Netrunner: Council of the Crest 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

This pack is pretty balanced in terms of what it gives to Runners and Corps. The support for virus cards in Anarch continues, and Criminals get a very strong Current to pressure the Corp’s coffers. If you like playing Sunny decks, both White Hat and No One Home in this pack are great cards for her. On the Corp side, Jinteki get a beefy piece of ICE and an Upgrade to defend their servers, so if you’re a fan of glacier decks in Jinteki, this is a pack you need. The new NBN identity is very flexible, fostering rush, glacier, and control strategies, giving you a wealth of deck building decisions.

Azmari EdTech: Shaping the Future

In the not so distant past of the Mumbad Cycle, an NBN identity was released called Harishchandra Ent. whose ability forced the Runner to play with their grip revealed if they were tagged. It was an interesting ID, lending itself to a `control’ style deck where the Corp forces the Runner into playing a particular way. In practice, it was difficult to leverage knowledge of what was in the Runner’s grip into a win for the Corp. Azmari EdTech reminds me of Harishchandra Ent. except that the way to leverage knowledge of what’s in the Runner’s grip is baked into the ID ability itself, namely, making money!

Azmari EdTech also requires a more general knowledge of the Runner’s cards than Harishchandra Ent.: the latter requires turning knowledge about what the Runner is holding at this very instant into a win (as well as requiring the Runner be tagged!), whereas the former just requires you know vaguely what cards a particular Runner is likely to include in their deck. The Runner doesn’t have Icebreakers installed? Install something behind ICE and name Program. Even if the Runner gets the Agenda, you’ve made some money. Does the Runner’s ID tend to favour Resource heavy decks like Geist or Hayley? Name Resource and profit from your deck building knowledge. If you want to be really evil, play Scarcity of Resources and name Event, making the Runner either lose money, or give you money. Azmari EdTech is therefore at home as a control ID, forcing the Runner to not play particular cards, lest they make you rich. There are also tools in NBN to make your guesses more educated, such as Archangel and Salem’s Hospitality, or the more recently released Jua, Self-Growth Program, and Threat Assessment. Finally, that it has a smaller minimum deck size than most Corp IDs makes the deck more consistent, making the Corp more likely to find the cards they need. This ID has already proved itself to be very strong, showing up at many tournaments and notably winning the Canadian Nationals Tournament. One may see this ID as an uninteresting ability that just makes the Corp money, but I feel it has enough counter-play on the Runner’s side, such as playing or installing multiple named cards in a single turn, to mean it’s not as boring as it may first seem. I’ve enjoyed playing around with this Azmari EdTech deck, which contains multiple tools for manipulating the Runner’s actions while you score Agendas. Give it a go, and see how much fun a control deck can be!

White Hat

White Hat joins Assimilator and Emergent Creativity as five influence cards for Netrunner’s mini-faction Runners, this time for Sunny. Sunny’s ID is blank, except that she, unlike all other Runners, has two Link. This means that she is great at winning Traces, which is just as well, as White Hat forces the Corp to initiate a Trace. If Sunny causes the Trace to fail, she gets to see the Corp’s hand of cards, and choose two of them to be shuffled back into their deck. It’s a simple effect, yet there are so many interesting uses for the card! Sunny’s in-faction cards are expensive, and she often requires a decent amount of time to set up her rig. This can mean that once she’s set up, the Corp is close to winning. A well timed White Hat, though, can remove cards which the Corp needs to win, like cards to help score Agendas or kill the Runner, buying Sunny vital time to tip the scales in her favour. But White Hat can also be used to help close a game; it allows the Runner to manipulate the Agenda density of HQ and R&D, letting them make more informed decisions about where to run or when to use cards like Legwork or The Maker’s Eye. What I really like about the card is that the Corp can pay into the Trace to keep their secrets, err, secret. While they might do this to hide a hand of Agendas from the Runner, it could also be a bluff to make the Runner waste precious credits running HQ! Finally, a subtle effect this card has is to shuffle R&D, potentially letting the Runner access fresh cards if they use White Hat in between runs. In conclusion, White Hat is a powerful card which poses interesting decisions for the Runner, yet can be countered, or even exploited, by clever Corp play. In my opinion, this is the sign of an extremely well designed card, and I’ve really enjoyed playing it in my Sunny decks.

Kuwinda K4H1U3

I like brain damage as a mechanic in Netrunner, so I’m likely to be biased in this card’s favour. In the current meta, it seems likely that brain damage is caused more by the Runner than the Corp. I think that’s a shame and am excited to see more brain damage support this cycle, but first let’s look at the current brain damage situation.

