Hurrah! our trusty Inside Man Snow-Jax has once again provided a list of text spoilers for first contact, the upcoming data pack. I’ve decided to skip reviewing The Spaces Between since it’s a bit late and, honestly, the pack was not terribly exciting to me, while I feel like First Contact is a phenomenal pack, almost all the factions getting exceptional cards. But first i’m going to copy paste a bit of the Spaces Between review I was working on to explain why I ditched it:

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A brief editorial on Currents:

I’m not a huge fan of currents. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a game designer of sorts and I study game mechanics pretty closely. Currents are one that I don’t think was thought through. Their purpose seems to be to dilute decks of power cards, but the way this has been implemented is not great.

A major goal in any game like this is to make people want to play their cards. When you put something on the board or rez it it should feel really good. Like, BAM Adonis Campaign, now you gotta deal with this. WHAM Eli 1.0, what you got brother? SLAM Magnum Opus, guess my kids are getting through college, eh? The current (heh) crop of Currents don’t do that, in fact, I would go so far as to say they can’t. If Currents had genuinely powerful effects, they would introduce far too much variance and a totally new element of probability play to a game that already teeters on the verge of frustrating due to those elements already existing. So, they have to have very muted effects. This makes them fundamentally unexciting to play in contrast with other cards. Still, if there is but one current that is good enough that it needs to be dealt with,, players are going to have to include counter-currents in their decks, even though they would far prefer other cards. This means players are going to be including cards that are fundamentally unappealing compared to other options, rather than necessary because they are very good at solving a unique problem in a special way, or just great versatile tools that are the best way to make your deck do what it wants to do.

As a result I’m not particularly excited about Spaces Between. I don’t think it’ll ruin the game or anything so melodramatic, but I also think that currents feel like something the players are being force fed and aren’t that excited about. It feels like a pretty hamfisted way of going about things and I’m not super keen to see fifteen or so card slots over the cycle going to cards that just feel meh, where in other areas the game is going from strength to strength.

Right, enough whinging, back to your regularly scheduled analysis

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41: “IQ” (HB ICE [Code Gate], 2 inf). Cost X, Strength X.

X is equal to the number of cards in HQ.

->End the run.

Ok, so first things first: what HB didn’t need is more code gates. It feels like a shoutout to Cerebral Imaging, but CI is going to have to be incredibly careful playing this and, frankly, I’m not even sure a strength 10 or so codegate with just an end the run subroutine is going to be worth playing. Femme Fatale exists and in doing so puts a fairly hard limit on the value of 1 subroutine big ICE.

That said, I can already see some ways of getting the benefits of this without the cost. In a late game CI deck you can biotic labor (or efficiency committee) to put down a safe Eliza’s Toolbox (see below) and rez this, skipping the annoying rez cost and getting the huge strength. How reliable that strategy is overall I can’t say, but while I think this card isn’t super hot at a basic level, its jank potential is very high.

Power: 4/10

Impact: 4/10

X factor: 9/10

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42: “♦ Eliza’s Toybox” (HB Asset [Ritzy], 2 inf). Cost 2, trash 4.

[Click],[Click],[Click]: Rez a card, ignoring all costs.

And here’s the Eliza’s Toybox mentioned… boy is this a good one. Like, monstrously good. Originally it was spoiled at cost 4, but apparently it’s gone down to 2. This is yet another ‘must trash’ card, a HB sansan if you will, and it’s also very much a build around me card

I could go on about all the different permutations you could use with this card, rushing it out behind safe ICE, click manipulation with efficiency committee, recursion taxing with interns and archived memories. It’s very strong, it will see play and you’re going to have to be prepared for it.

Power: 8/10

Impact: 8/10

X factor: 10/10

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43: “Kitsune” (Jinteki ICE[Mythic-Trap], 2 inf). Cost 2, strength 3.

->The Corp may choose a card in HQ. The Runner accesses that card. If she does, trash Kitsune.

