Welcome to the Stimhack community review for Whispers in Nalubaale, the only meta reviews guaranteed to hold strength all the way until the end of the article (no refunds for early strength loss or inaccurate predictions).

Freedom Khumalo

greyfield

It’ll be interesting to hear whether you can trash agendas for free, or can’t because they lack rez or play costs and therefore lack an X (rather than having X=0), since trashing agendas is often as good as scoring them in this post-Jackson era while giving you a mild Film Critic protection. Regarding him otherwise, he seems pretty decent if you’re playing a deck full of cards that give you virus counters just for running around, though with Imp-Chip legal, I hesitate to say that that’s necessarily a truly winning combo. Real question is, why play a complicated combo for trashing cards when Valencia is legal, Mining Accident is legal, and you can even Rebirth into Ed Kim if you’ve got some kind of wrath against operations. At that point, this is only very good against those select few cards with high trash and low rez costs which you feel compelled to trash, and while such cards are often quite good (hi, Bryan Stinson), I’m not sure that outweighs the raw value of Val. In short: not bad, but not good enough. C+.

tvaduva

Trashing any zero cost card accessed is very nice (as we learned with Best Defense); being able to trash higher costed cards using only virus counters, will take him to almost the MaxX and Valencia level of popularity. It’s nice that you get to choose when to use the ability (sorry Ed). We’re probably not too far off a critical mass of lopsided rez/trash costs (Jinja, Stinson, Jeeves, MVT, Reconstruction Contract, Mwanza, etc.), that he starts looking like Whizzard with a few viruses.

Saan

This ID is obviously the go-to ID for the virus deck FFG is pushing. Trashing stuff for a resource other than credits is great, because then you still have credits. However, if you trash something for virus tokens and you also later plan on breaking into servers with virus tokens, they could very well be stretched too thin. Add that to the fact that there is a virus that trashes any card for one virus counter (hey there, Imp), and this ID begins to look less interesting.

neuropantser

Seems fun with God of War, since that passively stacks up virus counters very quickly. Hopefully that deck is still playable when pack 6 hits and Weyland puts a big ol’ crosshairs on every deck with God of War.

Miek

So many of the freedom support cards (Knobkierie, Friday Chip) have best support when used with Imp. However Imp + Freedom feels like overkill. Given that these Imp+Support combos have hardly been competitive, I feel like it’s quite likely that Freedom himself won’t be. I’m not quite sure I have the full breadth of understanding to make a meta call on this card, but for now I don’t think he quite cuts it.

Whiteblade111

Okay, let’s cut Freedom down to the actually good synergy cards. Knob, Friday chip and Imp are either too slow or overkill. Acacia is potentially good, but a rig build on virus counters doesn’t need a lot of money. This boils a Freedom deck down to the virus breakers, 2-3 copies of Trypano and some Virus Breeding Grounds. This theoretical rig breaks for cheap and sets up cheap, which is nice, but runs the risk of being locked out, or iced out when you can’t generate the counters you need. Trashing things is great, but I’m skeptical to how often trashing those things will win you the game. Whizzard was great because Friends in High Places, Sensie, Jackson and other must trash stuff was in the game, now asset spam is a tier 3 archetype at best, and CTM has been curbed in power level. In this meta, saving money on breaking ice is better than trashing. This brings me to my conclusion of why Freedom won’t be played widely: Val is still better. The conspiracy breaker suite + IHW and Inject is still busted good, and Mining Accident (while good in Freedom) is nuts in Val. The virus stuff is cute, but broken Anarch cards will rule the day instead.

dr00

Even with no support at all, being able to snipe Mumbad Virtual Tour, Exchange of Information, or Vanilla for free is really good. Being able to kill things like PAD Campaign for two virus tokens instead of four credits is also great. Being able to kill things without a trash cost at all is just amazing.

