Welcome to the Stimhack Community Review for Free Moose Mars! We’ve collected thoughts and opinions on the new pack from whomever we had lying around in the heap that we hadn’t already removed for 2 credits.

Mars for Martians

StephenBall

Clearly this is an enabler for the Counter Surveillance deck that is often talked about but never made. In that style of deck this certainly pulls weight, but I still personally have not seen them succeed. The best tag-me decks we have seen in the game to this point are Data Leak Reversal decks, which need money to set up but often don’t need much by the time you reach the mid to late game in my experience. But with DLR rotating soon, this is poised to become the new tag-me strategy, and this card can fit in well.

Miek

Great anti-Closed Accounts tech, but you need to go seriously deep down the tag hole for this to work. I think it is reasonably clear that the “draw” aspect of this card is rarely going to fire much, but the credit gain on its own is reasonably good.

dr00

The biggest weakness for tag-me decks has almost always been a Corp packing Closed Accounts, but enter Mars for Martians. Bad credit, no credit, the Mars Colonial Authority can get you the cash you need now to keep the Siphon train on the rails.

FightingWalloon

For any tag-me Anarch who runs Jarogniew Mercs this is a card that draws a replacement and fairly easily earns Hedge Fund cash or better. While likely not a meta defining card, the host of tag-me cards in Red Sands have already led to lots of creative decks and you will probably see this on a fairly regular basis.

God of War

StephenBall

Another piece of the tag-me engine, this one I’m not very sold on at this point. Yes it’s a way to give yourself tags, which will be more important to the strategy when Joshua B rotates (sad face), but 4 cost seems expensive for this card, which doubles as a horrifically bad breaker. It’s interesting design for sure, but the numbers are terrible, as they should be for an AI breaker.

Miek

As a breaker, this card is awful. As small part of non-tag-me DLR engine, this is good. With the release of Citadel Sanctuary, we’ve seen the DLR Andy deck start to thrive. Using cards like John Masanori/Security Nexus + Jak Sinclair to tag yourself and then spam DLR for the turn, only to then remove the tag with Citadel Sanctuary. The weakness of such decks is that a) they need to interact with the Corporation’s board early, but have invested a lot of slots in a late-game lock and b) they have to require so many cards together to get the self-tagging combo going. Now with God of War, they can tag themselves immediately without requiring any clicks. Even better, they can use a super common tutor card (Special Order) to easily bring God of War out. Because this card is so much easier to tutor, harder to trash, and less combo intensive, Andy can maintain her usual style of aggressive play while using this as a late game win condition. I am sold on God of War as a good card, but I do admit that it is very easy to overlook its use-cases.

dr00

Terrible breaker that is near unplayable. As a tool for tag-me Anarch, it’s one of the easiest ways to tag yourself (doesn’t even require a click). Thankfully Data-Leak Reversal is rotating soon, but once that happens, I fail to see a place where this card does well.

FightingWalloon

This is no Faust, which is okay because it clearly is not meant to be the kind of breaker that carries a whole rig by itself. In a deck that wants to be tagged God of War is a tag factory and with Dean Lister or common tools such as Datasucker or Sifr can pose some threat. No, it is not a good breaker, but it is an interesting tool in a particular kind of deck. Watch out for it in the deck of your meta’s resident jank lord.

Leave No Trace

Shanodin

This card is super interesting and we might reach a critical mass soon where denial by derez decks have enough good cards to become quite oppressive. This is also an interesting card in a non-dedicated deck, as a pseudo-blackmail in the same way that Run Amok is for Anarch.

StephenBall

A sometimes better and sometimes worse Inside Job. Better if you’re rigged up and it isn’t worth it for the Corp to rez their ICE, worse if you play this and they flip a Vanilla you can’t break. It’s a cool effect, the issue I see is that Inside Job is a really good card, and it doesn’t see much play because Criminal slots are so tight.

dr00

By far the most fun card of this pack. This is a ‘fair’ Blackmail that plays right into the strengths of what Criminal does best: making runs and making the Corp broke. I predict this card will see a lot of play.