Hmm, a new trap for the Jinteki. It’s solid, but unfortunately I don’t feel like it can do enough work to be worth including in any but the most consistently nasty Jinteki deck. Currently the only card I feel like it would be worth triggering this for is a Snare, so you need to have both this and a Snare on tap, have the runner hit it, pay an extra 2 credits and very probably an install cost for the ICE too. If it didn’t trash itself it would be a different story. It does also provide a pretty reliable way of triggering Shi-kyu if it’s a core part of your strategy as in Harmony Medtech all three-pointer decks, so in a meta of players who are very good at dodging that card, you may want to try this as an alternative way of landing it.

What this card really does is make me eager to see what sort of things are coming up that would make it truly frightening- we’ve seen a lot of cards like this appear and seem a little underwhelming, only to come into their own after a few packs.

Power: 6/10

Impact: 2/10

X factor: 7/10

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44: “Port Anson Grid” (Jinteki Upgrade[Region], 2 inf). Cost 2, trash 5.

The Runner cannot jack out while running on this server unless she trashes 1 installed program.

Limit 1 region per server.

So in some senses this card is pretty OK, in others it’s just plain bad. The former is in the case of the facechecker type decks that want to plant into your neural katanas just to force you to rez them. Often they do this without any programs installed to make rezzing a destroyer a bad prospect, but with Anson grid up, this means you could force them to run into a Snare (or perhaps a Kitsune and show them a Snare, now I come to think of it…)

Unfortunately, runners more often run safe in the knowledge that they can deal with whatever you’ve got there, in which case Anson Grid is just dead weight, they don’t even need to trash it. I think where this card becomes really good is if we see a couple of more R&D traps for jinteki. I’ve played a couple of games with Shiro recently and the controlled-yet-random factor that adds to damage suffered during a run could make Anson an interesting threat. Still, the fact that a runner usually has a few options and often they’ll be pretty safe ones, trashing a used up imp or cache for example, make this card less than stellar.

Power: 4/10

Impact: 1/10

X factor: 6/10

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45: “The News Now Hour” (NBN Asset[Cast], 3 inf). Cost 0, trash 4.

The Runner cannot play current events.

But I wasn’t going to play them anyway? Ok, so this makes your Targeted Marketing and Manhunt stick around a bit longer. At three influence I’m hard pressed to see anyone playing this outside NBN. In a Near Earth Hub tempo deck, it draws you a card as well and doesn’t cost anything to activate so it’s a reasonable effect if for some reason you’re terrified of… unscheduled maintenance? The best that can be said of this card is it doesn’t clog up your hand, there’s no reason not to just play it right away.

As I mention above, the problem with currents is that they are both fairly weak and temporary. Dedicating additional deck slots to make them slightly less temporary is not going to result in the overall power level of your deck rising by much at all. You’ll almost always look at the deck and replace this with a more reliable role-player on the second pass.

Power: 2/10

Impact: 1/10

X factor: 2/10

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46: “Manhunt” (NBN Operation[Current], 3 inf). Cost 3.

This card is not trashed until another current is played or an agenda is stolen.

The first time the runner makes a successful run each turn, trace(2). If successful, give the Runner 1 tag.

This card is a perfect example of why currents aren’t really doing it for me. For it to trigger, the runner needs to run successfully, which means there’s a chance of them scoring and turning this off immediately. You get weak trace that tags the runner, something they’re probably prepared for already. This costs you three whole credits. Compare this to SEA source, where you can get the tag on your turn, is cheaper, has a stronger trace and the same pre-requisite to actually do anything (a successful run)

It doesn’t even disincentivise multiple runs, since it only triggers once per turn- in fact it encourages the runner to back up every other turn and prep, then spend a whole turn running so they only have to deal with this once. I’m sure if you tried hard enough you could work things together in such a way that you can play this to your advantage, but frankly if I want to tag someone off a trace I’m just going to play Midseason Replacements or SEA Source, thanks.

Power: 5/10

Impact: 3/10

X factor: 7/10

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47: “Wendigo” (Weyland ICE[Code Gate,Morph], 2 inf). Cost 2, strength 4.

Wendigo can be advanced.

While Wendigo has an odd number of advancement tokens on it, it gains barrier and loses code gate.

-> Choose a program. The Runner cannot use the chosen program for the remainder of the run.

