Yet another Android: Netrunner related article. Nothing to do with Indie games, so flee if ye not be interested heathen!

In case you are surprised why this isn’t on my blog, Kelfecil.com, it is because my blog’s domain has been renamed to HyperLightUp.com in order to be the host of the new awesome website that me and my team are running with the purpose of covering indie games. There are still going to be other articles posted here from time to time.

Genesis in Greek is Γένεσις which means birth, so the title of this article being “The Death of Genesis” is the deepest shit I’ve ever written. Funny thing is that it was not planned in any way whatsoever, I just wrote it and then realized it.

So yes, if you haven’t realized it yet, this article will be focused on talking about the cards of the Genesis Cycle that are cycling out when the Flashpoint cycle and the one after it are complete. When the 1st pack of the 8th cycle comes out, then the rotation will happen (according to this official FFG post). That should happen around July or so in 2017 so we still have a bit of time till then. That time includes the 2016 Worlds Tournament and the 2017 Regionals Season amongst other big tournaments so fear not my fellow net runners, there is still time to enjoy these cards.

(Feel free to check out my article about the cards from the Spin Cycle that will be out of the rotation too!)

Let’s get right to it though, since we do have quite a few to go through. I figured I should start with the identities separately and then separate the rest to categories like very important, important and “oh my god, that card exists?”.

I recommend getting the Netrunner LookUp Plugin for Chrome since it is the most amazing thing ever for when you are reading A:NR articles and posts. I was obviously not going to put links on 120 different cards. I did think about it, but then I remembered I wanted to make another Nisei Division deck just piss off more people.

Identities

Corp

Haas-Bioroid: Stronger Together: Not many will remember this one, because not many played it. It was said to be the identity that would perfectly implement all of the bioroid ICE, pumping up their strength and making it very taxing for runners to get through. That situation wasn’t feasible in the end of the day, since both economy and agenda suites were just not that great in order to justify having the very, very long game that Stronger Together provided. I still believe it is a decent ID because of the fact that it can make small bioroids have big strength early game, but Engineering the Future’s ability just shadows Stronger Together too much in order to let it see any tournament play. This won’t affect the meta at all.

NBN: The World Is Yours*: If you told me that this is cycling out in a few months a couple years ago, I would be very happy. However, there are so many better NBN identities out now that noone even cares about this one going away. Even with its low minimum deck cards limit, TWIY* only shined until Near-Earth Hub came out. I can’t even begin to recall how many times I had to face TWIY* decks with both fast advance and kill tactics. This won’t affect the meta at all since there are other good options now.

Jinteki: Replicating Perfection: There was a great article where the author talked about Click Compression in Netrunner and RP was the ID that created the most. Together with Enhanced Login Protocol, RP managed to keep a lot of runners from running the very-protected Nisei MKII – Caprice Nisei servers. You can’t really do much with just 1-2 clicks extra in your turn before you run a server that you are not even sure you are going to get into. Sundew was also an amazing economy asset and it just made Jinteki Glacier decks possible to exist. Nonetheless, Palana is out now and the game is more about money that it ever was. Siphons and Vamps come and go as much as they ever did, so being fast is very important even after two versions of the Most Wanted List. This won’t affect the meta much, since there are not many people that go to RP when they are preparing a Jinteki Glacier deck.

Weyland: Because We Built It: This won’t affect the meta, at all. Besides the fact that there are not any good advanceable ICE out, there are way better Weyland IDs that work way faster and better (have better economy that BWBI as well) so this won’t see any play, even with the new funky cards the faction is getting.