FightingWalloon

Will this see play? Damon gave us an entire blue deck this cycle — or just about — with cards that all overlap and synergize with each other. Someone will build that deck and if you play a Corp that needs to use its ICE, that deck will be really annoying. As a stand alone card, the utility of this card is more difficult to see.

Inactivist

I feel like every pack there’s a card that has me saying “Huh, this’ll be pretty good in Au Revoir Andy decks”. So like Rosetta 2.0, Daredevil, and card that doesn’t exist yet, assume I’ve said that for its ability to challenge a server without shutting yourself out long-term. Outside of that, this is a really interesting card that could have a strong effect on a scoring server (and is hilarious with event recursion) but falls to the problem that Criminal has lately of having a whole array of derez/bypass tricks and no slots to fit them.

Rip Deal

Shanodin

This card presents some very interesting decisions. Obviously the first instinct is to maximise the value by combining it with multiaccess (HQ interface for example) especially because you can’t recur it at all. However some cards are such high impact that just getting one back can be huge, and I think this card will definitely see play in a lot of Criminal lists. Even just the ability to recover from an accidental program blowout is massive for previously recursion starved Criminals. Probably won’t be a three-of though, unless you are building around it, because you don’t want to see it early.

StephenBall

I was excited when I first saw this card, but now that time has passed, I believe it to be pretty bad. This is really expensive, and a lot of work for it to get back more than one card. Andy is leaving us soon (super sad face), and I believe the best criminal ID after her is Steve Cambridge, who has a built in recursion ability, so I see this stuck in people’s binders unless they are doing something really really weird.

dr00

Really hard to evaluate this card to be honest. Giving up multi-access for recursion can be pretty good, since it’s very targeted recursion, but how many cards can you get back and use without discarding? Works with Gauntlet and HQ Interface, but one is rotating soon. Works with Turning Wheel, but are you really going to ditch counters to grab stuff out of the heap instead of gain accesses? Could be decent for Adam since it’s a low influence run event that gives him some ‘easy’ recursion (at least 2 cards), but only insomuch as how easy it is to get into HQ.

FightingWalloon

I have a Cache Refresh Gabe deck that uses a single copy of this card because it has Gauntlet as its console. (You can only use 1 copy of Desperado in Cache Refresh.) Even there, though, I question whether it is worth the card slot. It does not just cost 3 to play this card. It costs 3 plus whatever it costs to get into HQ. Also, you have to be in a game state where given the choice between taking a multi-access on HQ and getting back some cards from you heap, you’d rather take the cards. In short, it feels like a card that MIGHT be worth including as a utility card if you already have non-event-based HQ multi-access in your deck.

Flashbang

StephenBall

It costs so much for this card to do anything. It had to be expensive, and is probably costed correctly, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a bad card.

Miek

I disagree that this is costed correctly. This card is barely better than Femme against Archer, and Archer is the best use case of this card. The entire balancing mechanism of this card was built around what it does to Archer, however Archer is just a small part of the meta. Ideally this card should be great against Archer, rather than just good.

dr00

Great if you want to derez something, but terrible if you just want to break it normally. When ‘it’s more efficient than Golden’ is a selling point for a card, you know you’re in trouble. It’s a really fun card and interesting effect, but so incredibly expensive.

FightingWalloon

Someone out there who loves to play Apocalypse saw this card and thought they finally found an answer to Architect. Then they did the math. This is another card that might go in Los but is hard to see even in that deck. If your opponent is playing Los and has a Keros Mcintyre on the board, you might see this show up on casual night or at your GNK. Don’t expect to see it at the top tables though.

Lean and Mean

StephenBall

There is an issue with card design as a game gets older and a card pool grows, and that’s that conditional events like this are just impossible to fit in your deck. With the play cost of the event added in, it’s unlikely that this card will even be much of a bargain.

dr00

The obvious use is for breakers that can’t increase their own strength, but this card is quite restrictive compared to other options (you either have 1-2 Datasuckers and an AI or don’t have Datasucker support for your breakers, due to the limitations of Lean and Mean). So this is basically a money card. So let’s compare it to Dirty Laundry, where the payout is 3 credits and 1 click (from the included run). The math is roughly the same here, if you end up needing the +2 bonus at least 3 times during the run. The more times you get that bonus, the better the payout, but when was the last time you had exactly 3 programs installed against a Corp with more than 3 pieces of ICE on a server, all with a strength of 3-4 or higher?

