Netrunner: Down the White Nile 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 a great one for Corps in general, but particular for Glacier builds that want big servers and big agendas. Jinja City Grid offers a lot of support for this plan and SSL Endorsement and NGO Front are neutral cards that help every corp play in this style if they want to. The Runner side has less straightforward cards but Kabonesa Wu is an exciting new ID and this pack is also a must for fans of everyones favourite Bioroid Adam.

Kabonesa Wu: Netspace Thrillseeker

Of all the Runner factions, I think the one I’m most drawn to is Shaper. The cards and IDs released for the faction foster what most of the Netrunner community affectionately call “Shaper Bullshit”. This can be summarised as finding convoluted solutions to problems; catching the Corp off guard by combining multiple card abilities to achieve seemingly impossible feats. I’m glad to report that Kabonesa Wu facilitates a lot of Shaper Bullshit. The ability to pull programs out of your deck at any point in the game is very powerful. Woe betide any Corp trying to rush an Agenda behind a single ICE against Kabonesa, as it’s almost certain she’s getting in! The downside is that the program isn’t sticking around, as it’s removed from the game at the end of the turn if it’s still installed. You can therefore try and trick the installed program into play, using Scavenge, or install programs that won’t be installed for long, like Self-modifying Code. I think the reason I like her ability so much is that it synergizes with a pet card of mine. Brahman is a powerful AI Icebreaker that moves installed programs to the top of the Runner’s stack as a cost for using it. You can therefore use Kabonesa’s ability to fuel Brahman, while using Brahman’s ‘downside’ to save the cards from being removed from the game. Kabonesa’s ability almost guarantees you can setup quickly, with some builds using Self-modifying Code and Scavenge to install Magnum Opus turn one to guarantee money for the rest of the game. Some combo decks have also popped up, using Kabonesa’s ability to quickly get a huge hand size using three copies of Origami, then Game Day to draw a decent chunk of your deck. However, my preferred deck so far is a deck that goes fast using Brahman, Grappling Hook, and Chameleon, all of which synergize with Kabonesa’s ability. Be aggressive and Deep Data Mine often! I’m really looking forward to the aggressive Shaper archetype receiving support this cycle, and I think Kabonesa really fits this style of play.

Jinja City Grid

Some Netrunner players look back, misty eyed, at the point in the game’s lifetime when “glacier” decks, which won the game by scoring Agendas behind taxing ICE with Upgrades to defend servers, were the deck to beat. Although this style of deck has, of late, not really been seen at competitive Netrunner events, Jinja City Grid may single-handedly bring this style of deck back to tournament tables. This is due to the card providing a lot of value and efficiency when it comes to installing ICE. Usually, constructing servers with lots of ICE costs the Corp a lot of money. The relationship between the amount of ICE protecting a server and the cumulative install costs for those ICE is a quadratic relationship, so while two ICE costs 1 credit, five ICE costs 10 credits to install. The discount on installing ICE which Jinja City Grid gives the Corp allows them to construct a five ICE server for free! Not only that, but the Corp doesn’t have to spend a click to install that ICE, unlike Replanting, or Dedicated Technician Team, leaving their clicks free for other important business. This efficiency does come with a cost, though: information. All ICE installed with Jinja City Grid are revealed to the Runner, so if you planned to surprise the Runner with a Brainstorm or Trap ICE, installing them with Jinja isn’t an option. There are some great synergies with the card, such as Seidr Adaptive Barrier, which increases in strength the more ICE you have installed, the HB ‘Clearance’ cards (Green Level Clearance, Violet Level Clearance, and Ultraviolet Clearance) which give you credits and draw you cards, and the ID Architects of Tomorrow, letting you Rez the ICE you’re installing on the cheap. I’ve personally enjoyed playing Jinja with AgInfusion, and I’ve found it works well with another Jinteki card in that deck, Hasty Relocation, giving you more control about the order of ICE you install.

NGO Front

When the Corporation installs a card in a server and advances it, they want the runner to ignore it if it is an agenda, and run it if it is a trap. Advanceable traps usually come with two disadvantages, in that they do nothing if the runner ignores them and cost the corp credits. My pick of the last pack Gene Splicer breaks the first disadvantage and NGO Front ignores both. An NGO Front that the runner ignores, can be fired to get credits, or left alone if you have an alternative use for it (Such as Red Planet Couriers). However it’s at its best when the runner pays heavily to break ICE to get access to the card, only for it to be a waste of their time and credits. The resulting credit swing in your direction can open an opportunity to score an agenda, or win important traces. This card is so versatile and good for the Corporation economy that is a prime candidate for being restricted in the future, but until then try adding a copy to your decks.     