Now this is some good ICE. In fact, I think it’s the best of the three ‘Morph’ ICE we’ve seen so far (the other two are Changeling and Lycan) and a long needed solid Weyland Codegate. Wendigo acts like Chum or Inazuma, though it fits Weyland’s ‘end the run’ focused ICE strategy more than the other two. I’d certainly splash Inazuma over this, but not having to spend the influence in Weyland is a godsend, importing influence expensive code gates has been a sad fact of life for Weyland players since core set. Now with this and lotus field which both fit weyland’s strategy, that problem is somewhat alleviated.

The ability to switch types here isn’t as brutal as with the other two spoiled Morph ICE, since you’re most likely going to put this in front of a barrier and turn off their fracter, so turning this into a barrier itself is somewhat counterproductive. However, it does let you switch to whichever of their breakers is less efficient- switch it to a code gate if they have Zu.13 Keymaster, barrier if they have Inti etc. Also has some potential synergy with Superior Cyberwalls, the barrier version of encrypted portals. early game this can force the runner to go grab their decoders, late game if you have a couple of scored Superior Cyberwalls you can turn this into a very taxing and cost efficient barrier.

Power: 6/10

Impact: 9/10

X factor: 6/10

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48: “Crisium Grid” (Weyland Upgrade[Region], 1 inf). Cost 3, trash 5.

Successful runs against this server are not considered to be successful or unsuccessful for the purposes of card abilities.

Limit 1 region per server.

Another high-trash-cost card and yet another anti-siphon tool for Weyland. Two in two packs. Of the two, this is the one I will be playing. It shuts down so many strategies, particularly when placed on HQ. Alongside Eliza’s Toybox and Sansan City Grid, this adds another 5/5 must trash card to the stuff runners have to deal with.

What I don’t get is why this thing is one influence. It shores up the one major weakness NEH is still presenting- vulnerability to attack cards which let the runner land haymakers on the corp’s gameplan. Now you have to successfully run, trash this, then run again. Between this and Sansan, runner decks are going to have to spend even more of their cards on economy.

In a more positive light, I think this will do a lot to help out both Weyland, who have been consistently vulnerable to HQ attack tools and cards which depend on HQ runs like Emergency Shutdowns. It will also help Horizontal decks a lot, which have always had trouble with balancing keeping their central defenses light and coping with the incredibly powerful runner attack cards that have come out since the start of spin cycle. It’s also kind of cute that it means the runner can freely run against the server you have this in without fear of being SEA Sourced or Cerebral Casted etc. I love cards that have a subtle downside like this that means they’re not quite a dumb auto-include

All in all, this is a phenomenal card for shaking up the meta, one of several in this set. Everyone should be looking at whether they can find the space for this in pretty much every deck they make..

Power: 8/10

Impact: 10/10

X factor: 8/10

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49: “Chronos Project” (Neutral Agenda[Research], 0 inf). Cost 3, 1 point.

When you score Chronos Project, the Runner removes all cards in her heap from the game.

This is interesting. That’s really all I can say. I think it could replace Gila Hands Arcology as the generic 3 for 1 in fast advance decks, since fast advance is generally going to spend a long time setting up before scoring out and consequently Gila tends not to do a lot. This on the other hand clears out the runner’s heap, removing the opportunity to use the recursion toolkits that a lot of runner decks have come to rely on with Same Old Thing and Clone Chip. It’s also a good choice as a 1 of in Fast Track decks since you can go dig it up for the effect as much as for the points.

Because of that, the mere existence of this card- like Account Siphon or Emergency Shutdown, is going to force runners to think hard about how to both build decks and play them. Unlike currents, I feel like this is a great way to shake up the meta. There’s no real ‘counter’ to this, you have to just play around it. And because of the way netrunner works, you have to play around it even if you aren’t sure the Corp has it as an option.

Power: 4/10

Impact: 9/10

X factor: 6/10

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50: “Shattered Remains” (Neutral Asset[Ambush]). Cost 0, trash 0.

Shattered Remains can be advanced.

If you pay 1c when the Runner accesses Shattered Remains, trash 1 piece of hardware for each advancement token on Shattered Remains.

We’ve know about this one for a while, featuring sad, sad art of poor old Dinosaurus having tried to have a cat fight with the thing from Hellion Alpha Test.