FightingWalloon

I have a friend who likes to play Lock Haley. I could see 1 or 2 copies of this fitting in that deck. Getting Faust up to strength 4 and also getting to boost Cy Cy or Chameleon seems like a good effect. The range of decks leaning hard on a single AI breaker is much smaller these days, but just about any deck that really benefits from Dean Lister might consider this card as well.

Maven

StephenBall

2 credits to break an ICE subroutine is generally a dealbreaker for me, and this is no exception. Especially with e3 leaving soon, I just don’t see this card ever doing anything well.

dr00

Could be an interesting deck space for Adam who finally makes use of Multithreaders, but once E3 rotates out, that 2 to break is going to really hurt, especially since E3 was such an Adam staple. 2 credits for each subroutine, even if you aren’t paying for strength, is hard to justify. Adept, et al. can get away with it because they gain strength from unused MU. Maven requires extra MU (or pseudo-MU) and additionally installing programs to take up that space. With so much setup, you’ll wonder why you went through all the trouble when you’re still spending 6 credits to get past Fairchild 3.0.

FightingWalloon

What deck would use this card? I know Professor disciples immediately set their minds to work when they saw it. Usually, glee among the ranks for Professor fans is a bad sign for a card’s competitive future, though. Here is the situation where I think this breaker might do some work: Against fairly high-strength ICE with only 1 or 2 subroutines. So, for instance, Gordian Blade spends 4 (7 with tax) to break Tollbooth or 5 to break Archangel. Maven spends 2. The problem here is that at 2 MU, your rig is going to have to be very big to get Maven to the strength where it is useful — and even then it is only helpful vs a limited range of ICE.

Na’Not’K

Inactivist

With two Ice on a server, this is a Mimic with an emergency Oh Crap button. Hilarity of one Architect being cheaper to break than two aside, this feels flexible enough to take the place of your standard Killer splash in any non-specialised build. Criminal probably stick with Mongoose, but just barely.

SimonMoon

The first and most important thing to understand when evaluating this card is understanding what the correct ice placement is against the vast majority of shaper decks is. Shaper lacks any credible HQ or Archives threat, but typically has great long term econ. The counterplay is usually to not ice HQ and just make a giant stack of ice on RnD and the scoring remote. Despite the downside of taking 5 credits to break a single architect, 5 credits is not enough credits to keep out of RnD lock against Mopus, Smoke, Prepaid or any of the long term econ plans that Shaper utilizes. So the downside of the breaker tends to be almost zero against any deck that wants to score out of a remote since they need to make large ice stacks on the relevant servers. Its weakness does come into play against HB asset spam where Architect can be used as a 5 credit tax on multiple high value assets.

StephenBall

This seems like a pretty good killer in a faction that doesn’t have many good options for killers, and only 1 influence to boot. Shines against ICE forts, struggles against single sentries, but honestly, anything that says 1c: break subroutine is looking pretty decent in Shaper these days with the inclusion of Dedicated Processor. I expect to see this card around, and expect to be rused when I don’t understand it’s strength.

Miek

This card is just a colour pie mistake. Its cheap to install, only costs 1 MU, and is damn efficient against many sentries the majority of the time. While it does have a weakness, its ability to prevent face-check blowout as well as be efficient against the field is a nice combination, and commonly played cards like Net Ready Eyes, Datasucker, etc. are strong examples of how to mitigate its weakness.

dr00

I originally didn’t do the math on this card and rather just focused on the 3 to boost 2 and thought ‘well that’s awful,’ but for a 2-ICE server (which is much more common than 4+), this is a boostable Mimic out of Shaper, who is supposed to have the worst ability at breaking sentries. A lone Architect can be quite costly, but it doesn’t end the run anyway, so I don’t think the Corp will be happy leaving it alone for long anyway.