Runner

Andromeda: As much as I love Criminal, I always found Andromeda a bit uninspired. Just getting 9 cards as your starting hand gave so much power to the runner in any matchup. Doesn’t matter what is in your deck. If you get 9 cards, you are guaranteed to have way better chances of drawing 1 or 2 cards that you really need at the start. I didn’t like Andromeda because it meant that there was pretty much little to no reason (sometimes) in playing another Criminal identity. Some of you may know I’m a huge fan of Silhouette and for a year straight I didn’t switch IDs. With Rebirth though being such a powerful card now, there is no reason to play another ID when you can have the great start and the ability of another Criminal ID that you can choose DURING the game. It’s just too huge to not go with it and so I’m playing it myself too. Definitely switching back to Silhouette for the 40 cards minimum after Andromeda cycles out. This is going to affect the meta greatly as Andromeda is by far one of the strongest Criminal IDs in the game at the moment.

Chaos Theory: There are a bunch of fast decks rolling around even now that make use of the extra MU that CT has. There have been all sorts of combo decks too with hyperdriver. What is the most important thing here though is that Shapers are losing their 40 minimum deck limit ID. Chaos Theory is supposed to be the fast kid around the block. This might affect the meta up to a certain point. Most people still prefer other Shapers IDs such as Kate and Haeley (also for her awesome speed, even though that may die down a bit too due to some other cards cycling out too).

Whizzard: By far the biggest change when it comes to IDs. Whizzard became a big deal even from the RP times because of his innate ability to trash assets and upgrades without having to pay much. Looking-for-job Whizzard, Dumblefork and all other sorts of variants, all going down the drain as soon as the Genesis set cycles out. This will affect the meta in a very big way because there are far too many asset-spam decks going around and people will have to find other ways to deal with those. I recently learnt what it means “to moby” against asset spam decks and I find it so reasonable to do that against those decks since not even Whizzard can deal with them in some cases (bad card draw, not fast enough when dealing with the escalating assets situation).

Let’s move to all the other cards now that were in the set. We’ll start with the Very Important ones.

Very Important

Project Vitruvius: This is like the holy grail of HB agendas (next to Accelerated Beta Test). Losing this agenda, the faction will have to resort to 4/2s or 5/3s in order to decrease agenda density (which is already happening with most corp decks via the Global Food Initiative agenda). Vitruvius provided many ins and outs in all kinds of matchups. With the possibility of over-advancing it to pull back any card at any given time, it was very often seen with at least one counter on it. If you had a good scoring window, you’d just go for it. This will shake up the HB meta quite a bit. Accelerated Beta Test is still in but just doesn’t provide the same outs that Vitruvius does.

Eve Campaign: This will affect all of those HB decks that rely on assets for economy, which is most of them. Breaker Bay Grid provided a huge advantage for all those assets and made HB a very big deal in the latest meta game due to the free money that you could get out of Adonis and Eve. Even with Eve’s leave, I believe that those HB decks will just find something else (some other kind of drip economy) to use in order to keep the economy flowing. This is quite an important change since Eve pays a lot of money and has a 5 trash cost which can be a huge economy turn for the runner in some games.

Eli 1.0: Some say this is the best ICE in the game. Or was at least, because now it costs 1 influence wherever you want to put it for tournament play due to the 1st MWL. Even with the MWL, Eli 1.0 still sees a lot of play and is still a bitch of an ICE to get through as a runner. Low rez cost, high strength, two subroutines and type~barrier, all together make it an ice that even for 1 influence in HB (or 2 out of it) you would most definitely like to have it in your deck. The fact that some people count around passing it by spending clicks is to the corp’s advantages in quite a few cases (unless it’s for a strong play like siphon for example). The leave of Eli 1.0 will not be as noticeable as it would have been pre-MWL but will most definitely be an important change in the meta for some decks.

Ash 2X3ZB9CY: This is by far one of the biggest changes that we will be seeing on the corp side. The leave of Ash is a huge deal since it is one of the strongest upgrades that a corp player can use in order to protect any server. There are many decks that relied on economy and Ash in order to protect their server while they score out an agenda or two. This, coupled with Breaker Bay was a force to be reckoned with since a trace 4 out of nowhere (plus whatever the corp could pay) was something very annoying for any runner that just went through 2 or more layers of ICE on a remote server. And if that was not enough, Ash is not a Grid so you can have more things on there too, such as Caprice and other things. The new anarch Current, Rumor Mill will most definitely sort of destroy Ash (or just entirely make it non-existent) but upgrades are still going to be a thing. Maybe not as much as they were in the past, but they are still the only sure way to protect yourself (since ICE still rarely fires because of AI breakers such as Faust.) This will shake things up quite a bit.

