PeachHack Preview: Escalation Runner Side Spoiler

PeachHack is proud to present today’s Escalation spoiler, Net Mercur:

Stealth has been a powerful archetype since the Lunar cycle, leveraging extreme breaker efficiency with classic Shaper rig-building tools and R&D multi-access, but it has always had a problem with keeping up with fast corps, as well as running out of gas against extreme glacier. The perennial struggle of stealth players is a desperation for sources of stealth credits to fuel their run economy, and many players are eagerly anticipating the release of Smoke, the new identity coming in the fourth data pack of Flashpoint, Intervention that comes with a recurring stealth credit. However, even with Smoke, many players have felt like it’s still not quite enough.

Enter Net Mercur, the card I would argue is the missing piece of the stealth puzzle. This resource provides an unprecedented amount of versatility and utility to stealth decks that was desperately needed as both a renewable source of stealth credits and card draw. This is an exciting time to be a Stealth player indeed!

Walking through the card text, we first notice that this card triggers once each run. Imagine that you’re Smoke and you have Net Mercur, two Cloaks, and a Refractor installed. You could click 1 install Temujin Contracts on an unprotected archives, then run archives 3 times, each time spending a stealth credit to pump the strength of Refractor without otherwise using it to break anything. That would not only gain you the 4 credits from Temujin Contracts each time, but would also generate a stealth credit on Net Mercur for each run, or a card draw, if that is what is necessary. This makes it very easy to switch back and forth between turns of building your board state, or applying pressure by gaining extra stealth credits during a run or for future runs.

Furthermore, Net Mercur is, itself, a stealth card, so spending credits off Net Mercur triggers itself! You can spend a credit off Net Mercur and it replenishes itself right away if it’s the first time during a run. It’s essentially a stealth bad publicity, or a Shaper Desperado. I hear those are pretty good!

But my favorite part of the card is the second line: “Use credits on Net Mercur for anything.” “Anything” is an earth-shattering word for this card, and it boggles the mind the possibilities this opens.

– Can you use credits on Net Mercur for paying install costs of cards? Heck yes you can!

– What about paying the play costs of events? Heck yes you can!

– How about for trashing corp cards? Heck yes you can!

– What if you want to use it to pay into traces? Heck yes you can!

– How about Psi games? Heck yes you can!

I love it. It’s understandably unique, and it’s 3-credit cost makes it a tasty target for Career Fair. With the rise of Smoke, I can see Net Mercur right at her side propelling her to the top of the charts.