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

Unless Apex is your favourite Runner, this pack isn’t fantastic on the Runner side and can probably be skipped. However, it more than makes up for it on the Corp side. HB get an interesting new identity and a new Agenda that fits into numerous deck styles. NBN are given a new tool for fast-advance, while Jinteki and Weyland are given a plethora of new tools to kill the Runner, or at the very least, force them into making bad decisions. If you’re a fan of Weyland, in particular, this pack is a must!

Assimilator

One of the things I love about card games is how the release of a single new card can cause you to completely reassess previously released cards. Assimilator is one of those cards. This is a card for the Runner Apex, a mini-faction Runner ID released in the deluxe expansion Data and Destiny. Apex is able to install cards facedown, which in turn can be used to power cards such as Endless Hunger or Chop Bot 3000. Assimilator also interacts with facedown cards, letting you flip them over for the cost of two clicks. There are two reasons this card has blown open Apex deckbuilding. The first is that Assimilator allows you to restore your board state after using one of Apex’s signature cards, Apocalypse. Previously, getting cards installed facedown reinstalled faceup was difficult, requiring you to first trash them, then find a way to get them out of your discard pile. The other, and arguably larger, reason Assimilator changes deckbuilding is that it allows you to circumvent install restrictions. Being a sentient computer virus, Apex can’t install Resources that aren’t Virtual. However, you can now install these non-Virtual Resources facedown, then flip them over with Assimilator. This allows you to use cards like Aesop’s Pawnshop and Rachel Beckman, previously unavailable to Apex. It also has a great interaction with Cyber-Cypher. As you never install Cyber-Cypher it doesn’t have a server restriction, allowing you to use its insane efficiency on every server! In a weird way, Assimilator is also an economy card, so you could pack your deck with expensive cards like Morning Star and use Apex and Assimilator to cheat them into play. In short, this is a really interesting card that really opens up Apex deckbuilding. This deck has done well recently and relies on Assimilator to work; it’s an absolute blast to play!

Asa Group: Security Through Vigilance

HB: Engineering the Future (EtF) used to be the HB identity in the Core Set, before it got removed from the game with the release of the Revised Core Set. One of the reasons it got removed from the game was that the efficiency, and flexibility, of gaining a credit every time you installed a card meant that other HB identities were often overlooked. On the face of it, Asa Group has a similarly efficient ability, allowing you to install an extra non-agenda card in, or protecting, the same server as the first card you install. While this is very efficient, it isn’t as flexible as EtF’s ability. You often don’t want to stack loads of ICE on a single server, especially early game, as it gets expensive quickly. No, where I think Asa Group shines is a rush strategy, where the ability allows you to setup a board state super quickly. The ability allows you to, for example, install a Fairchild 3.0 and an MCA Austerity Policy click 1, play Hedge Fund click 2, and use MCA Austerity Policy click 3. Or my favourite, Mushin No Shin an Agenda clicks 1 and 2, using Asa Group’s ability to install 1 ICE protecting the agenda, then install a second ICE or gain money click 3. In my testing with the ID, I’ve found it reasonably difficult to keep getting value from the ability late game, unless you include a lot of upgrades in your deck, such as Ash 2X3ZB9CY, Strongbox, or Warroid Tracker. What I really like about this ID is that, unlike EtF, you really have to build your deck around the ID. In the same way as Assimilator, the ability made me go back and reassess cards like Disposable HQ, which works well installed on HQ or R&D and triggers Asa Group’s ability, letting you install an ICE on the same central server. This was a very successful EtF deck that I think can be rebuilt into Asa Group, with relative ease. Give it a go and see what you think of this new ID!

Gene Splicer

I really like the design of Gene Splicer. It’s not the most powerful of cards, but it’s versatile, and that is an underrated quality. As a trap it’s a weaker version of Project Junebug. As a way of getting an unstealable point, it’s more click intensive than Clones Are Not People. But if the Runner ignores the former, it’s no good to you (unless you want to go through some Back Channels), and if they clear the latter before you score, you don’t get the point. So whilst lower in power, Gene Splicer is less likely to end up being useless. When a card offers the Runner a choice, (in this case, take damage or let the Corp score an expensive point) you’d expect a good player to always make the best call. You therefore want to use Gene Splicer in decks where either choice the Runner makes advances your game plan. I’ve had a lot of fun using it in Harmony Medtech, where the point is even more important and the net damage can set back the Runner’s tempo when rushing to the lower point threshold. Another natural home for the card might be in Jinteki Biotech, where it is unclear if you are using The Brewery or The Greenhouse.