Shattered remains suffers from all the weaknesses that the 0 cost 0 trash traps have traditionally suffered- hard to sell, situational, vulnerable in the HQ and R&D etc. I’d love to see a trap like this that has a lesser effect if accessed while not installed- trash a piece of hardware unless the runner pays 2 or something. As is, I’m not going to be playing this one unless we see a very heavy hardware meta developing, which wouldn’t actually surprise me from the cards we’ve seen upcoming. Even then, those decks are going to probably have tools to prevent their key pieces being trashed and the way Shattered Remains works means those tools will be very effective against it (it can only try and trash a specific piece of hardware once, you can’t overload trash prevention by trying to trash the same thing multiple times)

Power: 3/10

Impact: 6/10

X factor: 3/10

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51: “Lancelot” (Neutral ICE[Sentry-Grail-Destroyer], 1 inf). Cost 4, strength 2

When the Runner encounters Lancelot, you may reveal up to 2 grail ICE from HQ. For the remainder of this run, Lancelot gains the subroutines of the revealed ICE in the order of your choICE.

->Trash 1 program.

There’s not much to say about Lancelot. Just as with my review of Galahad, I’m going to wait and see with the Grail ICE until they’re all out.

It’s worth noting that strength 2 sentries are in general not worth playing for their actual sub routine effects. You have to assume a runner will be able to deal with them. The reason sentries like Komainu and Tsurugi are so strong is the sheer amount of subroutines they have forces the runner to have to pay buckets of creds to get through them. Fully charged up, Lancelot sort of does that, but you can’t really expect that. So even when we see the rest of the grails, as an actual piece of ICE (as opposed to a tack-on enabler for the other grails) Lancelot seems on the weaker side.

Nevertheless, I do think that a ‘grail’ deck will eventually be a deck you see at tournaments near you, what remains to be seen as to what ID is most suited to playing the suite…

Power: 4/10

Impact: 7/10

X factor: 5/10

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52: “Quetzal” (Anarch Identity[G-mod], 45/15)

Once per turn, break 1 barrier subroutine.

Hello lovely lady! Finally a true aggressive anarch. Quetzal fulfills the function in Anarch that Kit does in Shaper, lowering the number of tools you need to have to get rolling. I would say her ability is even better than Kit’s and she comes with the full 15 influence. Combined with E3 feedback implants she can get you through any barrier and if you want to go nuts and splash tinkering or paintbrush, anything at all.

Quetzal should be able to run rigless for quite some time. While we’ve recently gotten a slew of good ETR codegates, barriers are still the ETR kings of the game. Having reliable access to centrals means you can run tools like haemorrage early on, use datasucker-parasite aggression and so on. To save you from nasty stuff, Quetzal can dump huge amounts into efficient economy generation with cards like Desperado, and save herself from nasty surprises with Feedback Filter or Sacrificial Construct.

I’m really, really looking forward to seeing what she brings to the table and I think she’ll be a terrifying prospect for a lot of the current corp gameplans with some creative building. A lot of her key tools are out of faction, so I think we’ll see a few variations on exploiting her power with different influence spreads…

Power: 6/10

Impact: 9/10

X factor: 9/10

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53: “BlacKat” (Anarch Program[ICEbreaker-Fracter], 3 inf). Cost 4, mem 1, strength 3.

1c: Break 1 barrier subroutine (or up to 3 subroutines if you spent a credit from a stealth card).

2c: +1 strength (or +2 strength if you spent at least 1 credit from a stealth card).

The stealth suite gets two new additions in this pack and I think that BlacKat isn’t the best of them. However it is nevertheless a fracter that manages to look like quite a viable alternative to corroder, something the game has not seen to date. Why is this?

Paying only an extra 2 credits for a whole extra point of strength is very, very good value. It still breaks for 1 credit and has the added flexibility that if you happen to have stealth credits you can get great value out of them against the ever more common multi-subroutine barriers.

The downside is that it costs more to pump, but in the faction with datasuckers, parasites, ICE carvers and… well, you name it, this is not a serious weakness. The multi-subroutine barriers also seem to be quite low strength, so that’s not an issue for this guy.

