Today we’re finishing up the spoilers I think are notable from Shaper, HB and NBN, as well as the Neutral cards. Then we’re going to talk about the early meta and what it’s already teaching us about what RWR cards can enable.
Shaper
This was one of the first spoiled cards, so I won’t spend too much time on it: it’s quite good in-faction, and can save you a lot of credits. Think about it, if you Legwork HQ and hit no agendas but run into, say a Rashida and an Austerity Policy, there’s going to be a big temptation to just spend 4 credits to get rid of them. Putting them at the bottom of the deck is a lot like getting rid of them because it costs the Corp tempo in the form of clicks to restore that optionality (it’s better against PD as well, since things can be retrieved from the bin more easily than from the deck). Obviously, not being able to immediately steal anything off this is a downside, but that’s part of the skill test- sometimes stuff goes to the top of R&D.
Another good Shaper run event. I like this trend of NSG pushing Shaper to go out and run rather than stick back installing 30 million cards (more on that later, I promise). This card is good enough at click compression and value that it will definitely see play out of faction.
If PE ever starts becoming a big part of the meta, this will be one of the things that keeps it in check. Therefore I rate this card 5/7, perfect score. Seriously though, this is a strong memory-free win condition (of sorts) that only costs 2 credits and has utility beyond multi-access. Should be a consideration if you’re not into scuba, and even out-of-faction.
Remember Cache? Not a fossil like myself? Well, this is like that, trust me, and does similar things. For whatever reason, ol’ Aesop likes to buy these things after they’re used up too. Someone should write a short story for NSG about that.
We’ll talk about Lobisomem in a little bit. For now, let’s talk about HB.
Haas Bioroid
This is easy to underestimate if you weren’t around during the days of Violet Level Clearance and Ultraviolet Clearance getting your face shoved in the mud by [REDACTED]. Look, I’m gonna give you a very useful heuristic: if the balance team decides to put a trash cost on an operation, definitely look at it twice.
Archived Memories is banned. This is an Archived Memories that nets you money and cards. Yes, it costs two clicks, but it’s <s> not like this is the faction that most easily lets you net clicks or anything </s>. To reiterate: this card is bonkers, and the trash cost is there to make it less bonkers so we can all have fun with less chance of ending up watching our opponent play solitaire for 10 minutes.
Another card with a thumbs up on it, what’s with that? I slept on this until I ran into it recently during my early testing: this is solid when going lateral. It’s painful to trash after the Corp has netted even 2 credits from this, but you absolutely should go kill it if it starts getting close to 5 hosted power counters (and you’ve got Oppo insurance)
What about the new ID? I’m not particularly stoked on it. It’s an ID that needs you to run and rez very specific ICE to matter, providing no direct economic benefit unless the opponent initiates runs. The subroutine gained is not even a hard End The Run, it gives mitigation options to the runner. Maybe Sokka can win Worlds with it, but I’m not even going to try it in Jnet casual. All the other HB cards are fine, but not super noteworthy. I suspect the faction didn’t get a lot of juice this set because, let’s face it, ASA and PD are already cracked (I am saying that right Zoomers?)
NBN
NBN got what I think might be my favorite card in the whole set, getting full marks for both flavor and competitive power.
There’s already an interesting card write-up on NRDB, so I’m not going to harp on what archetypes it shines in, but if nothing else, think of it kind of like a SanSan that moves. Note the trigger is a ‘start of turn’ trigger, unlike Vovo or Isaac, so you don’t get to fast advance something in a remote and then shift Holo man over to a well-defended Central. The interaction with Weyland ICE like Pharos and Hortum should not be ignored either.
I was extremely high on this, since it’s pseudo-3 points for 4 advancements (I have unironically enjoyed playing Improved Protein Source), but it has been pointed out to me that it creates deck-building and scoring-pattern problems that make deckbuilding around it tricky. That said, never-advancing this with a Seamless Launch and putting an AR-ES (or even just an Oracle Thinktank) into your score area has to be worth experimenting with.
It’s a Cloud Eater that has less punishing subs, but always does its on-encounter thing, not just the run it was rezzed. Seems very nice to rez this from a Send a Message trigger or Eminent Domain, continuing the thread of NBN+Weyland = Best Friends Forever. Also worth trying in AgInfusion, although apparently the traditional tools are still good enough.
Again, an operation with a trash cost: do not ignore. It’s click neutral at threat 3. As an aside: the art on this card is exactly why TikTok/ByteDance is basically a First Amendment exploit that needs to be patched. It’s not about “foreign adversaries” necessarily (although I can see why that’s a concern), it’s about giving an attention monopoly to a single entity that answers unseen shareholders. Lest you think this blog is about to fly off the rails, don’t forget:
“Netrunner is an inherently political game.”
Moving on.
Neutral Cards
Not much to say here. I like them, they will see play, we needed a Neutral Levy AR Lab Access event for a while- the card has a necessary effect for some decks. I like that it costs a small amount of influence evenly across factions.
The Metagame: Week 1
https://alwaysberunning.net/tournaments/4112/2024-03-standard-accelerated-meta-test
Take a look at that. Seems healthy. SebastianK has not yet blessed us with his masterpiece of “install a shitload of cards, then win”. I will not spoil anything, I don’t know his exact decklist, but I did railbird a few games and I do hope he posts his Az deck because it is spicy. [EDIT: the decklist was actually posted before this article went out, but there was no alwaysberunning.net link, you can find the link below in the comments]
Also, this deck write-up is highly recommended reading, for insight and lulz value:
https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/152196f8-8082-49f9-b429-429e1348e89a
Have a wonderful week enjoying your new cards my beautiful friends. See you on Jnet! More commentary on the meta etc. next week.
SebK's list can be found here:
https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/1d75089d-75df-47be-928b-3bb52838f83d/insebtion-3rd-march-amt-