Stimhack is one of the most common ways for a Runner to take brain damage. They do so voluntarily in exchange for a cash injection. The brain damage slightly discourages multiple uses, but taking one or two brain damage is fine for most Runners, especially if they manage to get an Agenda or two in exchange. Brain damage might also occur from face checking ICE, or may be deliberately taken when going through ICE if an Agenda steal is likely. Three to four brain damage starts to be annoying for the Runner, as the reduced hand size leaves them with fewer options, and makes taking net or meat damage more consequential. Six brain will kill most runners and five is likely to, in combination with Neural EMP or Enforced Curfew. So if brain damage is strong when it hits 3+, why don’t Corps do it more often? Because an easy way to deliver brain damage could be abused to make horrible decks, most ways of causing brain damage are unreliable or inefficient. Using Marcus Batty on a Fairchild 3.0 is one of the more reliable ways, and cards like NEXT Wave 2 are very unlikely to fire. Whilst playing the ID Cybernetics Division and using Enforced Curfew can make brain damage decks stronger, the reliability issue has always been a problem they can’t overcome.

So what about Kuwinda K4H1U3? Kuwinda looks like another unreliable brain damage card; it’s an Asset that starts Traces, which get progressively harder to beat. As it needs to be installed before it’s used, it’s vulnerable to trashing, and a rich Runner will just beat the Trace then go trash it. Using it for its progressive effect is very inefficient as it will either be trashed, or the Runner will take the brain damage, depending on which is better for them. However…. If you don’t plan to use the progressive effect Kuwinda can be used more reliably. It then is effectively Trace -3 for one brain. This means that as long as you have four more credits than the Runner you can definitely do a brain damage. This is terribly inefficient, but more reliable than most other brain damage. By playing a deck with lots of economy cards, you can probably get this to fire once or twice. Especially if you are willing to dump your entire credit pool into the Trace. As discussed earlier, one brain damage isn’t very much. So it’d be hard to justify doing this. However Defective Brainchips, doubles the effect of Kuwinda making it a much more effective card. From my playtesting, this becomes very playable, as this method of doing two brain damage lets you hit the crucial 3+ brain much more reliably than before. Brain damage decks are probably never going to be the best thing around, but Kuwinda reliability makes them stronger than they were before and in my opinion, very fun to play. Why not try my deck and see what you think.

Personalized Portal

Gaining three credits a turn from an SSL Endorsement is nice economy whilst it lasts, but it runs out in three turns. Personalized Portal is likely to give three credits a turn and never runs out. In the ID Pālanā Foods, this will often be four credits. The downside is that it gives the Runner a free draw. Even with this benefit for the Runner, Personalized Portal is usually an Asset that the Runner really wants to trash, as the economy it provides is so strong. Having an Asset the Runner will reliably trash is great in combination with Reprisal operations, and also with Hard-Hitting News and Mumbad Virtual Tour.

I see Personalized Portal as having three main uses. As a solid NBN Asset economy in general, as a frequently trashed Asset in decks that care about trashing (usually Controlling the Message), but also as a mill card, grinding down the Runner’s stack. I love playing Runner mill decks, and this might push me into loving Corp mill too. In combination with Pālanā Agroplex, you can get the Runner to draw twice every turn. Against a player without recursion, this can become more draw than they want quite quickly.

An additional combo to mention is that if playing the card in Jinteki, then Mental Health Clinic can help make your drip economy scarily good. Just remember to add some Psychic Fields to punish the big hand size! Why not try my Pālanā Foods deck and see how much money it can make you!

Elsewhere in the pack

Anarch

Remember how we said last review that the Anarch theme for the Kitara cycle was viruses? Well this pack is no different! eXer is a more sane version of Medium from the Original Core Set, which is probably best in a deck that doesn’t have loads of other viruses, as you don’t want the Corp to purge. Alternatively, like Tapwrm, eXer might shine best in decks that use Sacrificial Construct to keep eXer on the table. Anarchs get new Hardware in Friday Chip, which gains virus counters when the Runner trashes cards, which is a very Anarch thing to do, and can be used to charge up viruses. The combo everyone is talking about is Imp, which guarantees the Runner can trash a card a turn, and can be recharged with Friday Chip. Have multiple Friday Chips out and you can power up Aumakua or gain money with Cache while still keeping your Imp charged up. It’s a powerful combination of cards, but as there are a lot of pieces might take a long time to set up. Finally we delve into the Crypt, which gains virus counters which can be used to find virus programs. Crypt is quite slow, in that you need to run Archives three times to use, but if you’re running Archives anyway, perhaps because you’re Alice Merchant or collecting counters on Datasucker, this gives you a little more value. It also works okay with Yusuf, either helping the Runner find it, or acquiring virus counters to power it. It might also lead to a virus ‘toolbox’ deck in Anarch, especially now that Djinn is no longer in the Core Set.

Criminal

Criminal lost a key economy denial tool when Account Siphon was removed from the Core Set, but they get a new one with Corporate “Grant”. Being a Current it can stick around over multiple turns, and can even be triggered on the Corp’s turn using abilities like Street Peddler or Clone Chip. It’s a strong card, which I’ve dabbled with in both Criminal and Shaper, although it requires building a deck that can install something each turn. From a design perspective, I think it’s a shame that the effect triggers on installing cards, as it doesn’t foster interaction between the Runner and Corp. Hopefully future economy denial cards will be more engaging in that respect.