CritHitd20

An incredible ID. This requires one card to be competitive, and that card is Datasucker, which is conveniently a fantastic card without building around it. You can go deep on the ability if you want to, but often Datasucker will be enough, especially since so many playable cards have a low-rez to high-trash ratio. For non-asset matchups he is still great, as having any opportunity to trash untrashables is very cool, and a lot of situational operations that tend to stick in for a while hand cost 0. A disruptive ID that benefits from runs is a recipe for success; expect Freedom to be a sincere alternative to Valencia after a few months of players tinkering and reevaluating the correct breaker suite for this card. Also worth noting how good this card is with Trypano, Virus Breeding Ground, and the cycle of virus breakers.

Trypano

greyfield

Every day I say a little prayer of gratitude for Noise being gone. Notably, Trypano doesn’t require the target ice be rezzed, if you manage to guess quite correctly. Of course, the number of ways to maximize Trypano are much fewer – Knobkierie, Virus Breeding Ground, Incubator, Hivemind, Friday Chip, and Contaminate. None of those really fill me with much confidence. The real problem, though, is the game’s just gotten faster, and so if you aren’t abusing this, you’re not really doing anything with it. A weaker Parasite is still a Parasite and worth testing. It’s not you, Trypano, it’s us. We changed. B-.

Ion_Fox

I know that this card is probably too slow to work in this meta without adding narrow support cards, but I’m going to build a Hivemind deck anyway. More seriously though, with cards like Aumakua, Crypt and the Acacia/LLDS regulator combo, if Hivemind decks ever found a way to speed up, this could be something to watch out for.

Saan

This is a drastically weaker Parasite, but that’s completely fine. The card itself still seems powerful, especially since we’re getting another ice trashing card next pack, as well as the next card on the list in this pack.

Miek

Cue Jack’s sense of inner disappointment. Trypano is a replacement for Parasite that misses the two most important reasons why Parasite was good for the game. Trypano doesn’t help the fact that we have too many low strength ice without any real vulnerabilities to them. Trypano also doesn’t help act as a pseudo-gearcheck against all the ridiculous cheap ice that corps will try and rush too fast through. The fact that the ice is gone permanently was a parasite bonus but we have other ways to do that now and this card does not compete with them.

tvaduva

The Hivemind decks with Clone Chips and (possibly) Compile are going to be real annoying for those of us that like ice. We don’t have the same R&D finisher cards lost to rotation, so Corps will get more time to recover. Pack your CVS’.

Whiteblade111

Parasite was so strong that you very rarely needed a supporting apparatus to exploit its strength (maybe sometimes datasucker). This version is much weaker, but trashing ice is still strong. It slots into a potential freedom deck, using the click ability from virus breeding grounds to speed up Trypano selectively. If a freedom deck does hinge on the virus breaker suite, being able to blow up taxing ice that hurts your breakers is great. It does a good number on macrophage too. All and all I think Trypano will need to be played in more niche decks that exploit it, while Hippo will slot generally into Anarch builds.

dr00

Parasite was great and killing low-strength ice, instantly 0-strength ice like Vanilla and Pop-up Window. Trypano does not discriminate and kills all ice equally. In that sense, its best targets are high-cost, highly-taxing ice. But make no mistake, 5 virus counters is a huge ask, especially when the effect is now binary: the ice is either trashed or it’s not; no longer will we get a reduced strength effect as well.

CritHitd20

Do NOT mistake this for Parasite, it is notably worse. You’re going to have to invest in narrow cards to making Trypano work well (VBG looks like the best one), which makes this best as a card to deal with slow glacier decks rather than helping a Runner to contest with rush. Having said that, it is not a horrible card, it’s just so far separated from Parasite in what it is good at that I’d encourage to throw all conceptions about Trypano out the window and look at it as though Parasite didn’t exist. When you do that, I’d declare Trypano a build-around that is only good in specific metas for specific decks, and it is definitely not strong enough to encourage me to play it in current Anarch run-based strategies.