FightingWalloon

This is not a meta prediction, but I won’t be surprised if it happens. This card might see more play outside of Shaper than in it. I did a quick check on NRDB of Shaper decks that placed highly in the current Regional season. Most of them either were on some sort of package with no pure killer or used Femme, which this card is not a direct replacement for in most decks. I did find one Regional-winning Kate deck running Mimic, and this seems like an auto-replace in that deck, but I wonder if this card might actually see more play as a splash. Or perhaps it will help stimulate the growth of a Reg Shaper breaker suite. As others have said, it is a solid card.

Bloo Moose

SimonMoon

This card is completely broken and will almost certainly end up on the MWL (ideally 3x). There are basically 3 components to judging a pure econ card:

Time to payout (or tempo hit) Total payout. Deckbuilding restrictions.

The total payout of Bloo Moose is extremely large (cards like Underworld Contact see play and are half as good), and I’ve regularly been seeing 30+ credits from a Bloo Moose, which makes it at the absolute top of total payout econ cards. It does come with a real tempo hit, but Daily Casts is only 1 credit less and see a large amount of play. On deckbuilding restrictions there are two ways in which you are restricted:

Needing cards in the bin you can remove. No floating tags.

However, in practice point 1 is true for almost every deck (outside of something like Spycam Hayley where your late game econ is so bonkers it doesn’t matter). Even decks that run Levy are able to remove cards from their bin, and in fact it makes Levy BETTER not worse because you improve your average draw post-Levy and no one was going all the way through the Levy’d deck anyway. So what do we get? An all time powerful econ card that fits in every deck that isn’t Siphon Anarch and provides a minimal tempo loss.

StephenBall

The best card in the pack, far and away, nothing else even comes close. It’s not uncommon for this card to pay out around 30 credits without even trying, and it seems insane to me that this card doesn’t cost any influence when things like Process Automation and Guru Davinder do. Having a Daily Casts that basically never runs out is absurd, this card is totally broken. The sad thing is it’s only the second most broken Runner econ card Damon has printed in his short time as lead designer. Expect to see Bloo Moose absolutely everywhere.

Miek

Imagine if Underworld Contacts was super easy to trigger and tutored copies of itself like Rabbit Hole. That would be crazy right? This is sooo good. Pretty much any Runner deck can easily find room for this as well, just by cutting Daily Casts or some other economy card. Criminal especially loves this card, since they often run 3 copies of Career Fair and rarely have any significant recursion. I would be surprised to see this card MWL but I am certainly willing to be wrong about that.

dr00

The best part of this card is extra copies can just become fodder for it. Best card in the pack. Probably best card in the cycle. One of the best cards in the game. Expect to see this as often as you see Sure Gamble, to be honest.

FightingWalloon

I have little to add to what has been said above. You will see this card everywhere. Unlimited piles of money are good.

Inactivist

It’s okay I guess.

O2 Shortage

StephenBall

What can I say about this card that hasn’t been said a thousand times on Facebook already. It’s totally unplayable garbage, no matter what playtesters allegedly said, and in this universe “value Neural EMP” is not a thing. I would say you should put this card in your bike spokes, but that would be an insult to your bike. The closest this card will ever come to greatness is being pressed up against Bloo Moose in the packaging.

Miek

StephenBall has it right. Not only is this card bad, but it is potentially the worst card ever printed in the game, especially for the Corp. It is worth noting that any card that can be installed as ICE or installed as a facedown card has value as a bluff element, therefore the worst Corp card in the game has to be an operation. If we look through the operations, there are very few cards even on the same playing field of mediocre as O2 Shortage. Perhaps Bad Times, perhaps Hellion Alpha Test, but ultimately I think O2 Shortage takes the cake.

dr00

I agree that it’s unfair to evaluate this card as a fast advance tool, since the primary function is forcing the Runner to decide if they want to suffer a value EMP or give you an extra click. So in that regard, it’s still one of the worst cards ever printed, quite possibly the worst Corp card ever at least.