Urban Renewal

The Kitara cycle is occurring after rotation has happened and many cards have been removed from tournament play. One of the effects of this is that new, perhaps more balanced, cards can be designed to fill in the gaps left by cards that have been removed. Prior to the Revised Core Set, any discussion of meat damage had to involve Scorched Earth, as delivering 4 meat damage with the play requirement of just 1 tag was very potent. So potent in fact that playing two Scorched Earth in a single turn was the main way to kill Runners before the existence of BOOM! The issue with Scorched Earth was twofold: it was so good at being tag punishment that other tag punishment cards weren’t often played, and it was one of the easiest ways of killing the Runner, so other methods were largely ignored. So as Kitara’s new card to deliver meat damage how does Urban Renewal compare?

Urban Renewal sensibly takes out the tag requirement from Scorched Earth, opening up design space for NBN cards that punish the Runner for not clearing tags. However, it can’t just be an operation that deals out 4 meat damage, as all runners would die very quickly. Instead, Urban Renewal is an Asset that needs to be charged up before delivering its blow. This makes it far less likely to be a card that kills your opponent, as you have to telegraph it ahead of time. It still can do so, but probably requires 2 copies behind ICE that the Runner can’t break, or 1 combined with another type of damage. So if you aren’t killing the Runner, what are you doing? Well, it leads to a very hard decision for the Runner: do they try and trash it before it fires or do they draw enough cards before it fires so that it doesn’t actually kill them. Losing cards is bad, because they were put in the deck for a reason, and it makes you vulnerable to follow up damage. So you go trash right? Well you might not have the right breaker, and even if you do, after breaking any ICE and paying the trash cost you will have not only worsened your economy, but you’re also now susceptible to cards that care about the Runner making runs, like Hard-Hitting News. Overall, this series of decisions seems much more interesting to me than the previous one, which was: never be poorer than the Corp when you run, and clear all tags, or you’ll be dead soon. If you are interested in how decks using Urban Renewal work, why not take a look here.

Elsewhere in the pack

Anarch

Anarchs typically don’t mind hurting themselves, so long as the Corp gets screwed over in the process. By Any Means fits perfectly with this ethos. In some ways it’s an economy card, letting you trash installed Assets for free, and in other ways it’s a disruption card, letting you trash Operations and ICE from the Corp’s hand. To get full benefit from this card, though, you need ways of either avoiding the damage (Jarogenav Mercs), or benefiting from the damage (I’ve Had Worse or Clan Vengeance).

Yusuf is a new Icebreaker which uses virus counters rather than credits to get through Barrier ICE. This is potentially very powerful; Netrunner is essentially a game of warring economies, and ways to break ICE that don’t use up credits have proven powerful in the past (Faust and D4V1D). Yusuf has the problem of using virus counters to break ICE though, so a timely purge by the Corp can lock you out as the Runner. Currently, you therefore need to rely on other breakers that use credits to shore up this weakness, although other cards that support Yusuf in this situation are being released later this cycle, so stay tuned.

Criminal

I’m a little bit excited and a little bit scared of Criminal’s new console, Zamba. I’m excited because it synergises with one of my favourite Criminals, Silhouette. I’m scared because people have built horrible Runner decks with Zamba, GPI Net Tap, Aumakua, and Rubicon Switch, which when all installed make it such that the Corp is better off not rezzing ICE. Admittedly it takes a while to set up with those decks, but there is a chance that this deck archetype will narrow the design space for expose effects if the designers aren’t careful.

Puffer can have its base strength increased to make breaking high strength Sentry ICE more efficient. However, doing so increases its MU requirement. This usually wouldn’t be worth it, as you run out of space for additional breakers. Fortunately you can build a deck to compensate for this disadvantage, with cards that remove the MU requirement, like Dhegdheer, or give you additional MU.

As a fan of the Criminal ID Laramy Fisk, I find the idea of Lewi Guilherme exciting. Messing with the Corp’s HQ is a fun strategy and dropping the Corp’s hand size after making them overdraw sounds great. Fisk aside, reducing the size of HQ also increases Agenda density in general and makes HQ runs more likely to be successful. It’s up to you if paying the credit each turn, or making friends with Dr. Lovegood, is worth it.

Shaper

Cyberdelia provides additional memory, which is useful both for big rigs (lots of programs) and for MU heavy strategies that use Deep Data Mining. The second effect, whilst technically different, acts like a recurring credit for breaking through ICE. With multiple copies of Cyberdelia in play, this can add up to significant savings over the course of the game. This card, while expensive to get on the table, favours aggressive Shaper builds, which is an interesting archetype that I’m looking forward to trying.

