Welcome to our second Meta Predictions article. We’ve gathered thoughts and opinions on the newest data pack, Quorum, from several members of the Stimhack community. In this first half, we’re going to go through all of the cards from the pack and look at their position in the current meta and the game overall. Quorum’s already out in the wild, so let’s dive right in!

Şifr

miek

This is obviously powerful – like really powerful. Whether or not it is “the sky is falling” powerful is yet to be seen. It might be of a similar power level to Temujin Contract. The main weakness of this card is that it only affects ICE, so if ICE is not hugely relevant to your win plan then this doesn’t do a lot. Cards like Magnet, Architect and Lotus Field are going to be staples in glacier when this becomes popular, as well as the strong recursion such as Friends in High Places and maybe even Preemptive Action.

Terrificy

I’m not sure if I like Sifr. The effect is powerful, yes, and it supports a lot of current power cards – Parasite, Yog.0, and Mimic at a very low cost. While it will probably replace Grimoire in builds that can afford it, it won’t necessarily see play over a card like Obelus or Turntable. It may also bring back decks centered around Parasite recursion, with 3x Parasite and 3x Clone Chip to kill ICE and simply lock R&D as early as possible. Decks like Temüjin Whizzard already succeed in making ICE largely redundant, so I don’t think Sifr will change much, but rather just make existing archetypes stronger – and they don’t exactly need it.

My main gripe with Sifr is that it doesn’t in any way create fun, interesting, interactive, or engaging gameplay. The cost to use it – minus one to your maximum handsize until end of turn – is negligible in most cases and doesn’t foster any meaningful decision-making. It is a very simple, dumb card – and it seems powerful to boot, sadly.

Echo

This card is pretty good – blowing things up with Parasite has been always been a solid plan and this brings it up to speed with the current power level of the game. That said, I don’t actually know if it’s a more effective strategy than existing cutlery based decks and Anarchs are the one faction where consoles actually have to compete with each other. Turntable, Grimoire and Obelus are all great for their own reasons and Sifr sits at the high end of console costing.

Rotage

There is not much to be said about this that has already not been said. The card is clearly good and will see a lot of play. Obviously it massively synergizes with Parasite and makes it cheaper to use cutlery to kill ICE. We may see more Ark Lockdown in use to try to remove Parasites from the game in an attempt to combat this.

Sūnya

miek

Two credits to break one subroutine is really awful. I can’t think of a single breaker with this ratio that hasn’t been delegated to garbage tier, and while other stats on this are okay, MKUltra and Mimic are both in faction.

Echo

This card is sort of like Mimic, if Mimic was a bad card.

Rotage

I appreciate that Killers are always less efficient than their Decoder and Fracter counterparts. However, two credits to break a subroutine has never been effective, even with the power counters to keep strength. A lot of Sentry ICE has at least two subroutines on it so that will cost at least four credits to break which is not efficient. If you consider playing this then just ask yourself: when was the last time you saw Creeper see play?

Recon Drone

miek

Reasonable as far as silver bullets go, but is a silver bullet for something that isn’t currently a huge problem. Unlikely to be splashed for a simple Snare. Might be useful for some future card.

Rotage

Does what it says on the tin. The fact it doesn’t specify any damage type means it can be used to make face-checking Mushin No Shin cards that bit easier. At three influence I don’t expect to see this splashed anywhere else.

Tapwrm

miek

I think this parallels pretty well with Cache, in terms of being a virus that has money-earning potential. However it has much less synergy with Aesop’s Pawnshop, Chop Bot, Reaver, and Wasteland, and it encourages a purge which is not necessarily what you want in a virus-heavy deck. Combined with the introduction of Macrophage, and being twice the influence of Cache, this seems unlikely to be used frequently.

Rotage

This is the first zero-cost virus we have had and if it wasn’t for the fact it is two influence it may have seen some play in Noise or in other decks, but at two influence I’d only expect to see this in Criminal decks. With slots being tight, I am not sure how much play it will see, there are much more high impact cards they can play such as Inside Job and Emergency Shutdown which don’t always find space in their decks, so I am not sure this will jump ahead of the queue.

Echo

This card is super interesting. Drip economy with zero credits paid to set up is excellent as you won’t lose tempo from it. If the Corp is sitting on ten credits or more you’ll get rich quickly unless your opponent wants to purge, in which case you spent a click and a card to make them purge. I think the main weakness is the anti-synergy with Medium, as your plan becomes more vulnerable to Cyberdex Virus Suite and you may also run into memory issues depending on your rig setup.

