We’re finally at the end of the Kitara cycle. Will Netrunner continue with the traditional last pack power spike? Only time will tell (yes, it definitely is). Because this pack is awesome, I’m going to put in quite a few different theorycrafts without individual writeups for each.

Zer0: This card is so cool. The popularity of MaxX, Stimhack and Inject should tell you that Anarchs don’t really mind throwing their cards in the bin and often prefer it. Discarding your Paperclip , drawing a card and gaining a credit is very very powerful and it’s not hard to shape your hand so that happens. Hitting IHW and drawing 5 is…mental. This is a huge power boost for Clan Vengeance decks which I’ve long maintained are way better than people think as well as potentially being good enough for reg Anarch. I’m not going to lie – this is the single card I’m most excited about this cycle.

Musaazi: Yeah? Yusuf is reasonably playable in Freedom but the numbers on this are pretty significantly worse, the difference between 1 and 3 base strength is not trivial. Maybe if you have this and Yusuf together you’ll have enough counters, but then you’re on 4 mem with no code gate breaker. Give it a try I guess.

Hippo: We now know that combining all cutlery together does not in fact give you a sporknife but rather an Alexa named after the deadliest non-human African animal. This is powerful, but it’s also fairly easy to play around Corp side and can’t be recurred. It’s not Parasite, is what I’m saying. Still worth putting this in your decks and blowing up some dumb Anansis or Kakugos though.

Amina: Breaking essentially every code gate in the game for 4 credits is serious bizness. It breaks Tollbooth for 7 though, which is historically bad. It also costs a ton to install but maybe you’re playing a super greedy Credit Kiting deck? Making the Corp lose 1cr adds up fast too. Potential.

Diversion of Funds: SIPHON BEK. except NOT. That said, it’s closer to Siphon than Trypano is to Parasite. Key differences:

9 credit swing instead of 15

Gain 4 instead of 10. This is crucial because your first Siphon could be used to fund the next one, which was pretty damn important in dedicated Siphon spam decks

No tags. Good for reg decks while not enabling tagme stuff like Counter Surveillance. I for one am pretty happy not to experience Siphon funding a mega R&D dig again.

As a double event, it’s less good for threatening HQ before you run the remote.

Also as a double, you get more value if you Shadow Net it

5 influence which is a pretty huge difference from 4 actually

Since we’re going to see this everywhere, I made a deck for every faction to celebrate (disclaimer, I didn’t make the 419 but Eric (a core Sneakdoor boi) did)!

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PAD Tap: Unsure about this one. It gets crazy value from Palana and Azmari who almost always make credits on both players’ turns, but maybe it’s better to just play Strike and stop them getting money in the first place? It’s apparently strong enough that the Corp needs a way to turn it off, so that makes it worth looking at. Still better drip than Data Folding. If you’re leaning really hard into denial strategies, it becomes very hard for the Corp to trash this in which case you start getting extremely solid value.

Reclaim: Good evidence for the “Creation and Control is rotating” theory. The question is: which hardware, programs or virtual resources are good enough to abuse this with? The pirate “breakers” come to mind, and maybe Clot or Tapwrm? DDoS is a virtual resource too and that’s a hell of a card.

Engolo: First of all, I appreciate the art on this card. I know Laamb is theoretically robot wrestling, but all I can see is robot sexy time. Engolo is just unambiguously kicking the shit out of some ICE and that’s a wonderful thing. In terms of breaking stuff, it’s solid against big boys like FC3, DNA Tracker and Tollbooth and not terrible against smaller code gates with the exception of Hortum. This is probably the best combo yet for Gebreselassie (not looking up if that’s spelled wrong), letting you bust any 2 ice server with ease in Kit. Mopus, Engolo, Gebreselallsieisesies, Maker’s Eye, Legwork = profit?