Inactivist

This wasn’t the Kakugo answer I was hoping for, and Kakugo accounted for 95% of the times I fervently wished Parasite still existed. Instead of something that limits the utility of cheap gearcheck ice we’ve instead got something for combolords and the eternally patient. You’re going to see a whole lot less of this than Parasite, but the times you do you’ll be sighing deeply.

Contaminate

greyfield

Refer to what I said above re: Trypano. Much as cards that require a certain number of virus counters to do anything aren’t typically world-beaters (except Aumakua), cards that dish out big amounts of counters (see the list above) don’t do that much, either. Definitely playing this on Aumakua seems much better than playing it on Trypano, but at a certain point, there are many, many better combos. RIP Medium. C.

Saan

I’m a little TBD on this one. If there ends up being a deck that functions off of virus counters, this might be great. If not, then I’m not sure this does much.

Miek

Seems really good with Medium, but since that’s not a card this is terrible.

tvaduva

Yelling “contaminate” doesn’t have same effect. But, the rest is very similar, except one more cost for one more virus counter and it’s better at recovering from a purge because it has the no counter requirement instead of at least one.

neuropantser

Contaminate-Chakana probably isn’t good, but it’s also probably something I’ll lose to on jnet.

dr00

3-strength Aumakua from click one after a purge seems like enough to justify the value of this card. With all the new Anarch tools that turn virus tokens into credits, this can easily replace Cache for most Anarchs who were using it for money.

CritHitd20

Very cool card with Medium, Nerve Agent, and Parasite. That sounds like a troll statement, but I genuinely am looking forward to trying Contaminate in snakedrafts as a powerful effect for decks that use their virus counters to win the game, especially since no one will ever draft this. In constructed play the strongest two uses are to accelerate Trypano or Aumakua, and neither of those are good enough that I would consider Contaminate. In general cards like these can’t make the cut in a deck; your cards should either be good effects in isolation or be so powerful with another card that you can define a meta with it.

Embezzle

CrushU

Good card, but not broken. Interesting in that you can’t name Agenda.

greyfield

Hmm. If you pick your moment right, this is huge (Corporate Defector asks why you don’t call), but it feels very much like one of those situations where you have to look past the best-case scenario to the more likely one, which is you trash one card you name, in certain situations, and turn a profit of 3 bucks. Which is… decent? Feels a lot like Forged Credentials; if anything, this card requires more work and has less likelihood of success, but the ceiling is higher, and someone’s gonna get blown out by it without warning. Maybe that’ll be you. C+.

Saan

Well, I guess I gotta start icing HQ against Criminals a pack ahead of where I thought I was going to need to. Much like many Crim cards, this is more powerful in the early game than the late game, and man can it really can be drastically powerful in the early game. In addition, there are a lot of Crim cards that work only if you’ve run HQ once this turn, and this card gives you a good reason to do so other than just turning on your other thing.

tvaduva

For those times when you keep hitting their undefended HQ and seeing the same Exchange of Information (or one of three), now you can get rid of it and get paid.

neuropantser

The best-case scenario, nuking 2 key pieces from the Corp’s hand and getting paid 8c to do so, is obviously nuts. Unless you have very solid knowledge of HQ, and even then pretty good luck most of the time, you won’t get the best-case scenario. If your deck really needs an answer to Red Planet Couriers or Exchange but can’t pay influence for Wanton Destruction, this may still be worth it in a pinch.

dr00

I think it’s no mistake that you cannot name agenda with this card. It seems perfect for those moments when the Corp has a sizeable remote, a well-defended R&D, and is just jamming agendas as soon as they’re drawn, leaving HQ free of any potential to score points. This is a great pressure tool in those situations, giving the Corp a reason to care about HQ even when it’s free of agendas. At the cost of a run on HQ, you get worst-case scenario of spending 1 additional credit just to see two cards. Best-case is you get to trash two cards and gain 7, but likely will fall somewhere between, seeing one card, trashing another, and gaining 3. I think if you’re doing well enough with your guesses that you hit 1-2 cards much more often than none, the math is in its favour. Also, the value of being able to snipe crucial combo pieces for the Corp can’t really be evaluated in a vacuum. Facing Titan? Name operation and hope to hit Dedication Ceremony. At worst, you’ll probably know if they have any Reconstruction Contracts on hand. That said, if you’re bad at guessing or just want some information, the value is not great here.