Fetal AI: This is the only “Pay 2 cards and 2 credits to steal” agenda that Jinteki has. I mean, The Future Perfect is amazing for what it does, but Fetal AI taxes both in cards and credits so it has won many games for Jinteki players dude to people not being careful. Apart from killing the unprepared runner, Fetal AI is just taxing and fits perfectly in decks like the new IG ones or thousand cut style ones. You should expect to see it a lot now that the new Jinteki ID is coming out. When it cycles out, it will affect the Jinteki kill decks.

Snowflake: This is here because it is my favourite ICE in the entire game. Most of you will disagree just because you’ve never faced a Snowflake. Believe me when I say that rezzing a barrier for 1 credit that has 3 strength and an ETR psi game, is a very big deal. It’s a big deal in early, mid and late game. Its cycling out will affect the Nisei Division decks greatly since it was pretty much the core of the deck along the Upayogas and the Caprice Niseis.

Project Beale: This is the 2nd best agenda that NBN has and as soon as this leaves, so does the fast advance for NBN too. Unless FFG prints another 3/2 agenda for NBN that is, which I honestly hope they don’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if they do though as they have been printing amazing cards for the yellow faction non-stop in the past 2 cycles. This will affect the meta greatly since NBN decks lose a very easy to score agenda that has a great ability of giving more points as well.

Pop-up Window: This was an auto-include in most NBN decks in the past and even now we still see it quite a lot. Even for other faction decks, it saw play quite a lot because it is good economy when put in front of central servers. Unfortunately, ICE became very easy to pass and Pop-Up Window also became a terrible choice since it was just not helping against all the hard-hitting events that Runners had. This won’t affect the meta that much but we will miss it a lot after a certain while.

Midseason Replacements: I am so thankful that this is going to get cycled out. I love the card, don’t get me wrong and I am not saying it because it’s a yellow card (well maybe, a bit…). It is just that a lot of decks just operate on this card and it has just become too annoying to expect always the same thing. I mean, Sea Source is still a thing obviously, just as Hard Hitting News is becoming another, but Midseason Replacements basically negated all runner actions in the case that the corp had more money than the runner. Unless you played some kind of pressure deck (siphon, vamp etc.) then you had no chance against a corp that drew into money early and had a midseason and some meat damage cards in hand. It was just too harsh. This will affect the meta A LOT since a lot of decks still run this and even rely on landing a good midseason in order to close games fast.

Project Atlas: This will hurt Weyland a lot, since it is both a 3/2 agenda, meaning you get easy points, but is also an amazing tutor for the faction. You can score it with just 1 counter and the threat of Sea Source – Scorch (even if you don’t know if they run it or not) is existent. Even worse, if the Weyland player has 2 out of the 3 pieces of the combo already in hand, it makes it even more powerful. Overall one of the best agendas in the game because of its effect. It will hurt Weyland a lot, but we’ve been seeing that Weyland is turning towards more hostile ways so Atlas might not be so needed after all in the upcoming meta game.

Oversight AI: This was the primary economy for Blue Sun decks. There is not much to say other than the fact that most of the awesome (and super expensive) Weyland ICE could keep runners out for lots of turns due to them being unbreakable if the runner doesn’t have both the tools and the money. This won’t cause that much of a big shift in the meta game but it is still a tool that will be missing from the corp decks that really made good use of it for both economy and creating scoring windows.

False Lead: You’d ask me “Yo Kelf, why is this here? Noone plays this anymore!” Well, you’d be surprised. Just like we saw some decks start running out of nowhere and doing amazingly well at premier level tournaments, we can also see it pop out of nowhere again and deal a lot of damage. Both in HB EtF and Jinteki PE decks, we saw it shine by allowing Ichis to fire and Jinteki to kill when the runner hits a snare or something. It was just glorious and it was a play that even experienced runners couldn’t always expect. Its leave won’t affect the emta-game much but we surely we’ll miss it.