Distract the Masses

Confusingly, I’m here to talk to you about Jackson Howard, a card so powerful that it was often described as a mandatory include for every Corp deck. But bear with me, all will soon become clear. This was because Jackson did three important things and most decks would want one if not two of them. Number one is that Jackson increased your draw, allowing decks that rely on certain combos of cards to find them faster. Number two is that Jackson allowed you to add cards from archives to R&D allowing you to play your more important cards multiple times, whether they were economy or cards heavy on influence from other factions. But arguably its most important use was mitigating agenda flood. Agenda flood is the term used to describe drawing lots of agendas into HQ whilst you can’t score them. Filling your hand with cards you can’t use and making runs on HQ very dangerous. Jackson Howard allowed you to put these cards in archives, without much risk* of them being stolen, as you could use his recursion ability to return them to R&D, even during a run. Now that Jackson Howard has left the game due to rotation. How do you replace him in your decks? Well there are a number of options now available of which Distract the Masses is the latest one. In an attempt to prevent anyone being as auto include as Jackson, most of them only do 2 of his 3 effects, and also come with a disadvantage. I’ve listed a few in the table below.

*Hades Shard does exist

So with all these options when would you include Distract the Masses?  If card recursion is the most important thing for your deck, Preemptive Action and Genotyping are probably best, and they can also be used to clear HQ if you risk the agendas in archives for 1 turn. But if you are mainly concerned about agenda flood, and don’t want to take this risk, there is an strong argument for Distract the Masses. NBN would usually pick Special Order instead, but other factions might not have the influence to import it. Whampona Reclamation is also better in most circumstances, but is a restricted card, so if you with to include a different restricted card, you can’t choose it. Distract the Masses does come with its downside of giving the runner credits, but not all decks care that much about how rich the runner is, and even if they do, the other benefits of including it will outweigh this in many scenarios. I’d happily give the runner 2 credits to stop a Legwork from being an auto win for my opponent.

Elsewhere in the pack

Anarch

The Anarch theme this cycle seems to be viruses, which the two Anarch cards in this pack fit into. Acacia gives the runner a consolation prize of credits when the Corp purges while Plague helps the Runner accumulate virus counters, but doesn’t do anything with them itself, requiring other cards like Yusuf in the last pack to use them. In my testing I’ve found that you can’t rely on Acacia for your economy, as the Corp can just refuse to purge, so you need to give the Corp a reason to purge, perhaps using Tapwrm so you gain credits either way. Acacia and Plague are ultimately support cards for a deck archetype that is in the process of being released. Currently they’re underwhelming, but my opinion of them may change once the whole Kitara cycle is available.

Criminal

With a potential saving of 8 credits, Credit Kiting has potential as an economy card for criminal. However to get the full benefit there is currently a very small range of targets. The Shards, Mass Driver, Morningstar, Rachel Beckman, Monolith, Security Nexus and Femme Fatale. Of these the last two are the most likely to be used in Criminal decks. For decks that would already want to include these cards, Credit Kiting is a sensible add, but does come with the additional disadvantage of giving you a tag. If you clear the tag for 2 credits, the saving from the card is reduced. However for some decks, such as “tag me” decks based on Counter Surveillance, this can be a positive rather than a negative.

The other Criminal card this pack is a strange one. When you make a run on HQ the Runner can trash Wari and expose an ICE, potentially moving it back into the Corp’s HQ if they guessed the correct ICE subtype. In Silhouette you can guarantee you move the ICE, with the expose effect additionally providing synergy with Aumakua and Zamba. While the effect isn’t super strong, I can see including Wari in Criminal decks that use Rosetta 2.0. Best case, you use Wari to surprise the Corp by removing a tricky ICE from the remote. Worst case, you can feed Wari to Rosetta 2.0 to get an Icebreaker. As with the Anarch cards in this pack, expose effects are receiving support in this cycle, so perhaps Wari will improve as more cards are released. It’s worth pointing out, though, that Wari has quite a funny interaction with Jinja City Grid, also released in this pack!

Shaper

I mentioned above that Shaper were getting cards which supported an aggressive, run-based deck archetype, and the other two Shaper cards released this pack fit into that style of play. Takobi lets the Runner boost an Icebreaker by three strength for every two pieces of ICE they break all subroutines on. This can save the Runner a lot of credits on big servers, especially if the Runner is using Icebreakers that are expensive to boost strength, like Na’not’k or Inti, or breakers that can’t be boosted, like Chameleon. Kongamato is a cheap resource that lets you break the first subroutine on ICE. This lets Runners be a little more aggressive, and works nicely with Grappling Hook, which is the very combo in my Wu deck linked above. At only one influence, I expect to see Kongamato in Geist decks too as a pseudo-AI Icebreaker, to get through Excalibur for example, or to get past problem ICE like a high strength Seidr Adaptive Barrier.