Whiteblade111

Practical uses for O2 Shortage include being a drink coaster or kindling for a nice summer fire. As a Netrunner card? Not very practical.

SimonMoon

I’m going to take a slightly different angle on O2 Shortage than my fellow reviewers. While yes, it is not good, I think it is a card that gives us valuable insights into what makes a good card and how Netrunner works. To start off, O2 Shortage is what’s referred to as a punisher card, because it gives your opponent two different choices and lets them decide what bad thing is going to happen for them. This choice is the key aspect of understanding how to evaluate it, because the choice means we can always expect O2 Shortage to be as good as the worst part of it for the Corporation. So evaluating it comes down to three components: how good is each part, and are the parts of it good at the same time.

Looking at O2 Shortage, we see 2 choices:

A Biotic Labor for 3 A neural EMP for 3 with no run requirement

The first one looks great! A biotic labor for 3 credits is excellent. Looking at the Neural part we see something less good. Neural EMP is not a great card for 2 credits, and it’s important to look at why that is. Breaking down the resources involved here, we see the Corp is paying 2 (3) credits and a Card (since the Neural EMP is a card) to kill a random Card from the Runner’s hand. This will be good when the card killed is better than than the Corp’s replacement card by 2 credits. Since Netrunner is a mostly balanced game, Runner cards are typically of equal value to the Corps card, and in general this means the 1:1 card trade at the cost of 2 credits is a losing proposition for the Corp. The only situation where this will make sense is when the Runner has cards that are way better than average in their hand. However, for the most part, the Runner will PLAY their best cards because their best cards are, after all, their best cards to play. There is of course, one exception to this where Neural EMP has historically been used: when there are no cards in the Runner’s hand and Neural EMP wins the game. O2 Shortage sadly does not work here as it cannot deliver the final blow.

Finally, even though this card fails purely on the merits of the Neural EMP ability, it is important to consider the final step in analysis. How often are both of these abilities Good at the same time. After all, while setting up a kill with O2 Shortage would be good, if you don’t have something to do with the extra clicks the winner will just choose not to go to 0 cards in hand. So we need to return back and analyze the Biotic part of this equation and understand when is a Biotic useful?

Helheim Servers

StephenBall

This seems like a pretty cool defensive upgrade, something we don’t get very often anymore. I like that it is unique, I like that the cost feels real, and I like that it is a boost to Ice. There are Ice in this game that are balanced around their strength, like Architect, and this is a unique addition to the likes of Corporate Troubleshooter to play with that. I give this one a thumbs up.

Miek

I like this card purely because it made me think of a scenario where Harvester is playable. The obvious use case of Helheim Servers is Brainstorm, however Brainstorm often fails to be worthy of a killshot if they have less cards in hand than their max. Enter Harvester, now they have to draw up to their max hand size before they run the Brainstorm. Sure they can jack-out, but now you’ve turned a super cheap (and previously thought unplayable) code gate into an ETR Ice. What’s not to love?

dr00

I’m on the fence with this one. If the Runner can get into HQ, you’re either pitching agendas or increasing the density in HQ. Janktastic Corp players will try to combine this with things like Whirlpool, Labyrinthine Servers, and Port Anson Grid, but in all likelihood, it will often just result in the Runner jacking out and running again.

Mandatory Seed Replacement

StephenBall

4/2 agendas are often a tough sell at this point, so they have to have very strong effects to see play. Nisei Mk2, Corporate Sales Team, NAPD Contract, Oaktown Renovation. I’m trying to think of more…. This effect is not strong enough to play this agenda. No cards that move Ice have ever seen much play, although it’s been in the Jinteki color pie for a long time, and there’s a reason for that. It’s not good. Replanting is a decent card, but after that it’s rough. Scoring agendas with effects that are situational is not a way to win Netrunner in general, and you should be including cards in your deck that you know will either always help you win, or always help you not lose. This card generally does neither.

dr00

Potentially strong effect, but it’s a 4/2. Also, most smart Corp players just avoid all of that positional Ice anyway, especially with Inversificator running around.