CritHitd20

Very very cool tech card. In particular I’m excited to port this into Sunny and use alongside White Hat as a means of disrupting FA/rush/traps. It will be hard to justify running this alongside/over Legwork, as it does nothing to agendas (you aren’t allowed to name them nor are you accessing them) and sees less cards than Legwork does. Having said that, if your main form of multiaccess is Turning Wheel this has positive synergy with that card and helps Criminal with some narrow matchups they struggle with, so it will be fun to try at the very least.

Slipstream

CrushU

Centrals only limits the effectiveness of this. I’m not convinced it’s very good, though it can potentially have blowout situations, I suppose.

greyfield

That’s fun, except for the parts about “rezzed piece of ice” and “central server,” which just make me sad. I guess you could come up with some funky way to pair this up with Apocalypse? It’s no Copycat, and while I can admit I’ve lost at least one game in my life to Copycat, Copycat was never exactly a world-beater. D.

Ion_Fox

I was initially pretty excited about this since running archives or a weak remote then suddenly unloading a stacked turning wheel into HQ or R&D seemed like a solid play. Then I realised that the Corp could just choose to not rez, and that you still approach the new ice too rather than pass it. I will probably still mess around with it though, the art is pretty :3

Saan

This seemed like a way to get the Corp to try and rez more ice than they felt comfortable with, but it just doesn’t work out that way in practice.

Miek

I did some maths on this thing and it doesn’t work out pretty. The comparison card is Inside Job, so what we want is for this card to give us more value than Inside Job. For this to be true, we need a “vulnerable” server and a “strong” server. The vulnerable server has to have at least one ice (rezzed preferably), now let’s look at how strong the strong server has to be for this to give us value. First we have to break the vulnerable server’s one ice, then we have to break the ice in the same position on the strong server (inner-most). So if the strong server is only 2 ice deep, then you’re breaking just as many ice to get in, and the value is fully conditional on the relative strengths of the ice. If the strong server is 3 ice deep, then you’re saving one ice of value, so you’ve got an Inside Job. To get better value than Inside Job, you have to have 4 ice on the server! How often does that happen? Pretty much only in Jinja decks, which are hardly a meta defining deck right now. To make matters worse, Inside Job isn’t even that great as a “value” card, but is rather an early game aggression tool to allow the Runner to get into servers without any real breakers out. Slipstream is just bad.

CritHitd20

Thank you for doing the hard explaining for me, Miek. Slipstream is awful and is not worth considering in any deck ever. It is very disappointing that Criminals got so many duds this cycle, and Slipstream may be the worst of them.

Laamb

CrushU

Expensive, but very safe breaker. Might see an Opus+Laamb+Surfer deck doing things like Kit was with Opus+Inversificator, though obviously not as bonkers. Of note is that it breaks any ice provided you have the money, which used to be an AI (and Kit) thing.

greyfield

Boy that’s expensive as hell. It admittedly allows you to break almost any standard piece of ice in the game for the low, low price of, er, 7 credits, so it may get played by certain Opus Kit players, to the extent they still exist. I highly doubt it’s playable with Inversificator since that deck already has an exceptionally expensive icebreaker. Some weirdo will play it in a Quetzal deck. Everyone else can pretty safely move on. Classic extremely-niche card. C.

Ion_Fox

Some people will play this to deal with Endless EULA and other multisub nonsense, and be sad when the Corp rezzes a Wall of Static. Some people will make awesome janky Surfer decks with this. I am one of those people. But hey, at least with I have a reason to play Chaos Theory again and have my Opus/Laamb/Surfer rig without needing a console.