Flame-Out: More like Stimhack…out. Sick combo with Laamb or Engolo, especially if you’ve got some Sacrificial Constructs, Scavenges or Brahmans handy. Does not work with SMC, in that you can’t pay the install cost of the program (but you CAN host that program,use the Flame-Out credits and have that program get trashed). Messing with run maths is always good.

Black Hat: This is a good Sunny card that frees up lots of influence, which you can then spend on actually interesting cards.

Kasi String: Pretty cool asset spam counter but my lord it’s slow. 1 point is not a lot of points, but sometimes it’s all you need, I guess? Probably way too slow.

NEXT Diamond: Strength 6 sentries are a massive pain for MKUltra (not to mention everything else) and a 3 subroutine one even more so. Rezzing it is extremely non-trivial, but HB did just get a great tool for this kind of thing in Remote Enforcement. Currently the most expensive ICE you’re likely to see is 8 credits in the rich factions (which HB kind of isn’t anymore) and maybe a Chiyashi if you’re lucky. Maybe the subs and strength are good enough to make this a one of.

Riot Suppression: Could we finally be reaching a critical mass of brain damage effects? Let’s find out. Credit to Angedelo for this one, I just put some other stuff in.

Mti Mwekundu: Oh man. This is a ridiculously potent asset spam ID. Could also just be rewritten as “play Employee Strike or get dunked on”. If it’s the first piece of ICE in the server you can’t jack out, which means stuff like Architect or Cortex Lock become absolutely huge. Unless you have Strike or DDoS active, nowhere is safe. This obviously gives huge value against powerful run events like Indexing or Diversion of Funds and can also just slam you with a disgusting facecheck any time you have the temerity to check a remote. Plenty of people are working on breaking this ID. It’s pretty decent in glacier too, just thanks to saving on install costs. What I’m getting at is prepare to see this ID a LOT. I tried to make a deck for this but am honestly terrible at making asset spam decks so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Mlinzi: This occupies a very similar role to Anansi, with the bonus that it can make the Runner lose a chunk of their stack if they don’t want to die. I expect this to see some play but imo it’s not as strong as Anansi and will fade away pretty quickly.

Better Citizen Program: It’s a fairly strong effect but I can’t imagine how you’d find a slot for it. If you’re going for tags, there are better ways to do it.

Market Forces: I guess someone didn’t get the memo that Closed Accounts is still in Core 2? It’s cool but…just play Closed Accounts!

Surveyor: I think this is pretty powerful taxing ice. With 2 ice on the server it’s already strength 4 with two 4 strength traces which is pretty rough for a lot of commonly played killers. Any more than that and you’re feeling pretty good about things. Good to see Weyland get some solidly taxing, non barrier ice for a change.

High-Profile Target: Now we’re talking. This is the closest replacement for a rotated Core 1 card that we’ve seen yet. You can’t SEA – HPT – HPT someone to death (most of the time) but this is going to be something you need to play around. It’s also much better than BOOM! early game – for example, if your opening hand is HHN – Econ Warfare – HPT there’s a really good chance you’ll kill them turn 2. Bonus points for absolutely nuking Counter Surveillance decks out of existence – if you expect any amount of Weyland at your next tournament, bringing CS seems like almost a guaranteed loss. I think you could start testing this as a straight swap for BOOM!. For example, the deck below is the excellent Lobstermodernism with HPT creatively swapped in for BOOM!

False Flag: This is a classic Weyland Johnny card in the vein of Government Takeover. The only issue is that if you run it when it’s IAA, which is probably what you’re going to do, you get a whole 1 tag. Which is not a big deal at all. Then for the low low cost of 8 clicks and 9 credits you can have 3 points! Admittedly 3 points that the Runner can’t touch is huge, but let’s be real – this is never going off.

This pack is going to be a huge deal. I expect the meta is going to move around a ton, and it’s very exciting! Overall I’m really enjoying the direction the Kitara cycle has taken and the game has been consistently extremely fun since rotation. Boggsrunner forever. Thanks for reading, keep an eye out for the KITARA AWARDS soon!