguably the best way of doing so and can also be used as a breaker when needed. This style of play has shot up in strength due to the many strong support cards, and arguably may now be too strong, given that it can be difficult to respond to if the Corp doesn’t plan for it. This deck did really well in a tournament recently using this strategy.

Criminal

Criminals get a very powerful card in Leave No Trace, and I think this because it’s flexible. Say the Corp installs what you’re pretty sure is an Agenda into a remote. Playing Leave No Trace without any icebreakers out gives the Corp a decision: rez ICE to keep the Runner out, but loose that money, or just let the Runner in. The ideal for the Runner is that the Corp can’t afford to rez ICE twice, in which case the Corp is better to just let the Runner in. With a full set of icebreakers, the Corp needs to assess whether the cost of losing the money is worth it to make the Runner lose money. Given that Runner economy is very strong at the moment, I don’t think it will be worth it the majority of the time, in which case Leave No Trace saves the Runner money breaking ICE. It’s a very good card, and a interesting addition to Criminal’s bag of tricks.

The other new Criminal event is Rip Deal. Instead of accessing cards when running HQ, the Runner instead can return cards from their discard to their hand, with the number based on the number of cards the Runner would access. Without any other cards installed, this means that the Runner can only return 1 card. However, cards like The Gauntlet, The Turning Wheel, and, while it’s still tournament legal, HQ Interface can increase this number. Being able to reuse, or save, important cards is very powerful, especially in Criminal which have powerful events like Account Siphon. But I think having to build a deck around Rip Deal balances its design.

Shaper

Lean and Mean is a strange card, especially in a faction that traditionally have a lot of programs installed. Most of the commonly used icebreakers cost 1 to increase their strength by 1. This means that Lean and Mean, usually, will save you 2 credits per ICE. As Lean and Mean costs 2 credits to play, you need to be breaking at least 3 pieces of ICE to make it worth it. Perhaps, then, Lean and Mean works best in a deck that uses icebreakers that are expensive or impossible to boost in strength, such as Brahman (one of Marc’s pet cards!), Faust, God of War, Mimic, or Yog.0. Whether this is needed when cards like Dean Lister and Dedicated Processor do similar things will remain to be seen, but I can see it turning up in the odd deck here and there.

Na’Not’K is a new Sentry breaker that gets more powerful the more ICE is installed, and it blows other Shaper Sentry breakers out of the water! Let’s do some maths using the ICE Architect, comparing Na’Not’K and Pipeline. Pipeline costs 6 credits to break, Na’Not’K costs 5 credits to break. If there’s another ICE on the same server, the break cost for Na’Not’K drops to just 2 credits. At 1 influence, I expect to see this card in all factions, as although it’s not as cheap as some of the other faction’s Sentry breakers, it is very flexible.

Neutral Zone

Bloo Moose is a resource that will net you 2 credits a turn, provided that you have cards in your heap that you don’t mind removing from the game. For decks that don’t have any way of getting cards out of the discard pile, this is pure profit, and getting a Bloo Moose installed early in the game can earn you upwards of 20 credits a game. Compare this to Daily Casts, which also gives you 2 credits a turn, which will only give you a 5 credits in total. In short, Bloo Moose is fantastic Runner economy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the card will be added to Netrunner’s restricted list at some point. But it isn’t for all decks. Some will want the cards in their heap, while others will not have enough suitable targets for Bloo Moose. But for decks with lots of events and resources that end up in the heap, Bloo Moose is strong.

HB

O2 Shortage is a tricky card to love, as it gives the Runner a choice between two options and they are likely to pick the one the Corp doesn’t want! Ideally you’d play it in a scenario where both options benefit the Corp, but they lean towards different play styles (Damage vs Fast Advance) and making a deck that does both equally well seems like a difficult task. On the other hand Helheim Servers has one job to do and does it well. It’s ability to boost card strength by losing cards from HQ, is designed to mess with the Runners maths, and make ICE they thought they could break unbreakable. This can be used to keep them out of a server before you score, but is even better when paired with high impact ICE (Such as Brainstorm). Want to see a deck go all in on this plan, take a look at this!

Jinteki

Mandatory Seed Replacement enables the Corp to rearrange all their ICE when it is scored. This effect will be most useful when running ICE that care about their relative position such as Chum or TLDR. Whilst this can be of a benefit, this effect isn’t strong enough to make this agenda worth including when compared to other 4/2 agendas. Especially when there are other methods to move around ICE such as Replanting or this pack’s Metamorph. Using Metamorph to move ICE is also probably too weak of an effect to make it worth including over other ICE, however Metamorph can also swap assets. This benefit is also small in most cases but there is a potent combo that may become popular prior to rotation. This works because you can swap things regardless of install restrictions, allowing you to place Off The Grid (Prevents runs on a server until HQ has been run), on HQ itself. This combo needs a fair few moving pieces to set up and probably wants Marcus Batty to ensure the Metamorph fires. When it works it is brilliant, but the setup difficulty, upcoming rotation and existence of counter play with Sneakdoor Beta means that it’s unlikely to become a big problem. Finally there is Water Monopoly, by adding a permanent cost to playing certain runner cards it helps win the battle of economies in the game. However it has to be scored early to have a big effect and runners can always pay the premium if they need too. It is best when combined with Scarcity Of Resources: I’ve played a game with two Water Monopoly’s scored and a Scarcity out and the +4 cost becomes something you can’t ignore.

NBN

Biased Reporting is a somewhat strange economy card, as it relies on the Runner. If the Runner has 4 cards installed of the named type, and doesn’t trash any, you gain 6 credits, better than an IPO without the 8 play cost and the Terminal play restrictions. With decks that install a lot of Resources (Ed Kim resource deck), Programs (Chris’s Maven deck), or Hardware (Hayley Bazaar Spy Cam deck) you can earn a boatload of money from your Biased Reporting. However, it won’t be a card you can use early, and if the Runner doesn’t care about trashing their cards (if they’re using Paperclip, Black Orchestra, and MKUltra for example) you won’t get anything. It’s an interesting, interactive, and fair card that I like the design of a lot.

Weyland

Open Forum provides extra draw for Weyland, and fits the Weyland subtheme of public information by revealing the extra card drawn and top-decking a card. This allows potential for mind games when revealing a trap about weather it was returned to R&D or kept in HQ. 

Tithonium like Chyashi before it, messes with the runners assumptions by being a scary to facecheck barrier. Its expensive to rez regardless of if you pay the agenda cost or the 9 credits. This gives it a problem in the current meta, as whilst it is immune to destruction by Parasite it is likely to be a target for the many de-rez cards recently released. It is still a strong piece of ICE in the right decks, and is likely to be at home in Jemison and Skorpius.   

Transparency Initiative lets you turn agendas faceup and gain credits when advancing it. It is useless as an economy card, but has interesting interactions with Dedication Ceremony and Mumbad Construction Co. However even these interactions are not enough to make it likely to be played often.

 

See you all next time for Crimson Dust!

Previous article: Blood & Water

 

Our copy of Free Mars was provided for review by Esdevium Games.