Saan

If you have infinite money, this seems like a sick card, especially in conjunction with Gebrselassie above. Boy is it expensive, though. 2 MU, 4 credits to install, 2 credits to break, a bajillion to pump… It’s even more of a shame that it’s in one of the poorest factions at the moment.

tvaduva

Multithreader, Cyberfeeder, Cyberdelia, Gebrselassie, etc. and this might have been an interesting rig, but it’s only once per turn. So, you’ll need something like Surfer to get past more than one non-barrier.

dr00

This is a great fracter with a built-in once-per-turn Tinkering/Egret to help you use one breaker to get where you need to go. 3 to boost 6 is a good ratio, but spending a minimum of 3 is quite expensive, especially for any 3-4 strength ice. It also doesn’t synergise as well as Engolo does with Kit. Both costing 2 MU, I doubt you’ll see both in the same rig. Still, it could be a decent option for Shapers who want to save influence, but Inti and Lady seem to be doing really well in the current meta.

CritHitd20

Super cool art and super disappointing costs to use. In general barriers aren’t great right now, and the only ones I’d be thrilled to break with Laamb are Endless EULA and Ashigaru. That is not enough for me to choose it when it is 5 to break Wall of Static and Shapers have the fantastic in-faction options of Inti, Lady, or one of their various AIs. In terms of using Laamb as a pseudo-AI with its on-encounter ability, I’d wait a pack to use Engolo, which actually has stupid-good numbers as both a general decoder and an AI replacement.

Gebrselassie

CrushU

Wait, end of the turn? This looks like a Stealth card to me. With it, you can actually play Indexing.

greyfield

Agreed that the Indexing interaction is pretty good. Disagree that it’s best with Stealth, because I feel like either the Stealth deck is swimming in credits via Net Mercur or it’s falling apart with or without Lassie. So I’m not sure what home this card would have. Not to mention that, aside from Indexing and Apocalypse, there aren’t a ton of decks that care deeply about making multiple runs per turn. Though someone’ll probably make some deck that piles up a bunch of these and Cyberdelias and Equivocation and zzzzzz. C+.

Miek

Seems like it is particularly good on pseudo-AI breakers like Inversificator. Thank goodness that thing is restricted.

tvaduva

The end of turn strength increase is nice for decks that want to make a lot of runs some turns (like all three central servers). Could also revive the Gingerbread + Panchatantra decks. It’s nice that it doesn’t have the same install order problem of other Mod cards, but at the cost of a click, and can be moved around.

CritHitd20

I think I’d only examine this as a complete build-around, but the notion of using this alongside Inversificator or the upcoming Engolo in Kit is quite attractive. This looks primed to succeed in ways that System Seizure could only dream of as it is almost impossible to punish, and it is flexible if you somehow find a niche scenario where you need to use it alongside Na’Not’K for a turn instead, for instance. It’s a bit much to say the card is good at the moment, but don’t completely ignore it and especially don’t forget that the icebreaker retains its strength for the whole turn, not the whole run.

Kelfecil



Centrals pressure extraordinaire. You can Equivocation away a server with ice that has high strength – low amount of subs for just a few credits. It is also very cheap so it might actually see play in something like a Smoke deck. I do actually also like the fact that it is giving us a new spin on “hosted” mechanics, since you can install this before you get any of your breakers down. I don’t know why you would want that, since the Corp will just ice up servers with different types of ice, but nonetheless, it’s a nice way to get past things more than once, especially for stealth breakers. You could even make your Notoriety runs much easier. Only drawback is that it is unique, so I would probably do a maximum of 1 in a 40-card Shaper deck.

