It's been a minute¹ since the last link roundup! Since I've got the new more convenient writing flow, I thought it’d be nice to actually use this to get back to doing these again!

Gobolatula: Please Forgive Me!!!

I’m starting this off with a whole-hearted recommendation of Please Forgive Me!!! It’s the sorta-sequel sorta-reboot of my favorite webcomic, It Hurts!!, and It’s genuinely so fucking good.

Butterfree: When Rumours Come True: The Mew Trick

As someone who never had a point in my life where the Mew trick was anything other than something people used to show how glitchy gen 1 was, it’s really nice to read the experiences of someone who was on the ground floor for it.

Anna Dana Hudson: Any Percent

I think this one made the rounds on cohost way back in the day, but I finally read it recently and holy hell this is good.

Sciman101: A Price of Commodity

Nothing, absolutely nothing, didn't have a human involved in the creation process at some point.

This post from cohost alumni Sciman101 is a good reminder that, all those things you have? People made them. Even the cheap things. Refreshing to see someone point out the hum…

Okay! That's a wrap! Unfortunately, I didn't write as much as last time (65 reviews to 40 reviews, and I didn't write almost all of the reviews this time), but I still had a great time. My big lesson from this session of reviewing Netrunner cards? Get more contributors and/or bunch things up. There were way too many cards and I didn't have enough to say about all of them.

More contributors would be good. I really enjoyed seeing other people's opinions on the cards, and it would be good to set things up earlier and get more stuff involved, if that sounds neat to people. The other option would be to release reviews in batches almost entirely near launch, where I focus on talking about card packages and faction utility.

Idk this stuff is hard. Netrunner is not an easy game to talk about, although it's a great game to play! Get Elevation now! Also please follow my blog via RSS to continue seeing the stuff I put out! It's only going to get better! Or maybe i disappear off the face of the Ea…

Shaper Identity: Cyborg

Pronouns: They/She

Minimum Deck Size: 45 – Influence: 15 – MU limit: 4 – Base link: 0

Whenever you discard cards to reach your maximum hand size, you may install 1 program or piece of hardware from among those cards.

Good design is invisible—but I’ll never settle for ‘good’.

4 stars

I love this ID. I love installing cards and I love the incentive to overdraw. A very Shaper ID through and through.

Front Side:

Shaper Identity: Natural

Pronouns: She/Her

Minimum Deck Size: 45 – Influence: 15 – MU limit: 4 – Base link: 0

Whenever you make a successful run, if your MU is full, you may flip this identity and gain 1 credit.

Who else will teach the stories of good and evil?

Back Side:

Shaper Identity: Natural

Pronouns: She/Her

MU limit: 4 – Base link: 0

Whenever you make a successful run, if you have at least 1 unused MU, you may flip this identity and draw 1 card.

We can’t leave the corps’ dirty deeds in the shadows.

2 stars

We got it y'all. The platonic shaper ID: "Oops! All Kickflips!" And just like all Shaper kickflip engines, it’ll probably be meh to bad and everyone will continue playing Lat I guess.

Criminal Identity: Natural

Pronouns: She/Her

Minimum Deck Size: 45 – Influence: 15 – mulimit: 4 – Base link: 0

When your turn begins, look at the top card of your stack. If that card is an icebreaker or a run event, you may reveal it and add it to your grip.

Peer pressure works.

4 stars

MuslihaT is most comparable to Prognostic Q-Loop, since the value is seeing the top card of your stack every turn, and occasionally getting some value from it. I think that’s actually quite good! Occasional free draw is great, and I have high hopes that MuslihaT will be looked upon as the “balanced” version of Hoshiko (They’re both start of turn card draw).

Anarch Program

Install cost: 0 – Memory: 1 – Strength: - – Influence: 2

Access → trash: Trash the non-agenda card you are accessing. If you do, draw 1 card.

48c7 c0c9 0000 000f 0549 c7c2 [8051 0100](tel:8051 0100) 49f7 fa48 83fa 007c 1048 c7c0 3c00 0000 48c7 c707 0000 000f 05…

2 star

Bad but a niche kind of bad that means it might seen as a one-of sometimes. What did Imp do to deserve this?

Anarch Program: Icebreaker – Killer – Virus

Install cost: 3 – Strength: 2 – Memory cost: 1 – Influence cost: 2

When you install this program, place 2 virus counters on it.

Interface → 1 credit: Break 1 sentry subroutine.

Hosted virus counter: +2 strength.

"I'm on retainer for monthly purges on thirty-six different servers." —Ratu Maharani, pawang virus

1 star

Overall I think this is a fine and functional killer for Anarchs. While it's not a whole lot to write home about, being able to use GameDragon to get a base 3 strength killer will get you through a bunch of things like Drafter. Unfortunately, it also can guarantee that you eat a brutal sentry with a nicely timed Mavirus, which makes it hard to recommend on its own. Flyswatter and Mavirus being in the Standard format make it hard to recommend over its more reliable fire snake. Cookbook and Hantu would be a nice combo, but I think you'd almost always just rather prefer Audrey V2 as your breaker at that point.

Criminal Event: Run – Double

Play cost: 0 – Influence cost: 3

As an additional cost to play this event, spend click.

Run Archives. When you would approach Archives (after passing all ice), instead change the attacked server to HQ and approach HQ.

"Don't let self-respect get in the way of a good shortcut." —"G0ph3r" O'Ryan

5 stars

Wow, this card looks extremely underwhelming doesn’t it!

A WHOLE double just to access a single card from HQ!

I’ve seen a lot of people lamenting the loss of Sneakdoor Beta. A classic card from core set, now gone from standard. It's gonna sting for some people to see that its replacement is single-use. However, the Netrunner that Sneakdoor was printed in is vastly different to current Netrunner. That 2 MU that you see on Sneakdoor? At most it would be filled with a Datasucker or a Parasite, but in early days Netrunner, there were not a lot of great utility programs worth playing besides Sneakdoor Beta, so that 2 MU was not a massive cost.

Nowadays, Crim i…

Unique Shaper Hardware: Mod

Play cost: 2 – Influence cost: 2

When you install this hardware and when your turn begins, you may host this hardware on an installed non-AI icebreaker.

Host icebreaker gets +1 strength. Abilities that increase its strength last for the remainder of the run (instead of any shorter duration).

4 stars

Turbine is gone, so I expect this to see a good amount of play.

Neutral Upgrade: Region

Rez cost: 2 – Trash cost: 2 – Influence cost: 0

2 recurring (When you rez this upgrade and before your turn begins, refill to 2 hosted credits.)

You can spend hosted credits to rez assets in the root of this server and ice protecting this server

Persistent → The trash cost of each asset in the root of this server is increased by 2 credits.

Limit 1 region per server.

4 stars

But Evie! What about Tranquility Home Grid?!

Tranquility Home Grid is almost an exclusively better Mahkota Langit Grid yes, but everyone can run Mahkota Langit Grid. This isn’t competing with Tranq, this is giving everyone a 0 influence worse version of Tranquility Home Grid. We’re gonna be seeing a lot of this card in every faction except HB, until Ashes rotates out and then we’ll see it in HB too. Also it can pay for ice which is a nice bonus.