Retrieval Run: That is also a big hit for Anarchs since MaXx has been making use of this card extensively. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to just run archives anymore and install your keyhole/eater/faust/morning star for free anymore. This will change the anarch game a little bit.

Vamp: This is not as big as Account Siphon but still yet another huge hit for Anarchs since their denial engine is being thrown in the trash bin. Only pressure decks will see a change due to this card cycling out.

Imp: This is a hit for Anarchs but even more for Noise. Imp was a great solution against any combo deck and it will just be sad to see it go. From the times that Kate used it extensively with the Grimoire builds to all the Noise builds that had it as one of the main viruses, it will just be sad to see it go as it is a great utility program to have. We won’t see much of a shift in the meta game because of its leave but we’ll definitely miss it.

Joshua B.: This card is only here because of Data Leak being also here. Joshua B. was one of the best activators for DLR and Dan D’argenio showed us extensively how to use it properly (by winning both Worlds 2015 and NA Nats 2016 with it.) Joshua B. is a big hit for the tag-me decks that wanted to have an extra click in order to apply more pressure on the corps. Not that big of a hit but definitely a big loss for those tag-me decks.

Liberated Account: This is one of the biggest things Anarchs will miss. Liberated Accounts is by far one of the best economy cards that Anarchs have. Click for 2 credits, install, take 4. I wonder how many times I’ve heard that by now. An amazing card that will just make a huge different in the meta game for anarch decks once it cycle outs.

Data Leak Reversal: I personally believe that this is the biggest hit Anarchs are seeing. Losing DLR is not only a very big deal because there are decks that won big championships with it (proving that it works amazingly well) but also because it was always an amazing card to have in any kind of anarch deck that would go tag-me. There were MaXx decks that would have keyhole, DLR and other shenanigans in order to pressure everywhere. Without it, Anarchs lose an Ace in the sleeve.

Networking: This is here because Networking has been a huge deal agaisnt all those tagging decks lately. SYNC has seen a huge rise and runners had to tech against all that somehow. Even Controlling the Message gets hit by this very hard because paying 1 to remove a tag can be a huge turnover. I once even saw this card in a Whizzard deck. The guy told me “I am prepared for all the NBN shit now.” Even with my personal hate for yellow, I’ve never teched that hard against it. Networking cycling out will most probably make us see the use of other cards such us Paper Tripping (I know, crazy….). Remember though that even though Paper Tripping is great, Midseason Replacements will also not be in the game anymore, so only reason why you would need to remove lots of tags would be because of Hard Hitting News.

Faerie: The free-to-install break-all-sentries-for-cheap breaker is going away. Oh my, that is big hit for Criminals. Mongoose is great, Alias is also great (for centrals) and there are quite a few options now for breaking sentries, but Faerie was always awesome to have before you install your “real breaker”. Especially with Andromeda, it was nice to have at least one in your starting hand, allowing you to run those Jinteki servers without fearing a Komainu or something else that would kill your precious cards. Faerie’s leave will change the early game of Criminals a bit.

Quality Time: One of the strongest draw event cards in the game. Only one influence to include in other factions and a decent cost for drawing 5 cards. I always found the cost to be a bit too high for my tastes, but maybe that is just the Greek in me. This card has been used by lots of “I have to setup fast” deckbuilds, such as the recent Hayley build with all the spy cameras. Its leave will most definitely hurt quite a few builds.

Indexing: You don’t run multi-access? No big deal, just hit the corp with an Indexing and you may end up stealing 5-6 points in one turn. Some of the most amazing runner plays I have seen are because of Indexing, due to the order that some chose to leave the cards after running an indexing on the last couple clicks on their turn. I even know exactly the kind of face my friend Robert makes when he’s done an indexing run. He would leave a couple agendas on the 4th – 5th place on the R&D and then act all cool and shit until the time would come to run and grab the win. Such an amazing card. Its leave will most definitely hurt decks that worked with one-turn hits (preparing for a few rounds and then hitting in one go).