Compile

CrushU

Compile Femme. That’s all. There’s some other shenanigans to be had with this card, but at least it’s an Event. As long as you’re only using SMC for Icebreakers, this is probably better. One caveat is that a Corp can theoretically make this thing do nothing if they just refuse to rez ice.

greyfield

I have to believe the Femme Fatale combo doesn’t work the way you want it to, since you’ve already encountered the piece of ice. That said, it does feel like Shapers’ twisted answer to Inside Job. So if you’re in a situation where an Inside Job would be good, this card would be good. On the other hand, the only people who seem to play Inside Job anymore are people in SSO-saturated metas and sadists who play it with DDoS and Apocalypse and other mean things, and this card does those jobs worse. Again, I struggle to imagine a deck that wants this card and is good. C.

Ion_Fox

I am reasonably sure that there will be some bonkers Shaper way to abuse this, but I probably won’t be the one to find it. There probably are some Shapers who aren’t called Kabonesa Wu who probably want a couple extra Self-Modifying Codes though, so this will probably see some play. It does look really fun though, especially if you play it out of Hayley for all the installs. All of them.

Saan

This has obvious Hayley synergy, and might also be good in Pirate Hayley in order to get a Grappling Hook when needed, or quickly grab a real breaker before consigning it back to your deck.

tvaduva

This is a cheaper, faster Test Run, but you have to use Window.

neuropantser

Great for my “how many times can I use D4v1d counters?” tribal deck.

dr00

Way better than Diana’s Hunt.

CritHitd20

I would be excited to examine Compile in Shaper Apocalpyse decks, as it both saves you a lot of money by not having to fully invest in programs early-game or being able to recur trashed programs that you have sold to Aesop late-game. It has positive synergy with D4V1D, Grappling Hook, Self-Modifying Code, and others outside of that scenario, so I think Compile is worth examining even if all of its uses are fairly fringe.

Kelfecil

Cheaper, better, more efficient Test Run. You could pretty much threaten all sorts of servers with all sorts of tricks, considering the fact that you can bring any program whenever you encounter a piece of ice. So, you could potentially already have a Decoder but get an Equivocation while running on R&D and encountering an Enigma. This gives speed that is much better than SMC in some ways in my opinion because it does not take any MU and it doesn’t take a click to install either. SMC + Compile would be extreme, but would potentially give you answers to everything if you have the credits for it.

Logic Bomb

CrushU

With the limited Adam play that I have, I’m not sure this is good. It is a targeted Inside Job, so that’s pretty strong at least. Still, because of the 5 inf, this looks like an Adam-only card. (Maybe Geist?)

greyfield

Now even the bioroids get to be pirates! All kidding aside, this card seems great. The real question is, would you rather have access to this card, or be Geist or Hayley? I suspect the latter two have too many natural advances to make Logic Bomb enough to bring Adam back to par. But if you’re still riding-or-dying on Adam, you’ll happily play this. B-.

Ion_Fox

This probably won’t see play outside of Adam (but then Ayla had 3x Creativity so what do I know). However, if you’re a go-getting, run-happy bioroid, then this is an easy include. It’s pretty good if you view it as a non-unique targeted bypass you can stack turns ahead before you need it, but it gets even better if you view it from an economic standpoint. For example, using this on a DNA Tracker instead of Black Orchestra. Disregarding orchestra’s install cost, you just saved 9 credits. That’s a whole stimhack of value right there, with no brain damage. Scary.

Saan

There are two truths in life: the sun will rise tomorrow, and Adam WILL get his accesses. This honestly seems good enough to maybe see play outside of the little Bioroid, especially if we eventually get another card that can recur resources again.

miek

This card is really good. It seems Adam has gotten the best minifaction cards by far this cycle. Popular Adam decks right now usually include 2 copies of ABR, however I would argue that its rare that you actually use the ABR more than 2x a game. On top of that, the multi-sub hell we’re in now makes ABR even worse. I think you can easily just straight swap 2x ABR in every adam list for 2x Logic Bomb and you’re better off 99% of the time.