Tracker

miek

This card is really cool, allowing you to bypass the need for a crucial breaker on early servers. At 2 MU it is obviously a card for early aggression. My biggest problem with this card is that they’ve started releasing some cards with multiple painful subs and the early pressure from this card is unlikely to be enough. If you faceplant a DNA Tracker, having this installed doesn’t help much.

Rotage

An interesting card for Criminal which could be useful to avoid a key subroutine from firing when you have to access a particular server. At 2MU it could be difficult to fit into a rig. There is some synergy with Grappling Hook enabling you to get past any ICE at two cost, but with the amount of multi-sub ICE at at the moment not sure how much play this card will see.

Aaron Marrón

miek

Oh boy. This is a good one. Probably the best Breaking News counter in the game, but also solid draw against a non-tagging deck, not to mention the Siphon synergy. It only takes playing tag-me Anarch to realise how much more impactful a 15 credit swing over one click is compared to an 11 credit swing over three clicks, and here we can instead make it a 15 credit swing with two cards drawn. Beautiful.

One problem I have with this card is that it shows the sequencing of packs needs work. It has been said that playtesting is done over a full cycle, so cards like Controlling the Message and Hard-Hitting News probably don’t seem so problematic when you already have Citadel Sanctuary, On the Lam, and Aaron Marrón. However because packs come out sporadically and we can’t guarantee a full cycle is complete for tournaments, you get situations like Worlds 2016 where we have 16 NBN tagging decks in the cut and mostly Anarch, the only runners who can deal with that.

Rotage

A really strong card. Being able to stop the Breaking News tags alone is a great ability and it also has good synergy with Account Siphon. Plus even if you don’t have any tags to clear you can still use the tokens just to draw. However as the ability is remove and not avoid a tag, an Accelerated Diagnostics combo using 24/7 and BOOM! can still flatline the Runner.

Thebigunit3000

The best Criminal card since Temujin Contract.

Echo

This is the card Blockade Runner wishes it could be. More efficient than existing draw options available to Crim, and also happens to counter some of the most prominent recent archetypes in the meta and has synergy with Account Siphon. Play three copies because you want to install this early, and remember that this card rewards aggressive play.

Encore

miek

Seems unlikely that gaining clicks after spending three clicks running is good, however the condition for Encore is the same as Apocalypse. If you’re able to gain an extra click on your Apocalypse turn you can play both and get an extra 4 clicks to have your way with the Corp. Seems good in Dyper-style decks, but maybe too fiddly to work. Definitely worth testing. One problem with this card is that it does not stack. That is, if you gain 2 extra clicks to play Encore 3 times in one turn, you do not gain 3 extra turns. With Out of the Ashes it might be possible to chain them over multiple turns, although the setup involved for this is pretty large.

Rotage

As the resident Dyper player, I have been asked a bit about putting this card into Dyper. For me, as mentioned previously, it does not work well with DDOS unless you False Echo all the ICE back to hand, which could prove tricky. I see it more being used in either an Apocalypse Kate deck or a Dyper deck which goes all in on Apocalypse as opposed to DDoS; neither of these decks see much play at the moment and unless they do I don’t know if we will see much of Encore.

Thebigunit3000

The run-all-centrals condition draws you to two archetypes right off the bat: Dyper and (Shaper) Apocalypse. With Dyper, getting an extra 3 net clicks seems good until you realize that you need to find another DDoS to Keyhole R&D again next turn. Dyper easily wants to play a full playset of Notorieties before it thinks about playing Encore. With Apocalypse the clicks seem slightly more beneficial — you’ve just fired Apocalypse and maybe have dropped an Aesop’s. You’re getting a whole turn to Keyhole an empty board, which will give you an opening to cash in about 3-6 points (a remote agenda if you time it right, and one or two from the Keyholes)

Inactivist

This is about as welcome as the Ace of Base comeback tour, and likely as impactful.

Fawkes

miek

The obvious comparison is to Dagger. This has situations where it’s better than Dagger except for install cost. However, the usual problem with Dagger is not boosting, but breaking subs. One credit per sub isn’t necessarily bad, but it is not phenomenal enough to justify the huge engine that stealth requires. A common example with Dagger is that it costs 4 credits (one stealth) to break Ichi 1.0, and 3 (one stealth) to break Architect, and this is worse with Fawkes for both as you have to pay more credits to meet the ICE strength. I appreciate that they’ve released a full set of breakers for Smoke, but it really seems like there is no reason to run this over Dagger, ever.