Test Run: This card enabled so many hard-to-install programs to get on the board fast and easily. It made Magnum Opus 15 times better and easier to install, it made Torch playable and it made Femme a program that you should fear as a corp player. We don’t see it as much as we did in the past right now, but that is generally because Shaper has become weaker in the current meta. You never know, maybe another awesome program will come out that will make us see it again. Its leave is definitely a hit for shapers. They are losing half their Tutors (if you consider Self-Modifying Code the other half).

R&D Interface: Oh my god. I thought this was a core card until recently. I started playing after the 1st cycle so I never paid much attention to what was going on with the previous cycles. It felt like a very important card so I was very surprised to see it was not from the core set. This is going to be a hit for all runners. Crisium Grid will become a big deal again because the R&D and HQ Interfaces were the only cards that didn’t get affected by Crisium. Decently-priced and reliable multi-access hardware that most runners will miss once it’s gone.

ZU.13 Key Master: The go-to breaker for a lot of Criminals (but also Shapers too in quite a few builds) is going away. Costing one less influence and having one less strength than Gordian Blade with a price set 3 credits below it too, was just too much to miss as an out-of-faction runner that needed a code gate breaker. Zule’s leave won’t be that noticeable since most people that used it will go back to Gordian Blade and keep running with that.

Plascrete Carapace: Well, I don’t have to say much about this. This is probably the most discussed to-be-cycled-out card anyway. With the leave of Plascrete and the increase of kill mechanics in the game, we’ll have to pack other things such as Muresh Bodysuits (yes, it is amazing against the new Weyland ID) and a lot of Sports Hoppers. But even Sports Hopper won’t protect you if you aren’t at 5 cards at the end of your turn (or if you don’t have a stack anymore). We’ll miss you lots Plascrete, may you rest well. The promo plascrete was also so pretty damn it.

Kati Jones: Yes, you heard it right, you won’t be able to sit back on your councilmen and political operatives, clicking your Kati Jones anymore. The leave of the most awesome girl for economy in the game is going to be quite noticeable. There aren’t many runners that rely on her for money, since fast money is always preferred, but the leave of Kati means that the late game of runners is getting a huge hit.

Important

Mandatory Upgrades: Only important to the decks that ran on the combos that it enabled. Other than that, it was never an easy to score agenda (being a 6/2) so people rarely preferred it.

Encryption Protocol: I’m surprised that there is noone making a fancy asset-spam deck with Shipment from Mirrormorph, Encryption Protocol and a bunch of assets. On the other hand, HB doesn’t have the tagging or net damaging capability that the other factions have, so it can’t make effective asset-spam decks anymore. Won’t be missed much.

Viper: Still a great piece of ICE. Sunny might be a new runner pick (due to CtM) so it might be entirely trivial from here on. Still a great bang-for-your-buck ICE though. We don’t see it included more than twice in most decks so we won’t miss it much.

Green Level Clearance: Great transaction card for both HB and Weyland (the core ID) but we haven’t been seeing it all that much lately. Still a good money/draw card that will be missed.

Ronin: Maaaaaaaan. Come oooooon. I love this card. If you’ve read any of my Jinteki-related articles, then I do not have to explain anything about this. I will miss you so much dear Ronin….

Bullfrog: This is one of the cards that I’ve had most fun with in Netrunner. Jumping here and there is just amazing. Firing it with Upayoga and moving the runner WITH the ICE is even more amazing. It’s so pretty and fun and awesome and fun and….

Trick of Light: A lot of combo decks that relied on fast advancing by moving advancement counters will just die. Trick of Light was amazing for all sorts of reasons. Not because it worked amazingly well in combo decks, but also because it provided so many solutions in ambush decks too. It won’t be missed all that much, but definitely an amazing card that will not be there anymore for us to pick it and act all cool with it.