All in all, I think I will be using BlacKat as my default fracter in Anarch decks that have any kind of ICE strength manipulation, regardless of whether I’m running stealth tools or not from now on.

Power: 9/10

Impact: 7/10

X factor: 6/10

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54: “♦ Duggar’s” (Anarch Resource[Location-Seedy], 4 inf). Cost 2.

[Click],[Click],[Click],[Click]: Draw 10 cards.

Hold my friends, for Duggars time will come! It already has a few options you can use to get value out of it, Public Sympathy, All Nighter, Mass Install, Joshua B and Box-E from this set come to mind. Still, as a cost 2 resource you can’t benefit from immediately, that you’re really going to have to play three of to get out reliably since we still don’t have that location tutor I suspect is coming, building a deck around Duggars is not something that strikes me as a great action plan.

When building my own jank, I always wonder whether I’m just doing something because it can be done, as opposed to because there is a real reason to do it. I feel like Duggars fails this test right now. Sure, you could build a deck that tries to draw thirty cards in three turns, but what competitive advantage would that give you over existing anarch gameplans right now? Do those advantages outweigh the significant costs of having to trash half your cards?

I suspect come Order and Chaos, however, that anarchs will very much be looking to Duggars as an exceptional tool for card draw.

Power: 4/10

Impact: 4/10

X factor: 9/10

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55: “♦ BOX-E” (Criminal Hardware[Console], 1 inf). Cost 4.

+2 memory.

Your maximum handsize is increased by 2.

Limit 1 console per player.

Well, this is certainly if not the console that runners deserved, definitely the console they needed. Hol-E shit. Make way Desperado, for any deck that doesn’t want to spend half its time cozying up to every assorted snare and marked accounts the corp decides to show you, there’s a new kid on the block.

There is absolutely nothing janky about this. Two extra memory, two extra cards. If you want a bit of value for your one influence, there it is right there. I will be playing this a ton, I suspect, because what runners really need now is value in their cards. Making all these crazy synergies work is all well and good, but when you draw five random cards you want each of those to be good and give you options in its own right, and this guy right here has that in spades.

Of course it also makes sweeps week better, but hey, NBN needs the help right?

Power: 8/10

Impact: 6/10

X factor: 3/10

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56: “♦ The Supplier” (Criminal Resource[Connection], 2 inf). Cost 3.

[Click]: Host a resource or piece of hardware from your grip on The Supplier.

When your turn begins, you may install a hosted card, lowering the play cost by 2.

Well, this set certainly returns to the paradigm of ‘criminals get the good stuff’. The Supplier is basically a criminal Personal Workshop, it fulfills three very important functions

1) allowing you to reserve options in advance and select the best one to use based on the current board state

2) unclogging your hand and letting you draw into more options

3) keeping your money available to do other stuff.

And unlike Personal Workshop, you can tutor for this guy… The Supplier is, I think, the tipping point that balances the scales between the two growing styles of criminal play. The event and expendable program style and the resource/hardware toolbox style.

As an economy card alone it is very good, providing constant drip benefits and becoming a net positive after only two uses- compare to Magnum Opus, which needs three, has a higher install threshold and takes two memory… I’m thinking of this guy as basically a Prepaid Voicepad for economy resources… think about that for a second, it turns your daily casts into a net 7 credit benefit and your Liberated Accounts into 5 clicks for 12 credits. It eliminates the setup cost for your Underworld Contacts and Kati Jones. The list goes on. Truly a phenomenal card.

Power: 9/10

Impact: 9/10

X factor: 9/10

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57: “Refractor” (Shaper Program[ICEbreaker-Decoder], 2 inf). Cost 1, mem 1, strength 2.

1c: Break code gate subroutine.

1c: +3 strength. Use this ability only if you spent at least 1 credit from a stealth card.

In the world of code gate breakers, Refractor reigns supreme. It is insane. Absurd. Crazylike. For a single credit you get a breaker that can go through a lot of the annoying early game code gates, be it on central or remote servers, without any support and any pumping necessary. Even some of the midrange ones are well within datasucker range, so you it’s very likely you won’t actually need stealth credits to have this guy do its job better than every other code gate breaker in the game.