Rotage

Unlike the debate about which Decoder stealth card was better between Houdini and Refractor, I expect much less of a debate between Fawkes and Dagger. Dagger is cheaper at breaking individual ICE than Fawkes in almost all circumstances, and only once Sentries are being stacked does Fawkes improve slightly. However unless we enter a meta dominated by Sentries I don’t expect to see much Fawkes. In the current meta I expect Dagger to be more popular.

Peace in Our Time

miek

Sometimes money for the Corp is bad, and sometimes you don’t care. When you don’t care (or even prefer the Corp to gain money *cough Beth cough*) then this card is amazing. I expect to see Dyper decks playing this, although maybe the influence cost is prohibitive. I also wouldn’t be too surprised if people try to bring back Prepaid VoicePAD with this card, although I don’t expect that to be as good.

Rotage

I have done some testing with this in Dyper and it has potential. The multiple conditions on being able to play this do cause issues with it at times, the main being it that it can’t be played if the Corp has scored an agenda the previous turn. Chances are that you need money the most when you are having to rush as the Corp is getting closer to winning however it is definitely something I expect to see in Dyper decks and possibly other deck types too. Could even find use in a Siphon deck as a way to ensure the Corp has money you can Siphon.

Terrificy

An economic card that requires you to play uninteractive Netrunner? Who thought this was a good idea?! Baffling.

Echo

Changing the card back on Medical Research Fundraiser doesn’t make it a good card. I recommend putting this card in your janky combo deck and then cutting it when you remember it costs an influence.

Sensor Net Activation

miek

The effect seems okay, but probably not worth scoring an agenda over. Not a weak effect, but I still doubt it will see much play compared to other options, as 1-point agendas typically aren’t that popular anyway.

Rotage

The ability seems OK for a 3/1. Being able to rez a Fairchild, Janus 1.0 or Heimdall 2.0 for free, with the only penalty is that it is derezzed after, is nothing to be scoffed at. However, finding space for a one point agenda is difficult at the moment and to justify the slot the agenda must form a key part of the deck or else have a game changing ability such as Chronos Protocol or Breaking News. I don’t see this ability at the same level of these two and don’t expect to see it played much.

Violet Level Clearance

miek

The obvious place for this card is Cerebral Imaging, both Hasty Relocation and Power Shutdown variants probably want to play this card. It gives the same credit gain as Blue Level Clearance, more cards and for one less click. It even gives you the option of using Reclamation Order and then immediately playing the card. The biggest downside is that it is one credit to trash, making R&D more porous.

Rotage

This will probably appear in 90-95% of CI decks and about 0-5% of other HB decks.

Thebigunit3000

I can’t say enough good things about this card (in Cerebral Imaging). At its best, you’re getting three credits and four cards for one click. This is a rate far beyond any other econ Operation. Cards and credits are the name of the game for CI, whether you’re playing normal 7-point Shutdown, Hasty Relocation, or even Lakshmi Smartfabrics. There are some limitations of the card which I’ll talk about in a second, but they’re merely nitpicks. The trash cost is definitely a downside, as you’ve now got three more cards in R&D that can be trashed or stolen. If the Runner trashes it though, Archived Memories for it is still a very reasonable rate. The credit threshold is also a consideration – Blue Level Clearance and possibly Lateral Growth will help you recover from Vamp or Siphon better. Finally, Violet Level Clearance is a Terminal, so if you’re digging for HQ ICE on the first turn, Blue Level Clearance is what you want. These downsides are minor, though – every CI player should be packing three of these going forward.

Chiyashi

miek

I still think this card is bonkers. However, I have heard the arguments that 12 credits is a pretty heavy cost for a card that’s still vulnerable to D4v1d and Knifed. As such, it’s unlikely that I would play it anywhere but Blue Sun. The fact that its AI clause still fires even if a non-AI breaks it is pretty sinister, though.

Rotage

This supersedes DNA Tracker as the premier Jinteki ICE as it has a nasty facecheck and an ETR as well. However with 3 subs it can be killed with D4v1d and Knifed.The anti-AI ability is a nice touch and I do expect to see this played, At 2 influence I wouldn’t be surprised to see this splashed in other decks such as Blue Sun or even HB, as they could have the money to justify playing it.

Higgs

If Mutate is ever going to be worth it, this is the kind of ICE Jinteki needs.