Hokusai Grid: An amazing upgrade for Jinteki that costs only 2 to rez (as much as a Neural EMP) and 5 to trash for the runner. That is just plain annoying to have. I am really sad to see this go, since I was planning on replacing quite a few of my unique upgrades with grids in order to make up for the counter plays of Rumor Mill.

Restructured Datapool: Great 5/3 if you get to score it in NBN. Back in the day, I saw quite a few Making News decks that made use of this and busted the runner’s balls every. damn. turn.

Braintrust: The 3/2 of Jinteki. Besides Philotic, the only reason to ever include Braintrust was just to be able to score faster. I haven’t seen more than 2 or 3 Braintrusts be over-advanced in my NR life. It isn’t a great card but it’s still an easy to score agenda in a faction that is full of traps. So laying it down and just triple advancing to score it whenever you feel like it is a very big deal.

Flare: Great ICE that saw a lot of play in the Making News days. Not that much now so it won’t be missed much.

Bernice Mai: An upgrade that is so good that it saw lots of play in Making News and now it is back again with the tag decks being a thing again.

Government Contracts: One of the main agendas that Weyland players used when trying to decrease agenda density in their decks. I rarely ever saw it scored by the corp.

Dedicated Response Team: There were so many combo decks with this asset. It is so awesome and cool. The art always made me dizzy though.

Caduceus: The go-to ICE for Making News and early Weyland players. Sad to see it go. If you asked me before writing this article, I would tell you it’s a core card.

Chimera: This ICE is really good. Whatever you say, it just is. Not everyone runs Parasite and it protected a remote so many times when TWIY* was a thing. It was all about speed with that deck and Chimera helped with that.

Nerve Agent: The multi-access tool of Anarchs for HQ. Soon to be dismissed. Great card, since it’s always great to be able to access 3-4 cards after a while if they are not purging.

Scrubber: You would think that without Whizzard you would just run this in order to deal with assets and upgrades. But, both of those cards are in the same cycle, so bad luck.

Muresh Bodysuit: “Why did you put this here Kelf?” Because if the new Weyland ID becomes a thing, then this is the best answer to it.

Notoriety: I love this card with all of my heart. I made a very good player from the UK (Zach) flip me off with a smile when I dropped it on his face during the fight for 3rd place in the Greek Nationals of 2015. I love this card so much.

Replicator: I used to play this card before it was cool #hipster. But now it sees even more play because of the awesome Hayley builds that are going around. Unfortunately for all of us shaper lovers, this is going in the bin.

Personal Workshop: One of the most important setup cards for shapers. It’s like giving yourself one credit every turn but also saving something for later. Putting lots of cards on it, allowed you to time when you want to install something (such as Parasites). This also means that Nasir is pretty much dead when this goes away.

Deus X: The bane of PE’s existence and all AP ICE is cycling out. I couldn’t be happier. Great card.

Dyson Mem Chip: A decent way of getting more memory. Quite costly but still effective if you want both link and memory unit capacity.

New Angeles City Hall: Yet another great answer for the tag decks, allowing you to avoid tags when they come to you right away. Not as effective as Networking, but still a decent card.

“Oh my god, that card exists?”/ Not That Important

Sherlock 1.0: Didn’t really see much play in the first place. It’s descendant, Sherlock 2.0, though is seeing quite a bit of play already.

Janus 1.0: A decent ICE, if you are into Oversighting it or just holding 15 credits to surprise the runner. Way too heavy on influence.

Hourglass: I tried so hard (and got so far) to get this card to work. I tried it in Jinteki PE, HB, NBN, but it just isn’t as good as many other ICE that would do so much more work.

Rework: I’ve only played and seen this once. It was in that fancy “protect your R&D” HB EtF deck that allowed you to fast advance anything you got in your hands. If you couldn’t score it, you “Reworked” it into R&D.

