Welcome, one and all to our very first Spoiler Weekend! This week, we have some sneaky previews into NISEI-1 courtesy of our very own Lead Designer, @crithitd20. Greg has been wanting to drop some juicy chunks of content on you for a while, and now with the set officially handed over to the Development team for refining into delicious nuggets of fun it seemed like the ideal time.

And with the intro done it’s over to you Greg, live from the Design Studio!

Hello hackers! I’m extremely proud to formally announce that NISEI’s first cycle of cards has finished the design process! It has been a tremendous experience working with my team of Jacob Morris (@Jakodrako), McGregor Crowley (@ArcV2), and Max Chippington Derrick (@Quarg) to create content for Netrunner that I’m genuinely excited for. At this point the set is fully in the hands of David Withington (@divadus) and his team of developers, and soon I’ll know how many Fausts and Bloo Mooses I’ve accidentally made. While you and I collectively wait for the results, I wanted to share a preview of what’s to come. As much as I want to I can’t give you my exact cards, nothing I’ve made is guaranteed to live through development in terms of numbers. With that said, mechanics are pretty much locked in, and I thought I could give some broad strokes of some of the cards you’re going to see in a few months. Holly (@BreakOneBarrier/@ArcCollie) even gave the sign-offs on some of the names for me, although they might also change in the future to match the fiction being written.

HB:

HB is a fresh take on the concept of efficiency through a series of extremely powerful tools. Cards like Offshore Warehouse give the corp powerful offensive and defensive tools through their activated abilities, which cost the corp clicks but offer the opportunity to assemble uniquely challenging board states. If you’re clever with how you choose to spend your clicks between the basic action card, value Biotics, and these new assets/upgrades, you can develop a commanding vertical or horizontal presence. You may want to use these cards to help score some of HB’s exciting new agendas. One of them you may want to score early is Architect’s Oversight, an homage to two of HB’s most powerful rotated cards, and arguably the most powerful 4/2 agenda HB has ever received.

Shaper:

In this cycle, Shaper is all about creativity. From the outset you’ll be asked to reimagine how you play the faction, and you’ll be rewarded for being a pioneer and an engineer. Nothing captures the essence of this mindset better than our new runner’s console, Supercorridor, a card that turns the game on its head, demanding that you synchronize yourself with the corp in order to gain some major advantages. We also want players to be inspired and challenge themselves through reconsidering the role of utility programs. One of them, Gauss, is an icebreaker whose functionality is far more potent the turn it is installed. You could attempt to install Gauss repeatedly with existing cards like Scavenge or Uninstall, or you could use some newer tools…

Jinteki:

My early memories of playing against Jinteki involves many memories of dying to a devious trap, whether it was a Project Junebug disguised as the winning agenda or a Snare! during an overconfident multiaccess run. My favorite card Jinteki gains this cycle is Sting!, the newest addition to Personal Evolution’s bag of painful tricks. The first Sting! isn’t too painful for the runner, but as the game goes on their tolerance to this trap wears, until it becomes a truly lethal threat. Of course, there’s only so many threats that you can include in a deck...or is there? Jinteki’s cloning extends beyond their workforce and into their defenses, with cards like the versatile Kimon Konjin turning itself into the rezzed ice you need it to be for the encounter. What will you do when given the tools to represent more than three of a card through these powerful cloning effects?

Criminal:

I’ve felt that Criminal’s main hook is their targeted tools to attack a threat with startling precision, and they get some phenomenal tools to counteract developing cybersecurity threats. With your Lucky Charm by your side, you have a one-shot chance to keep the run alive, be it through an early “end the run” subroutine or a much more powerful “end the run” effect like a Nisei Mk 2 or a trashed Border Control! Of course, sometimes the corp will be clever with their defenses and end the run with another effect, which is why you Always Have a Backup Plan. This run event doesn’t care what ice causes the run to end as long as you didn’t jack out, and immediately gives you a second chance to get through that server… only this time, the odds are in your favor!

NBN:

Our NBN cards are a celebration of games and gaming culture, and why not? NBN would love video games; they’re an incredibly effective means of acquiring consumer data while simultaneously bombarding the runner with targeted advertisements and microtransactions. Ice like Congratulations! may make the runner feel like they’ve been given a reward, but these distractions may all be part of the corp’s plan to come ahead in the long run. And while it may look like fun and games, a well-timed Relay Beaconing will leave the runner tagged and in danger of an untimely Game Over.

Anarch:

Of all the factions to be affected by future rotation, Anarch will likely be hit the hardest, losing some incredible cards like Inject, D4V1D, and DDoS. That doesn’t mean that the corp isn’t in Real and Immediate Danger, as this new, telegraphed threat will either set the corp heavily behind or force them to gamble on losing far more than they bargained for. Of course, you’ll need to provide a credible offense quickly if you want your threats to be more than empty words, and gambling on the trashable Gachapon could provide you with exactly the tool you need at instant speed with a discount. Feeling lucky?

Weyland:

While everyone else appears to be flourishing on the offensive, Weyland’s narrative is one of chaotic recovery, as they struggle to handle the aftermath of this cycle’s story. The Beanstalk Repair Team will frantically attempt to restore not only Weyland’s economy, but also their reputation. In order to protect them against an extremely aggressive runner, you may need to take some extreme measures. Slee’s Lockdown Procedure is a particularly violent means of reactionary measures to the runner’s attacks, and will force your opponent to consider every run for the next turn with extreme caution, or risk a devastating attack from your elite response team.

So there you are! 14 cryptic hints as to the mechanical identities of the next set. There is a LOT left to share and discover, from the incredible IDs, to the defensive upgrades and operations, to the new mechanics, and the amazing story beats courtesy of our creative team. We also have a select few reinterpretations of cards originally posted on my Twitter! And speaking of, this week I am reopening my daily design prompts with some further hints; the prompts you see directly relate in some way to cards or mechanics you’ll find this cycle; maybe someone will design something close to what you’ll see when our set drops! As a thanks to those who participated in the daily designs, those whose cards will be in the final product will have their online handle snuck into either the title of the card or the flavor text, so look forward to that small form of immortalization.

Wow, thanks for the scoops! More traps for my beloved Jinteki? More Shaper goodies for me to pull off shenanigans with? This hype-hungry newshound can’t bloody wait :D And a bonus reward for people who submit a selected suggestion on twitter? Praise Jackson, what a glorious day!

Other Business

The Eternal Tournament is tomorrow (1st of December 2018, for all you Future People), with the Swiss starting at 3pm GMT on Jinteki.net and then the top cut will run on the 2nd and we’ve got all sorts of fabulous prices including a set of the Magnum Opus cards, assorted alt-arts from different points in competitive history and the top prize is to work with the Design Team on something new... all errata and the Eternal MWL is in effect, if you want in, please sign up here . And if you’re not sure what’s in Eternal, check our Format Guide. The swiss is going to be streamed by Trace 5 on Saturday, and on Sunday Metropole Grid will cover all your top cut needs.

We’re always looking to grow our translation team… if you speak multiple languages and are able to volunteer some time for this, we would love to hear from you via this form and we’re always looking for playtesters, just fill in this survey and we’ll be in touch with you soon.

And lastly our dedicated and wonderful Web Development team updated NRDB this afternoon with the System Core 2019 cards, so crack on with your deck building!

Well that’s all for today (all he says, as if dropping 14 big spoilers in one article is an everyday occurrence) so join us next week for our Community Champion article and until then…