With a single stealth credit, you can get through every single relevant codegate in the game right now, unless Stronger Together or Lag Time or some other booster is in play. This breaks Tollbooth for a mere 6 credits including the install cost, though it does require stealth enablers. Compare this to the mighty gordian blade at 11, almost double, or even Passport at 9…

I wish this guy had been more influence because it is so good that I think criminals and anarchs are going to be warping their deckbuilding choices to be able to play it by making space for stealth cards. Essentially the same effect siphon has had on the meta.

Now I’m just waiting for a code gate that has ‘can’t be broken by stealth programs’. It’s coming. Just you wait.

Power: 10/10

Impact: 10/10

X factor: 8/10

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58: “♦ Order of Sol” (Shaper Resource[Location], 1 inf). Cost 2.

The first time each turn you have no credits in your credit pool, gain 1c.

Oh hai Nasir Meidan synergy card, why weren’t you in the last pack? Pleased to meet you at last. Outside of Nasir, I don’t think this is going to see a lot of play. If you could stack them, perhaps, but it’s a unique.

Shapers are the faction that tend to suffer most when drained of credits entirely- so much of their playstyle depends on having a bank ready to be able to call a Corp’s bluff with assorted tricks, so being at 0 credits makes life very difficult indeed. Nasir can obviously make excellent use of this, though it suffers from the same issues as similar cards like Compromised Employee in that you really want to get these early, even in the midgame they don’t really pay for themselves.

Out of faction in a criminal deck I could see this doing work if the criminal ‘always running’ archetype manages to roll with the bodyblows its being dealt right now. it adds another element to the ‘balance of the run’ cards like desperado and datasucker that let you make runs that are effectively free. This card does a similar thing, so it might see some play as an extra tool in that kit if all the others are already being played.

Power: 1/10

Impact: 1/10

X factor: 7/10

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59: “♦ Hades Shard” (Neutral Resource[Virtual-Source], 1 inf). Cost 7.

Whenever you make a successful run on Archives, you may install Hades Shard from your grip instead of accessing cards, ignoring all costs.

[Trash]: Access all cards in Archives.

Limit 1 per deck.

The shards are cards there to take your last point of influence and I think they are all potentially playable. This one is synergistic with Noise, letting you set it up early game and make that last turn glory run without actually having to run. It may also synergise with future cards that trigger of accessing cards in archives, or help against the suspected Jinteki ID in this cycle that supposedly increases the trash cost of cards by the amount of face down cards in archives.

However, I also think that in most cases runners really don’t have the luxury of being able to spend points on cards like this. Runner decks need to have a tight, efficient plan and have every point of influence be crucial in optimizing that. Beyond use by Noise, I don’t see how this can contribute that greatly right now.

Power: 4/10

Impact: 2/10

X factor: 8/10

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60: “♦ Rachel Beckman” (Neutral Resource[Connection], 1 inf). Cost 8.

You have 1 additional click to spend each turn.

Trash Rachel Beckman if you are tagged.

Rachel is a very situational card, but also very strong I think. I can see her being played in a dedicated runner control deck, probably Andromeda or Iain Stirling. If we see some kind of cheating for resources come out that will make her brilliant. While she is very vulnerable against tag strategies, she’s an economic engine, not a core strategy so you can just choose to treat her as a dead draw and go find your more appropriate connections for that matchup

This, I feel, is where the connection style is going, it’s very much the toolbox deck across all three runner factions. Rachel is a very strong way of giving that kind of deck immense power against the more taxing, slow game style decks as the click will let you keep up economically and make bigger power plays. The Source, on the other hand, is your go to card against faster decks and both make great use of fall guy. You spend your hostages on whichever suits the matchup more.

It’s also worth noting that she synergises pretty well with The Supplier, you can leave her on there if there’s a risk of taking some early tags and play her out at a discount once you have some anti-tag strategy established.

Power: 7/10

Impact: 5/10

X factor: 9/10

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That’s it for me today- all in all I think this is going to be one of the best packs yet. brilliant cards for a lot of the factions, and cards that are really going to open doors and create some new potential decks. I am deeply looking forward to seeing what people come up with.

So, good luck kids and don’t forget to pack your Imps!