Chrome City has dropped! Let’s check some of these cards out. I’m not going to give ratings or anything like that but here’s a look at some of the cards that I think would see play or have something to say about.

(If you don’t get the title, here’s the music of the week)

Net Ready Eyes

Pop, pop

Here we have Shapers’ answer to Clot – a useful 2 influence card that probably will see more play out of faction. This card should be quite strong in Anarch builds, allowing them to be less worried about Lotus Field and return to the glory days of Yog.0. In combination with a D4v1d, Anarchs now have the tools to get in anywhere they like. The flexibility of the Eyes makes the card much more flexible than Personal Touch and, importantly, it’s useful outside of the obvious Yog/Mimic interactions by acting as a pseudo bad publicity on your Corroder.

Interestingly, because you can choose the breaker it boosts Net-Ready Eyes could also add some flexibility to the old Katman archetype, making it less reliant on Datasuckers. The original Prepaid Kate builds were based on Katman – it’s very possible that there’s an effective build here with NRE. The older Katman builds using Desperado and Professional Contacts could see a boost from this as well.

This certainly has the potential to be the most meta-defining card in the pack and may force RP away from 2/3 Lotus Fields as default. Unfortunately, since I can’t see this being played much in Criminal (simply because of influence spread), it does seem to make them relatively weaker.

Turntable

Ah Turntable, confirming Noise’s day job as part time DJ/full time prick. Lots of buzz around this one, but I’m not convinced it’s actually good. It has really obvious interactions with Astro, Atlas and Nisei tokens, as well as switching out 1-pointers for larger agendas. There’s one massive, glaring problem with Noise’s fancy headphones though – they don’t do a damn thing to help you actually steal those agendas in the first place. This is the kind of card where it’s really easy to get caught up in best case evaluations (see: Comet vs Astrolabe), but it’s way more important to think about the average scenarios where this console will do literally nothing except giving you extra memory. In this situation I’d much rather have Vigil for my “vanilla” console, because it’s much more difficult for the Corp to play around and you’re likely to see a benefit at least once.

Immolation Script

It’s like extra Parasites! Lord knows I like extra Parasites. It’s pretty damn specific, but this could see play. The best use I can think of is after you’ve already used D4v1d to trash an Oversight AI-d Curtain Wall against Blue Sun – next time they try it, pull Immolation Script out to trash the next one. It works with Eater, for what that’s worth It might work with Eater, but I’m not sure,. It could potentially also work against extra Tollbooths or similar that the Corp has tossed out because of money issues or whatever other reason.

Titanium Ribs

Did you see the recent news story about a Muay Thai fighter being suspended for having illegal titanium shin implants? Art imitates life. The story, unfortunately, was proven to be fake pretty quickly. The kind of implant described in the story would be terrible for any kind of fighter – it’s actually less strong than your bone would be normally and a solid impact would snap it easily. In fact, any heavy training would cause huge amounts of pain, risk of injury and a high likelihood of immensely sub-optimal performance in future.

I bring this up because you’ll probably be feeling something very similar if you ever put this card in a deck.

Haas-Bioroid: Cybernetics Division (and assorted hangers-on)

HB certainly get some love this pack, don’t they? It’s like FFG have gotten sick of people ignoring the three or four brain damage cards and decided to just MAKE PEOPLE DO IT. ID’s are traditionally pretty tough to evaluate, but this one supports a particular game plan pretty heavily. I’ve seen suggestions for Punitive Counterstrike builds but I think that’ll be pretty tough to pull off without Engineering the Future money. Personally, I think the correct way is going to involve Mushin No Shin and net damage tricks of some description to help cement a kill. Self-Destruct Chips is a 3/1 Agenda, which is bad, but it has a very strong effect in this ID, which is good. No idea here. Ryon Knight I’m not convinced is actually good, but in a faction with all the Bioroids there’s certainly potential. The run doesn’t actually need to be successful for this to trigger either, which is pretty sweet.

Little Engine

I’m not 100% convinced this card is good, per se, but it’s a really interesting concept in that it’s kind of both a money and breaker gear check. It’s actually only 2 credits to get past the End the Run with Gordian Blade, but unless you have the 7 credits on you beforehand you’re not going anywhere. It’s insanely taxing for Yogsucker, even with Net Ready Eyes. Atman makes a profit, but if you have a 7 strength Atman installed well done, I guess? The biggest issue is that Cyber-Cypher essentially breaks for free and that breaker sees a lot of play right now.

Also, I’m not much for positional ICE combos – but holy CRAP this thing with Chum.

Oaktown Renovation

Pretty sweet! Not exactly the second coming of NAPD but this will probably replace Corporate War in most Blue Sun builds. The main advantage isn’t really the money for overadvancing, it’s that it negates the tempo/economy hit needed to score an agenda in the first place.

Quicksand

It’s not spectacular but I actually really like this! Throw it on a central for a Wall of Static-cost gear check that gets stronger the more they hit it. Against certain Shaper builds that just hit R&D and pretend everything else doesn’t exist, this is potentially incredibly taxing. Shuts down Atman hard, too.

There you have it – a pretty solid pack with potential for major impact in Net Ready Eyes and possible even Cybernetics Division. I’m happy with the SanSan Cycle so far – bring on Haarpsichord!

PS