Greetings, oh runners of nets! I hope the agendas are proving to be exactly where you want them to be, and none of your games are going to time! Today we have our now-traditional monthly update article which I will now crack on with without any more waffle...

Community

Patreon launched! We are now just a shade under $500 a month, which means more fancy art for Ashes, and I’m hard at work writing the extra fiction and will be posting the first crayon drawing this week. Hoping we can get up to $500 by the end of the month *bounces excitedly*

Resources for community organisers and moderators complete, will be uploaded to nisei.net soon

Rules translation started

Significant NRDB UI/UX changes

Various NRDB fixes and enhancements

Cleaned up presentation of Prize Kits on nisei.net (with more to come)

Identified and fixed issue with RSS feed for nisei.net

Getting the Store Champs listing on nisei.net ready for the list from OP

Further minor tweaks to NRDB interface in development, including making the Advanced Search link in the header more obvious!

Clarification to hopefully crystal level around the end date/time of Prize Kits, so people don't miss the deadline in the future.

Building a clearer public roadmap for the Web Dev team so people know what we're working towards even if they're not "GitHub people"

Creative

Retheming of Ashes-1 to match story almost complete

Fiction also almost complete

All commissions for Ashes-1 art placed, and being actively worked on

Q2 GNK designs completed (see below)

Design

Initial development of NISEI-3 begun (with Ashes being NISEI-1 and -2)

Working with Development on tweaks to Ashes based on playtester feedback

Development

Testing Ashes-1 without its twin set well underway

Collaborating with Design and Rules on Ashes cards requiring functional tweaks/reworks.

Organised Play

Q2 GNK contents finalized and proofs ordered; it will be on sale beginning 1 February!

Several new assets now live on nisei.net, including decklists, brackets, and Version 1.1 of the OP Policies Fixed typos; many edits for clarity. Added page numbers. Proxies must be cleared by tournament staff only at Competitive-level events. Clarified Strength of Schedule computation for players who drop or are otherwise removed from events. Details of supported formats are now completely found on the formats page of nisei.net and no longer present in this document. Proxy policy has changed slightly (eased up to make it slightly more accessible)

All materials for Store Championship Kits should be in our hands Tuesday 22 Jan (in fact, some have arrived already!) and they will be shipping ASAP. You'll get a confirmation email when yours does.

Our Q1 GNK was extremely successful! We sold a grand total of 528 kits across 37 countries and raised thousands of dollars, nearly all of which is going towards artwork for our first set!

Working on the Regionals application - going live next month.

Laying groundwork for the next MWL update.

Working on Continental Championships : Euros, NA Champs, and SE Asia Championships.

Rules

Ashes development work underway

Rules 1.2 in review

Card Text style guide being created

And there you go! Oh wait, I promised you a sneak preview of the Q2 GNK art didn’t I… well, have your eyes take in these beauties!

Everyone needs more IPO in their life, so this source of sweet, sweet credits (featuring the one and only Fisk, and a slightly sinister Yuri) has 17 copies in the kit.

And the more exclusive rewards for next quarter is a frankly ridiculously gorgeous Security Nexus! I shouldn’t need to tell you who it is on this card, but there’ll be 4 of them in the box.

Lastly, it wouldn’t be a NISEI GNK without a play mat, so this is what you’ll get if you’re very very good, or just buy a kit for yourself (which is totally reasonable, and frankly the only way I’ll manage to get one). This is the art for one of the Ashes cycle, although I’m not going to say what’s it’s called because it might change and then people will get confused and/or annoyed. Regardless, I think it’s pretty cool, and it's courtesy of Jakuza (instagram.com/themakerseye).

So… yet another busy month, and that’s with Christmas and babies and weddings and lions and cyber-tigers and neobears happening (the last 3 may be a lie, I refuse to confirm either way).

And I’ll leave you with the exciting news that I’m currently planning SPOILER SEASON for Ashes-1, and we’re aiming to work with some well known community people on bringing you sneaky peaks of some key cards… so while my team and I are doing that don’t forget to