Whilst Cyberdelia slowly pays you back in credits for breaking ICE, Upya pays you back in clicks for running R&D. However, the fact that Upya is a program that takes up MU is a real negative. Additionally, decks that need extra clicks would usually choose other cards that are more efficient, such as Beth Kilrain-Chang.

Ikawah Project is exactly the sort of 5/3 Agenda that the game needs. A lot of 5/3 Agendas that have been printed so far have either had too weak of an effect to be worth including in a deck (Project Wotan), or are so strong that they become ubiquitous (Global Food Initiative). To be worth playing, a 5/3 Agenda either needs to have a strong effect when scored or a defensive ability to make it less likely to be stolen. Ikawah Project is the latter. The click and credit cost for the Runner to steal it is big enough to have an impact, without being ridiculous. Although when combined with other cards that tax the runners clicks, you can really build a deck around it. It also triggers Seidr Laboratories’ ability, giving the Corp a nice consolation prize for losing an Agenda.

Najja 1.0 is a nice solid piece of ICE, that can both be clicked through and broken quite cheaply, but with the very cheap rez cost, the economics will quickly be in your favour.

Jinteki

Mganga is a piece of Trap ICE and delivers 1 or 2 net damage based on a psi game. It fills a very similar niche as the card Data Mine, which was in the Original Core Set but is no longer with us. Data Mine was mainly played in Potential Unleashed builds, that want as much net damage as possible, whereas Mganga may also be useful in damage based Nisei Division decks.

Genotyping adds to the ever increasing roster of cards that allow for Corp recursion in the wake of the card Jackson Howard being lost to rotation. It’s arguably less useful in most situations than Preemptive Action and Whampona Project, but not dramatically so, and as someone who likes having many decks made up at once, I’m happy to use Genotyping in my Jinteki decks rather than moving copies of Preemptive around. It does have extra advantages in certain circumstances, as trashing cards from R&D can get cards into Archives faster, which is great for decks that run traps that fire from Archives (Breached Dome and Shi.Kyū). Whilst best in Industrial Genomics, there are other decks that may also benefit from this effect such as Tennin Institute decks that want to dissuade runs on Archives.

NBN

Echo Chamber is similar to Gene Splicer in that it is an unstealable agenda point that is more expensive in terms of clicks and credits than a 3/1 Agenda to score. However, it doesn’t have the same multipurpose use that makes Gene Splicer so interesting.

NBN gets more tag punishment options with Self-Growth Program which adds installed cards to the Runner’s grip. It’s at its best when targeting cards that are hosting others, or simply expensive pieces of the Runner’s rig. From spoiled cards it seems that the NBN theme this cycle is controlling what cards the Runner plays and installs, and this card fits into that archetype quite nicely. Whether it’s used over, say, Closed Accounts or The All-Seeing I, though, remains to be seen.

The removal of cards from the Core Set allows for new cards to fill the same niche with adjusted power levels. Calibration Testing fulfills a similar role to SanSan City Grid, letting the Corp score Agendas from hand in one turn. The requirement to trash the card to use it, though, combined with a lower trash cost, should hopefully make this card less game dominating as the card it replaces, whilst still being useful.

Weyland

Weyland likes dealing meat damage. Fortunately for the Runner, the meat damage caused by Wake Up Call is optional. Unfortunately for the Runner, the condition to play it is easy to achieve and the only way to avoid it is to trash a Resource or Hardware of the Corp’s choosing. This is likely to be a card you can’t afford to lose from your rig, like the Console you’ve built your deck around. Such a bad decision for the Runner means that it’s a good card for the Corp, although it is dependent on the Runner having installed cards that are essential to their plan. Speaking of meat damage, Weyland had a new way to use it via Reconstruction Contract.

This converts small amounts of meat damage into free advancement tokens. Whilst free advancement tokens are good for fast advance strategies, meat damage typically happens in infrequent large amounts, rather than frequent small ones, making this harder to fire. For this reason, perhaps this card will find its home in Builder of Nations decks. Fortunately for fans of Weyland, Reconstruction Contract combos with Dedication Ceremony to make a more reliable method of scoring agendas from hand. A cute interaction possible with a Reconstruction Contract with 3 advancement tokens is the ability to power up advanceable ICE like Mausolus, Colossus, and Hortum immediately after rezzing them, with potentially devastating effects for the Runner.

See you next time for more Netrunner!

Next pack: Down the White Nile