Water Monopoly

StephenBall

3/1 agendas are even harder to fit that 4/2’s. They bloat your deck, they are really expensive to score for minimal payoff on the scoresheet, they are Aaron fodder. There are some 3/1 agendas in the game with very good text, like Director Haas’ Pet Project and Chronos Project, and they are rare to see. Now here’s one with a conditional ability that is best when scored early. Would it have been too OP if it didn’t hit virtual resources? Put this in your binders with Unorthodox Predictions, Genetic Resequencing, and Ancestral Imager.

Whiteblade111

The ability doesn’t justify the 3/1 nature. There are better ways to hurt resources early like Scarcity of Resources and better ways to punish it late (read Biased Reporting below) This fits in an awkward spot as a 3/1 and will be beaten out by House of Knives and The Future is Now.

Metamorph

StephenBall

I can’t imagine this card being good or worth playing. One aspect of the Ice swapping thing that I didn’t mention with that agenda is that swapping Ice shouldn’t be necessary, because if you have a strategy built on Ice, all of your Ice should be pretty good anyway, and you should be placing it properly. Now this is taking up an Ice spot, which are valuable spots, and gives such a minimal effect, and if it needs to be broken it’s fairly easy to do so. Not a good pack at all for Jinteki.

Miek

A recent UFAQ ruling says that the card swapping here allows for bypassing install restrictions. The most broken abuse of this UFAQ ruling is to put Off The Grid in a non-remote server, specifically HQ so it can never be trashed. This is essentially a lock-out approach, similar to the Load Testing CI or rig-shooter Skorpios, where the Runner has no steps they can take to win the game. I suspect this is bad, but it’s interesting that the combo exists.

dr00

Useless card at face value and open to extremely abusive plays, given the ruling of bypassing install restrictions. This is the worst kind of card for the game.

Data Loop

StephenBall

I’ve always liked the NBN color pie when it comes to Ice with on encounter effects, and Data Loops is pretty good, and very annoying. But it has to be a strong effect, because the rez cost to its strength and subroutines is very rough. At least when Paperclip is ripping through this you at least tax them actions by taking cards from their grip. Interesting card, I think it’ll be seen the most in net damage decks that try to tax cards in hand with Fetal and Ben Musashi and Obokata, which seems pretty fun. Interesting card.

dr00

I love NBN, and I love this card. The rez cost is high, but it’s not too high, especially since it costs the Runner 2 cards every time they encounter it. The first sub might as well not exist since Paperclip is breaking this for 3 anyway, but if you’re trying to flatline the Runner, this is a decent way to lower the Runner’s handsize if they try to contest the server it’s defending. Also decent to help protect Obokata.

Biased Reporting

StephenBall

Biased Reporting is a bit of a head scratcher for me. I don’t know what to think of it. I feel like it’s best use is leaving soon, which is a counter to DLR’s massive stack of resources. If it’s not that, is this supposed to be a Sweeps Week replacement? I might have to test this one a bit, but it seems like a pretty average econ operation, a slot that has become harder to compete with with the release of IPO.

Miek

I also feel this must be a Sweeps Week replacement. Its best use-case is crazy powerful, however the most important turn to be playing Sweeps Week is turn 1, and this does nothing for you there. Late game it is likely that this will be at least as good as sweeps, and probably better, but the inability to fire early game makes this a worse card IMO.

Whiteblade111

It acts as a late game Sweeps Week with a much higher potential upside. This card is incredibly good against the lock shaper decks that will run 10+ resources.

dr00

I like this card and how it gives the Runner some out before the Corp gains their credits, but if you just gain credits from 3 cards, you’re about even with Hedge Fund. The value gets less if the Runner trashed something, but typically they spend credits and clicks to install those cards anyway, and if you choose programs, I don’t think the Runner will often want to lose an icebreaker, even a conspiracy breaker like Paperclip, just to take away 2 credits.

Open Forum

Inactivist

At first blink this looks like draw acceleration, until you realise your mandatory is always going to be the card you placed last turn. Instead this functions as a way to block R&D single access at the mere cost of revealing a fresh draw to the Runner each turn? I suppose it’s functionally +1 handsize? I’m just not seeing what this does for you. Mutate combos?