Rurh Valley: Great card, was expecting to see this get a bit of play again with Rumor Mill coming in, but even then I am not really sure. Was great to see it in RP decks that also ran the corresponding HB current.

Dedicated Server: Some of the best art in the game, not so good as a card itself. I tried it in PE with heavier ICE. Worked half the times, but still not that much of a gain to make you feel as if it is was worth it. Mumbad Temple made it entirely obsolete.

Edge of World: I’ve fallen for one and since then I’ve feared them a lot. Brain Damage isn’t that big of deal right now though so I haven’t seen it in ages.

Whirlpool: Along with Bullfrog, a piece of ICE that has given me many funny plays.

Sensei: I still run this. I feel it’s great when you play with ICE that do not have solid End the Runs. Plus Code Gates are a bitch to break lately.

Sunset: Never seen this played by someone. Never played it myself.

Midori: I love her. I burnt 3 Fausts in a 4 rounds tournament once. Midori would be better if ICE played a more important role in the current meta game. Unfortunately, they don’t, so even though she is cheap and easy to use, she doesn’t see any play.

Net Police: What is this? Has anyone ever played this?

Marked Accounts: Great card that lots of NBN players of ye olde days played. I still see it sometimes, but not as much.

TMI: Remember when TMI was a great Barrier? Remember when people played Making News? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Uroboros: Remember when Uroboros was a good piece of ICE? Well I don’t. It’s great, but I haven’t seen it much. In Making News it was also great.

Data Hound: I loved this piece of ICE. I always wondered why people didn’t play it. Sure it’s easy to break, but still annoying when it fires.

Big Brother: Only crazy “Cool Glasses” Melvin plays this. And it’s good, it’s very good in SYNC. Unfortunately, there are other cards that are of more use in the deck.

ChiLo City Grid: Fancy little piece of upgrade that worked well in Making News, but even then deckspace was tight so people didn’t use it as much.

Salvage: I used it once, it was fun, I lost.

Tyrant: Nope.

Burke Bugs: More nope.

Woodcutter: Even more nope.

Commercialization: All the nope cards used this. So you can imagine how often we saw this in play.

Power Grid Overload: I don’t even remember what this does. Something with a trace and other fancy stuff.

Amazon Industrial Zone: This was ok, I’ve seen some people use it in good ways. Still it won’t be missed though.

Simone Diego: Same as the Amazon Industrial Zone, I don’t think it will be missed.

Corporate War: Seen this get used in a few decks, such as old Blue Sun ones. Not gonna see more play though since Corporate Sales Team is just way better.

Executive Retreat: Some players use this as a funny inclusion in their new Controlling the Message decks since they say that it doesn’t matter which 5/3 agendas you include. The deck is still the same no matter what those agendas are. Executive Retreat has a funky ability, but still as a 5/3 it never saw much play.

Private Contracts: This is one of the most decent economy assets. Unfortunately it won’t be there for us when all the others are gone.

Draco: Best NBN Making News ICE. Period. Now gone.

Foxfire: I love the art on this. People said that it would see use when Apex came out, but even then it never saw much play since Apex wasn’t that great.

Freelancer: Didn’t see any play either.

Surge: I used to run this with my Darwin deck. It’s awesome to see your opponent’s face when you play Kate and you surge your Darwin to break into his remote server.

Spinal Modem: Great little console. Never saw much play because it costs a bit more than people think it should.

Force of Nature: It’s funny because I’ve seen this see play quite a few times lately.

Darwin: As I mentioned, I loved this little guy. I was actually the first person to ever run Pre-Paid Voice Pad in Kate (it was before Lucky Find was even known). It was a funky build with Cyberfeeders, Darwin, Surge, Prepaid Voice Pads and a bunch of events. It’s surprising how good that deck was doing.

Morning Star: I love this program so much. I had it in my Kate deck when I went down to Greece for some Regionals in 2014 and in my first game, I played against a guy that ran Cerebral Imaging with Hives. I don’t think I need to explain how dissappointed the guy was. It’s a real pity that this program is cycling out.