Psychokinesis

miek

I like this card, but I’m not easily able to estimate how good it is. Jinteki glacier is probably not going to be able to use it well, due to their usual reliance on 4/2 agendas, however shell-game or Bioethics lock decks could potentially have uses for this card.

Rotage

At first glance I was totally unimpressed with this card but after having reexamined Psychokinesis, it is not as bad as first seemed. Certainly in the the late game with both players on match point it allows the Corp to be able to check the top cards of R&D to try to find an agenda and put it in their scoring remote, as the card allows Assets, Agendas or Upgrades to be installed it does allow the ability to bluff, furthermore the cards are not shuffled afterwards so you can know what the Runner will see if their run R&D on their next turn, sadly as it is terminal it gives you little opportunity to deal with a R&D with agendas near the top or advance the agenda that installed.

Thebigunit3000

If big ICE is a thing, Mutate decks might just start making a comeback. (Big ICE is not a thing.)

Net Quarantine

miek

The effect on this card is very powerful, however as a 4/2 it does impose some limitations. As it stands, I think the only decks that would really want to use this are the Arhabyata Tech + Restructured Datapool decks, and that combo requires you get a hard to score 5/3 as well as a hard to score 4/2 online.

Rotage

The ability seems very good, but it’s on a 4/2 agenda, how often does NBN score 4/2s? They either score 2/1s and 3/2s or Exchange the 2/1s for 5/3s. This may find a home in a dedicated trace deck in Making News, but if it is able to score a 4/2 then it might be better off just scoring 3/2s and 2/1s instead.

Herald

miek

I am unsure about this card. If anyone has played Matrix Analyzer from the Core set you realise how hard it is to use advancement tokens from an ICE to any great effect, which means we are mostly evaluating this card based on its +2 credits for the Corp. As such, it is slightly worse than Product Placement, as it can a) be broken by the Runner and b) only costs one to trash instead of two.

Rotage

It is often joked that Weyland have the best NBN cards, but it now seems that NBN get Weyland cards. We have seen a few NBN cards that allow you to advance cards such as Matrix Analyzer, Early Premier and Award Bait, these rarely see play and I don’t expect to see this card seeing much play either.

Veritas

miek

Seems a clear replacement for Caduceus as a sentry gear-check. It has one more sub, better resiliency against link. It’s worse against parasite and has no ETR sub, not to mention it costs more to rez. However the credit swing on a facecheck is the same as the rez cost (just like Caduceus).

Rotage

A cheap early facecheck that early on could swing credits well in your favour and prevent further runs on the server until they have an answer to it.

Echo

The truth is, Weyland already has some ICE quite similar to this. This feels like Errand Boy, Caduceus and Shadow all sort of mixed together and I think it comes out better than any of them. If you want a moderately taxing ICE with an affordable rez cost and some facecheck punishment, this is a clear pick.

Bryan Stinson

miek

This guy is pretty cool, and might even possibly bring BABW into some spotlight again. Most obvious power is turn 1 (although watch out for Siphon). Getting the Runner at six credits or lower is pretty hard, however I think it is worth noting that he makes cards like Midseason Replacements valuable even when you are slightly poorer than the Runner, as you can dip their econ to enable his ability.

Rotage

A very strong ability here, being able to play a Restructure for 15 credits is very powerful indeed, with a rez cost of two and trash of five the numbers on the upgrade are good too. My issue is getting the Runner under 6 credits, if you are Weyland and the Runner is under six credits then chances you are in a good position already and this becomes more of a win more card. However I expect it will still see play as it allows you to recover from an expensive turn of rezzing ICE vs the Runner or at other times when your economy has taken a temporary hit at the expense of the Runner’s own.

Thebigunit3000

This is going to be very good. He’s an upgrade, so you can stick him on whichever server is hardest to get into. He synergizes with Midseason Replacements very well — if the Runner goes broke paying into the trace, you can instantly bounce back. Closed Accounts and Reversed Accounts (with Dedication Ceremony) are also worthy of pairing with Bryan, and may provide the tempo that Weyland rush needs to put itself back on the map.

NASX

miek

A fourth PAD Campaign for a deck that wants PAD Campaigns. It seems unlikely that a Runner will play Rumor Mill against this card unless it also happens to shut down something else, so this might see play in decks without many unique cards. Non-Whizzard runners don’t usually trash PAD Campaigns much, but a deck that wants to force a trash (CtM for example) might be willing to load up some money on this and leave it as a tempting target for the Runner.