StephenBall

I don’t understand this card. I feel like having to reveal the card is not necessary at all to balance this, although I think some people including designers put extra stock in playing mind games. Maybe this is another one where I’d actually have to play it in a deck to see if it does anything, but who has the time to test every silly Weyland asset?

dr00

Pseudo Daily Business Show but out of Weyland. Doesn’t bottom agendas, but lets you try to play flip cup with the Runner. Did I leave that agenda on R&D? Is it hiding in HQ? Generally, these strategies aren’t great, but it does help you dig. Giving the Runner free information might not be worth it though.

Tithonium

Higgs

Outside of Blue Sun it’s basically just a bad Archer. Archer is good because the Corp can force the Runner to install a Fracter and Decoder with cheap Barriers and Code Gates, then pick up the bow and go huntin’. Unfortunately, Guard is much worse than Vanilla, and Paperclip is much better at breaking Tithonium than any Killer short of Switchblade is at breaking Archer. The no-hosting clause seems exciting, but Parasite decks also have Paperclip, so I don’t think this ice is particularly strong tech there. You do, also gain a little flexibility with the choice between paying nine and forfeiting an agenda, and the third subroutine is nice with Wormhole, I guess. I think I would only play this if I already had three Archer and wanted a fourth, bad one, or in Blue Sun.

StephenBall

People love this card, and I assume they think it’s a sentry. I like the design, and would think it’s an okay card if it weren’t for the existence of Paperclip in every single deck absolutely destroying this Ice. Great, it’s a barrier with teeth. The problem with that is that you want your painful facechecks to force people to install their breakers before they get wrecked, like the Cobra in CTM decks. This is a painful facecheck that also happens to be the type where most decks don’t even need to install their breaker first, they just pull it out of the trash. Not being Parasited is pretty cool, and would be an interesting thing to see more often, but at only 4 to break with Paperclip when the opponent either paid a whopping nine credits or forfeited a hard earned agenda for seems worth it to me. Hard pass on Tithonium here.

Transparency Initiative

StephenBall

These are card designs I hate. It’s only use I see is to score a super expensive Government Takeover with a Construction Co that somehow hasn’t been trashed in at least eight turns. The easy thing to think is that it makes other agendas Oaktown, but Oaktown gives you two credits per advancement, so it actually makes you money. This is spending an extra click and a card to break even on your other advancements.

Whiteblade111

The only “combo” this enables is being able to Dedication Ceremony an agenda that you wouldn’t have been able to such as Atlas or Government Takeover. Is that ability worth the card slot? No, it’s not even worth the click to play it.

Rover Algorithm

StephenBall

The neutral Corp card in this pack is pretty cute. Cards hosted on Ice is an interesting idea, but we haven’t seen many of them actually see play, like Patch and Sub Boost. Giving a piece of Ice essentially Quicksand’s text, albeit slightly different, is a fun concept, but it has it’s problems. It needs to be put on a piece of Ice that needs to be broken, or can’t be destroyed. Architect is certainly a good target for this, but Rover Algorithm costs two to play as well, and valuable deck spots. At this point in the card pool, it feels like all the cards in your deck have to be essential, and there’s very little room for cards like this. Also, if the next MWL sees D4V1D coming off, this cards stock drops even more.

Miek

I don’t see you being able to cut anything but Ice for this card, and then you’re in a strong pickle. If you have a server with Ice and you’re trying to reinforce that server, then your options are either this or another piece of Ice. This might be mildly better, but overall they’re reasonably comparable. HOWEVER, if you instead have an undefended server and you need the first piece of Ice, then drawing for your Ice and instead finding this will make you super unhappy. The idea behind this card is cool, and it’s certainly not unplayable, but if I was tuning my deck to be as optimal as possible I would never be playing this card.

Final Thoughts:

StephenBall

Bloo Moose

Miek

BLUE MOUSSE!

dr00

I, for one, welcome our noo moose overlords.

FightingWalloon

They said you don’t have to be a high-level competitive player to contribute to this article. They have only themselves to blame for my contributions here.