Disrupter: I always thought that this might see play some day, due to a big trace operation or something. Its cost and the way it works just don’t make it any good thuogh.

Xanadu: This is a fun little resource, it’s a real bummer that it’s going to cycle out.

Satellite Uplink: Did anyone ever play this? Cool art though.

Doppelganger: Awesome little console. I used to run it all the time because I didn’t have more than 1 desperado. Thankfully, now I have x2 Desperado. This saw a lot of play in Quest Completed/Notoriety decks.

e3 Feedback Implants: I love how this card was played a lot, then it wasn’t and then it was again. I don’t really know if we will miss it or not. To be fair though, HB is coming back with a bunch of good bioroid ICE so it wouldn’t be weird if you saw it again.

HQ Interface: Same as R&D Interface. HQI however never saw much play because noone really cared about running HQ too much, unless you had to play an event like Siphon. Legwork also made it easier to multi-access HQ when you really wanted to. This saw a bunch of play with the Gang Sign Leela, but that was pretty much it.

Cortez Chip: Was hoping we would see more of this, now with the Tech Traders and all. Unfortunately though, along with other fun cards, this is going to the bin.

Pheromones: I recently played against someone that played an Eater-Siphon-Bhagat deck using Pheromones as the extra influence. You’d be surprised how annoying these lil shits became mid/late game.

Peacock: This is bad and it should feel bad.

Crescentus: Wish we could turn back time! To the good old dayyyyyys! When Reina would force us to rez ICE for more in order to just have it derezzed again.

Snitch: Are you telling me that all the 10 minutes per turn players with Au Revoir won’t be there anymore? I am quite thankful for this card cycling out as awesome as its design may be. For whoever doesn’t realize what I mean, there are those Au Revoir deck players that will make a run, look at your ice and take a whole 2 minutes to think if they will continue or not. Repeat that four times. The best part of the whole thing is that they always end up jacking out anyway.

Mr.Li: Remember when this used to be in every Criminal deck ever? Pepperidge Farm remembers…but he also probably owes money to Mr.Li so I don’t think he’ll open his mouth to say anything.

Compromised Employee: Never saw much play.

Dinosaurus: Yogasaurus will always be in our memories.

Creeper: A selection that only those without influence made.

Deep Thought: Funky card that runners never really used because it’s a program and noone had the space for it.

Snowball: I saw this quite a few times, but that always in decks that were trying out to see if they can make enough money to use Snowball. It rarelye ver worked.

The Helpful AI: I always liked this resource. It gave that sudden boost in strength if you ever needed it. I used it with Darwin primarily.

All-Nighter: I loved this resource. I always said that it will be useful someday. However, the fact that you have to draw it and install it is just making you waste a click and a card in your deck, so it was never really that good. Hyperdriver made the difference though.

Kraken: I may have used this more than I should have. Great card, but rarely ever works. You sometimes get it late and you are also way too used to preparing and then running a remote last click, so it doesn’t really matter. Also, the fact that the Corp gets to choose which ICE makes it even worse.

Inside Man: So much for being an Inside Man. He never saw much play.

Public Sympathy: I used to love this card. But then I realized that it’s not needed. I used to play it in early Andromeda builds in order to be able to keep lots of cards in my hand. It doesn’t protect against the core-set bane of runners, Scorched Earths so it ain’t much good.

Underworld Contact: One of Sunny’s main money engines is going away. Let’s see how she will handle economy from here on other than with just Data Foldings.

So this was my almost 7k words article with my opinions on all of the cards of the Genesis Cycle that are to cycle out in 2017. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope your deckbuilding is as awesome as it ever was since Android: Netrunner continuously manages to amaze us as players and a deckbuilders with all the new mechanics that come out.

I will most definitely write another article in the next few days giving my opinion about the cards that are cycling out from the Spin Cycle too!

I hope to see you all at the German (probably), Belgian, Dutch and French nationals (if you are going)!

Till next time you awesome runners you!

-Constantine “Kelfecil” Christakis