Rotage

I expect to see this played instead of a third PAD Campaign due to the extra ability or even as a fourth PAD Campaign for decks that want it. This could well be put into the scoring server as it is a card the Runner will want to trash and it could provide a nice boost of credits if left to build up.

Echo

It seems pretty obvious to exchange this for one of your PAD Campaigns. Rumour Mill shutting it off is a minor concern but I think the cases where you benefit from the ability are going to outweigh the ones where you suffer because of its uniqueness.

Thebigunit3000

Like everyone else said, this is a fourth PAD. However, I think that it’s slightly worse than PAD (because of vulnerability to Rumor Mill). The trash ability is a trap — if you’re using it you’re either way ahead and now winning more, or you’re trashing your drip econ for suboptimal value.

Macrophage

miek

The numbers on this card are brutal. Four subs means it is resistant to D4v1d + Spooned and only three rez for seven strength is insane. Its subroutines are very specific, however burning a Clot (and removing it from the game) or similar for a Medium are both very good. Against non-virus decks it is just trace-1 ETR, so it is unlikely to even be installed. Never install this against Power Tap decks.

Rotage

Are people playing decks with Viruses in your meta? If so then consider this card, at a rez of three and seven strength its rez-to-strength is one of the best we have seen in Netrunner and is quite likely to fire on the first encounter. For a non-link Runner to match all the traces it will cost them ten credits if you don’t boost any of these traces, and with four subs this will require either two D4v1d’s or a combination of D4v1d and other breakers to kill with cutlery. Against Power Tap decks or other decks with a lot of link this has no use and becomes a liability.

Echo

This is surprisingly good considering how narrow it is. Those subroutines are brutal if you can land the traces, and unless the Runner feels like breaking four 7-strength subs you can at least make them pay money to keep their viruses in the game. I don’t know if you can just swap this in for your existing ICE due to it being almost blank against some rigs, but if your deck is worried about Medium and doesn’t have a fast advance plan this is probably better than Cyberdex Virus Suite.

Thebigunit3000

I think this is a very meta-dependent ICE. It’s very good fighting against Medium and Parasite decks (which are well-positioned in the meta right now), and will continue to be with the rise of Sifr. Sticking this on R&D to defend against a Medium dig will be a common use. It’s very taxing versus decks that seek to maintain a Clot lock as well, as long as they’re not on link. Less powerful will be the decks playing this with Sub Boost and perhaps even Chief Slee, but these could easily surface during Store Championship season.

Tribunal

miek

The numbers on this card are brutal but the wrong way. Seven to rez for a card in Mimic range is pretty awful. Three subs is good, and the facecheck potential here is high, but the average scenario is that a facecheck sets the Corp back more than the Runner. Similar to Chiyashi, this is a card that might only see play in Blue Sun.

Rotage

Very little about this card impresses me, at a rez cost of sevem there are much better ICE I would prefer to rez at this price such as Assassin or Sherlock (an exception being Power Tap decks). Once rezzed it has a strength of three making it easy for Mimic to break and even if it manages to fire, the Runner gets to chose what to trash. However against a Runner with installed cards and no way to deal with it then it could have an impact, as mentioned previously it could be of use in a Blue Sun deck.

Echo

I’m finding it hard to reach a verdict on this. The early facecheck potential is huge, as trashing three of your installed cards is far worse than trashing just one as previous cards have done. The tax on this against common breakers is somewhat lower than what you would want for seven credits (highlighted by being in the same pack as Veritas) which might confine it to Blue Sun for the time being.

Final Thoughts

Terrificy

Compared to many of the other packs we have seen in this cycle, this pack is largely uninteresting. Coming from a cycle that started out with impactful, (sometimes) interesting power-cards all over the place in the first two packs (Rumor Mill, NBN: Controlling the Message, Hard-Hitting News, Sandburg, Paperclip, Beth Kilrain-Chang, Temüjin Contract and I’m sure I’ve missed a few!) and more or less kept up the tempo in the next packs, this feels like a filler pack.

Thebigunit3000

I have to disagree. Aaron and Sifr are huge boosts in Runner power. Violet Level Clearance and Bryan Stinson shift a lot of power to decks that aren’t yellow. I think it’s par for the course this cycle: very powerful!

miek

I also disagree. I think this deck has a large quantity of cards that will see continued play (such as Stinson, Veritas, VLC, Macrophage, ), not to mention the 2 new cards that are going to entirely define the new meta (Sifr and Aaron).