tvaduva

The extra click cost to install ahead of the run over similar cards like Inside Job and Spear Phishing will be annoying at times, but the flexibility to choose the ice and combine with other powerful run effects will more than make us for it.

dr00

Like Emergent Creativity, this card pulls multi-duty by synergising so well with many parts of Adam’s toolkit. With Always Be Running takes your first click to run and 2 more clicks to break anything, but doesn’t help you too much if you encounter multi-sub ice.. Logic Bomb can step in and help fill in the gaps. Even if you have to give up 3 clicks, if you break 3 subs with it, LB essentially turned that ice into a bioroid. But it also really helps Safety First being a cheap (free) card to install in the early game to help turn on your in-faction draw.

CritHitd20

Likely the strongest card in the pack, this opens up so much possibility for Adam decks of all flavors. It’s a 0 cost Grappling Hook + Kongomato that costs no influence, with no downside if you’re considerate towards the consequence on runs. I don’t think you need to invest in Pirate tech for Logic Bomb to be good, and I think that it is strong enough to be considered in Apex and Sunny, who struggle at early interaction and are more capable of porting this tool than normal runners.

Jackpot!

Inactivist



Jackpot!

CrushU

This looks bad. Slow and only pays out once when you nab an Agenda…? There’s some amusing play to be had with, say, Notoriety, Fan Site, or Film Critic, but the effect seems mediocre.

greyfield

I’ll be interested to see what the ruling is on whether cards like Fan Site can trigger this (my hunch from the text is Film Critic does, but the non-agenda “agendas” don’t). Waiting ten turns to cash this in feels like a classic win-more situation. Possible niche utility in Hayley decks if Aesop’s ever comes off the MWL, but I’m not holding my breath. C-.

Ion_Fox

Ok this could just be because I have spent way too much time playing as Iain/Sunny, but I kinda like this card a fair bit, partially since it it synergises with cards such as Film Critic and Fan Site. I understand this is pretty optimistic, but ideally you could stack a couple of these and then cash them in on some sort of deep dig or random snipe, which would also likely push you out of punitive or Hard Hitting range. That is also the true face of a fully set up drip runner, and no joy can compare.

Saan

Iain Stirling, your time is nigh!

Inactivist



Jackpot!

Miek

This seems fine. Unlike other bad drip econ cards (UWC, Data Folding, or worst of all Cyberdelia) there are no requirements to gain the money here and the tempo cost is just a click and a card.

tvaduva

This card joins the illustrious interjection club of Snare!, BOOM!, and, um, It’s a Trap! (RIP Eureka! and Shock!)

dr00

When this card was first spoiled, I predicted the text for it almost exactly. The one part I missed was the last sentence that says you trash it once you take any amount of credits off of it. This to me makes the card a lot worse. It’s a cheaper-to-install Underworld Contacts or Data Folding, but only pays out once and doesn’t pay at all until you manage to steal an agenda and decide the amount of credits on it is worth trashing it. The opportunity cost is really low, but I’m not sure about this one.

CritHitd20

My favorite part of the Kitara cycle is how creative and powerful all this neutral economy is, and Jackpot! continues that trend. It is notably much less powerful than the Corp options of Rashida and NGO Front in that there are plenty of decks that would not consider this card at all, but there are enough strategies that benefit from this card that I would immediately grade this as a competitive option. It is best in opportunistic and aggressive runners like Mining Accident Valencia and Aesops Hayley that use Stimhack to contest remotes but might not be able to check said remote every single turn; Jackpot! allows you to help pay for the next check. I’d say that 4 is the number of credits I’d need off the card to be very happy with my investment, which certainly seems doable; if I were to earn less I would just decline to take credits from the steal and wait for the next agenda. Of note this has extremely positive synergy with Film Critic, and if it works alongside fake agendas like Fan Site/Notoriety its stock rises even further.

Inactivist



Jackpot!

That’s it from us for this round. Either wait 5 turns or until tomorrow for the Corp half of our predictions, whichever’s longer (RIP Parasite).