Adam

Just like Assimilator in the last pack caused people to reassess Apex deckbuilding, so too does Emergent Creativity for Adam. Cards which fetch Hardware from your deck are relatively rare in Netrunner, or are usually so inefficient that they are only used in very niche decks. Emergent Creativity, though, can not only fetch either Programs or Hardware, but also can provide a discount. Trashing cards from your hand as Adam is good as you are more likely to trigger Safety First, and if you include the Anarch Icebreakers that install themselves from the heap that’s even better. Adam is also very dependant on his console, which Emergent Creativity helps you find early, and makes drawing duplicates okay as they can be used as a discount for installing your Icebreakers. Talking of which, Femme Fatale works well with this card, and at only one influence you can easily put three in your deck. At five influence this card is difficult to include in other factions, although I’ve heard tell of Shaper decks using Emergent Creativity to install Monolith on the cheap, which is so crazy it might just work!

HB

The winner of best art in this data pack goes to Nightdancer, the other HB card in this pack. For a four strength Code Gate, Nightdancer is relatively expensive at six to rez, but the effect of sapping the Runner’s clicks while giving the Corp clicks is very powerful, potentially letting the Corp score a four advancement agenda from their hand on their turn if both fire. The subroutines are a compelling target for Marcus Batty, and synergises with Seidr Laboratories, triggering the ID ability. Whether these potential combos are worth the expensive rez cost, though, is difficult to say.

Jinteki

Aimor is a piece of trap ICE that trashes cards from the top of the runners stack. This seems like it would fit in well with Potential Unleashed decks that aim to mill the runner, and also in Skorpius decks that remove trashed cards from the game. However, trap ICE becomes less powerful when AI breakers are around and Aumakua is still a very popular card, meaning that even the factions that like it best, may prefer to choose alternative ICE.

There has always been a sub theme for Jinteki to rearrange R&D. This has led to a very interesting agenda in Bacterial Programming that, when scored or stolen, lets you decide where to put each of the next 7 cards in centrals. This can be used to filter useless cards in archives, accelerate a key card to HQ, and to plan the best order for things left in R&D. You can really adjust how you use it based on the current game state. You might be desperate for more ICE in HQ ready to install, or you might be putting it in archives because you are already set up and just wanting economy. It’s especially useful with cards like Hunter Seeker and Punitive Counterstrike, that you want to have in HQ immediately after an agenda is stolen.  

NBN

Jua is an interesting piece of ICE which in true NBN fashion doesn’t stop the Runner and has a “when encountered” ability. The subroutine can knock back the Runner’s tempo quite considerably, although as it’s the Runner’s choice which of the two cards get moved they can just choose the least worst option. The “when encountered” ability, and the rez cost, though, makes this ICE an ideal piece of ICE for a rush archetype. Stick it in front of a Vanilla and the Runner can no longer install their Paperclip from the heap to get through. This is of course the ideal situation, which will certainly not happen every game, but it does promote clever ICE placement.

Threat Assessment offers the runner a choice, return a card to the stack or take tags. Taking tags is likely to be a bad call against NBN, so the return is likely to be the chosen option. This is a reasonable tax on the runner, costing a click to draw the card back, a click to reinstall and any credits the card cost. This gets worse if the card hosts other cards, such as Dhegdheer, or builds up counters like The Turning Wheel. So maybe you just risk taking the tags?

Weyland

Economic Warfare is a nice simple card. You play it and it costs the runner credits. This is ideal for helping you to win important trace, such as those from a Punitive Counterstrike or a Hard Hitting News.  Out of faction it also is likely to be good in credit denial decks out of Spark Agencies.

The best case scenario for use of Forced Connection is a great one. It starts a trace when the the runner is not expecting it, and leaves them tagged without the credits or clicks to clear it. This then allows the corp to play tag punishment cards accordingly. As it fires from HQ and R&D as well as an installed upgrade, the chance of this card firing increase. However often runners will have enough credits to beat the trace or enough clicks to clear the tags, making this an unreliable method for giving the runner a tag. Sea Source or Prisec are likely to be better choices in most circumstances, depending on what you are trying to achieve.  

Neutral

RNG Key is a card where you make a guess to potentially get a reward. This guess work isn’t going to appeal to some players, but it does have a skill element, as players may be able to predict sensible values to guess based on what they have seen of the opponent’s deck. Where it truly shines is with cards that allow you to know what to guess such as Find the Truth. Because of this Adam is likely to be its main home, but it’s a fun include in other factions too.

SSL Endorsement is a neutral 5/3 agenda that is likely to see a lot of play. The 9 credits irregardless of what happens to it, is an notable economy boost, which means it adds value to decks that are tight on credits. As a neutral 5/3, a relevant point of comparison is Global Food Initiative, which is a common agenda in many decks due to its lower point value for the runner. This is such a strong effect that all things being equal, SSL would probably always be left out in favour of GFI. But things aren’t equal as GFI is a restricted card in tournament play and also costs 1 influence. For decks that want to use an a different restricted card, or are tight on influence or economy, SSL is likely to become a sensible include.

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Next Pack: Council of the Crest

Previous Pack: Sovereign Sight