Criminals also get a new way to avoid tags and net damage with No One Home. The avoidance is dependant on a Trace, so if the Corp is rich enough it won’t be an issue, but it does muck up the maths considerably. I’ve liked using it in Sunny, because of her natural tendency to win Traces. It lets her be a little more aggressive against decks running Hard-Hitting News, and has also come in useful against Jinteki decks running such cards as Anansi, an ICE released this pack which inflicts three net damage even if it’s bypassed, something which Sunny is likely to do with her Security Nexus.

Shaper

In true Shaper fashion, the cards they get this pack are odd, but very interesting. Marathon lets the Runner run every remote server on the board every turn, and effectively converts a credit into a click. Against Asset heavy decks this card is gross when combined with Aeneas Informants, but I’ve found it lacklustre against other Corp decks. If you’re using Magnum Opus a click is worth two credits, effectively making Marathon into a one credit refund for running a remote server, but that is hardly worth it, I think the utility of this card is really dependent on the Corp decks you expect your fellow players to be playing, and will wax and wane in playability as a result. The other Shaper card, Gbahali, joins Kongamato as a Resource which breaks subroutines. Gbahali is more generally useful than Kongamato for getting into servers at any cost, as “End the run” subroutines tend to be the final subroutine. As with Kongamato, it’s a great backup against Trap ICE and is great against Corps trying to rush behind cheap ICE. This deck has done well recently combining the two cards with Grappling Hooks and Tech Traders.HB

NEXT ICE gets better the more NEXT ICE are rezzed. However, the Rotation of NEXT Bronze, and the release of the lacklustre NEXT Opal has led to a decrease in popularity for this archetype. Fortunately, NEXT Sapphire is very good. It gives a strong effect if it fires, and is reasonably taxing for most breakers. This is a promising sign for the future of NEXT ICE. It also allows for an infinite combo with the Weyland Upgrade The Twins, which is either awesome or terrible depending on your point of view.

Jinteki

Anansi is one of the best new ICE in a while. The obvious comparison is with the two most commonly played expensive Jinteki ICE, Chiyashi and DNA Tracker. Chiyashi is arguably better, due to its end the run subroutine, and the anti-AI effect, but it is more expensive. I’d rate Anansi as better than DNA Tracker which is a great piece of ice in its own right. Anansi is expensive to break, and horrible when not broken due to dealing damage when any subs are not broken. Importantly this includes bypass effects making it a great inclusion against decks relying on Inside Job or Security Nexus.

Code Replicator, is effectively a big button which says “do that again”. It’s best paired with expensive, horrible ICE, like the aforementioned Anansi. However, there is a window for the Runner to jack out after it’s use, making it less mean than it seems. Reverse Infection, is great against virus decks, but can gain you credits if your opposition isn’t running viruses. It will always be a meta call based on the popularity of virus decks.

NBN

I’ve been trying Degree Mill in the Azmari EdTech deck linked above, and it’s a strange one. Early game the Runner either can’t steal it, or stealing it results in their rig disappearing, opening up a window for the Corp to try and score another Agenda. But this is the perfect situation! In the late game, Degree Mill is far too easy to steal. So it’s an Agenda to rush before the Runner sets up? The problem is that scoring a five advancement Agenda in the early game can set the Corp too far back economically. Add into that that the Runner chooses which cards to shuffle into their deck, and you end up with a slightly lacklustre Agenda when compared to the similar Obokata Protocol or Ikawah Project.

Weyland

Weyland’s new agenda, Armed Intimidation, gives the Runner a choice of two tags or five meat damage when it’s scored. It’s a great Agenda to slow the Runner down, buying the Corp some time to try and score another Agenda, and thus is great in rush decks that either score quickly or kill the Runner. I’ve tried it in a deck using 24/7 News Cycle to trigger the Agenda’s ability, with Neural EMP and BOOM! so the Corp can kill the Runner regardless of their choice. In practise there are too many ways for the Runner to avoid the combo, but it’s pretty fun when it fires! The new current, Death and Taxes, can make the Corp a lot of money, but is dependent on the types of the decks you face. Against a Hayley Kaplan deck which installs two to four cards a turn it’s great, but other Runners have a more minimal rig. It’s also useful in decks that run a lot of Assets, giving the Corp money when the Runner trashes their stuff. Perhaps a New Angeles Sol deck, as a current to make you money if the Runner is playing a suitable strategy.

Trojan Horse is a way for a rich Corp to destroy parts of a Runner’s rig. It’s trigger condition is fairly easy to achieve, making it a good choice for any Weyland deck with a card slot free. It will probably be best in Skorpios, and it making Skorpios stronger may be something you like or dread depending if you are playing it or facing off against it.

Neutral

TechnoCo would be a nice economic swing if left out over the course of a game. It probably would be trashed before the benefits really add up, but it’d worth considering in any deck which tried to swamp the Runner in Assets to trash. I suspect it’s main homes will be Gagarin and Spark Agency, as they tend towards econ denial, but I look forward to seeing it elsewhere.

Our copy of Netrunner: Council of the Crest was provided for review by Asmodee UK. You can get hold of a copy from your local hobby store.

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