Jinteki Identity: Division

Minimum Deck Size: 45 – Influence: 15

When your discard phase ends, if there are 3 or fewer cards in HQ, you may pay 1 credit to place 1 advancement counter on an unrezzed card you can advance. (You cannot score that card this turn.)

The Looming Future.

3 stars

This Identity on its own is fine, but with Sericulture, Jinteki's new 3/2, this identity becomes wild. Having the clickless advance means you can score a Sericulture without needing the 3 credits and install click for La Costa Grid. From there the single counter on Sericulture can let you score out a 5/3 with minimal support. I think any PT Untaian will automatically have 3 Sericultures, and the Identity won't see much play otherwise. Can we appreciate the art though? It's my new Jnet background.

HB ICE: Code Gate

Rez cost: 3 – Strength: 0 – Influence cost: 2

While this ice is the only piece of ice protecting this server, it gets +4 strength.

Sub: You may install 1 card from HQ. Sub: End the run.

“It is a fallacy that conscious observation can change reality. The consciousness of the observer isn’t required at all.” —The Encyclopedia Silica

4 stars

This card is genuinely good. In wide decks having an incredibly cheap 4 Strength code gate can serve as an effective check on the runner, with the only breaker in the current format breaking it for less than 3 credits being a Buzzsaw that's boosted with GameDragon or Leech. And honestly, I'm okay with the runner spending two clicks and 6 credits to trivially break my 3 credit ice. The subroutines are also solid, and for my wider decks, this works great as central defense in a way that's just annoying enough to dissuade the runner from certain runs.

Shaper Program: Icebreaker – Fracter

Install cost: 4 – Strength: 2 – Memory cost: 1 – Influence cost: 1

This program costs 1 credit less to install for each other installed icebreaker. (Programs trashed as part of installing this program don't count.)

Interface → 1 credit: Break 1 barrier subroutine.

2 credits: +2 strength.

On the shoulders of giants.

1 star

Rising Tide is a Shaper card that shapers need to pay influence for. With DZMZ and breakers installed, Principia is functionally a "click to sell to knickknack later" card. Will I ever use this thing to break ice? Almost never, but I see it in a few decks for the econ aspect, being sold later when I don't need duplicate breakers to boost Echelon's base strength or something. That said, don't use this for breaking ice in a faction that has Propeller. It's not worth it. You deserve better.

Shaper Program: Trojan

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

Install only on piece of ice.

Host ice gains barrier, code gate, and sentry.

"The Net operates almost as much on dream logic as it does digital logic. If you believe something to be true, it often is." —The Encyclopedia Silica

3 stars

Arissana got a new toy.

Let’s compare it to Pelangi. is this better than Pelangi? Yes. Pelangi’s once per turn requirement is not ideal, and Chromatophore wants to be slapped on a problematic ice and then you run that server over and over now that you’re free of the burden of having to actually deal with the ice.

Notably, it doesn’t work with Physarum Entangler, since Physarum depends on the ice being not a barrier, and not being a subtype other than a barrier. Speaking of which, it’d be nice to have an anti-Chromatophore, which removes all subtypes on host-ice.

Shaper Event

Play cost: 0 – Influence cost: 2

Draw 1 card for each click you have remaining.

Every day starts the same: tea, news, a threedee puzzle. Then it's off to work. Magdalene won't let being fired get in the way of completing her masterpiece.

3 stars

With Ritual replacing Diesel, fans of energy drinks everywhere must mourn. For we have lost the baseline Diesel, the only energy drink that can fuel our caffeine jittered runs is Blueberry Diesel. Unfortunately I hate blueberry flavored drinks, so the Diesel that'll course through my veins will be underwhelming in flavor. NSG wasted a perfect opportunity to print Ultra Guava Hype Diesel, or a variety of other phenomenal flavors, and that we instead are stuck with the same tea is a sheer disappoint to me as I grow older and realize my caffeine tolerance is tanking faster than the S&P 500. On a more serious note, Ritual is a fine Diesel replacement if you play it first click. Otherwise it's remarkably mediocre and not worth play…

Criminal Event: Run

Play cost: 2 – Influence cost: 2

Run any server. If successful, gain 6 credits.

“…one-hundred and twenty-seven rounds fired, and two police hoppers totaled. Miraculously, no officers were hurt, though the suspect remains at large.” —Abdul el-Sattar, KKN 6

3 stars

First I want to talk about the art, which fucking whips. The card looks cool, and I’m going to try my absolute hardest to get top 4 at a megacity tournament just so I can own a Clean Getaway playmat. It’ll be peak.

What about the card itself? It’s literally Dirty Laundry but in Blue with an additional influence cost if you want to play it outside of Blue. Given the additional influence, it’s probably not justifiable to run out of faction unless you want a run-based econ package. It does make sense why new Dirty Laundry was printed in Crim, since their whole econ suite is mostly run-based.

Will Clean Getaway be good? I mean yeah. It’ll be as good as Dirty Laundry was in Crim. It’s not exactly an excitin…

Criminal Hardware: Weapon

Install cost: 1 – Influence cost: 2

Whenever you make a successful run on HQ, you may trash this hardware to derez 1 installed Corp card.

“You think I’ve finished messing with you? Yeah, nah.” —Barry “Baz” Wong

2 stars

Probably a niche utility card? Derezzing an ice seems good, but I don’t think it’s worth a click, a credit, and a successful run on HQ. It’s one of those cards whose effect is terrible on its own, but gets upgraded to becoming merely okay once you have other cards to extract value from derezzing or rezzing ice.

Criminal Identity: Cyborg

Pronouns: He/Him

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

Whenever the Corp rezzes a piece of ice, you may install 1 resource or piece of hardware from your grip.

Try me.

5 stars

This ID is absolutely bonkers good. I swear someone on the NSG team forgot the "Once per turn" flag when finalizing the text on this. But in all seriousness, Baz feels phenomenal to me. Fun fact: you can fit 3x Devil Charm and 3x Arruaceiras in a nice 15 influence. If they rez some ice, you either Boomerang it, or trash it. SDS isn't real, you don't need programs. 5/5 bringing the crime back to criminal was worth it.

Neutral Ice: Code Gate

Rez cost: 2 – Strength: 0 – Influence cost: 0

When you rez this ice during a run against this server, purge virus counters.

sub End the run.

Stop that.

4 stars

It’s a free 1 or 2 influence. You’d be dumb not to run it in every non-Jinteki deck that runs Mavirus.

Also the flavor text is great.

Weyland Operation: Transaction

Cost: 1 – Influence cost: 2

Resolve 2 of the following in any order:

• Draw 1 card. Shuffle 1 card from HQ into R&D.
• Install 1 piece of ice from HQ, ignoring all costs.
• Place 1 advancement counter on an installed card you can advance.
• Gain 2 credits.

5 stars

I don’t think it’s a bold prediction to say that I think almost every Weyland deck will want to run 3 copies of Key Performance Indicators. It is such a cheap and flexible card that even the weakest KPI will still do something for you, and that something will be good.

Also, it can be pulled out of the grave by Plutus to fast advance a 4/2, as if Plutus wasn't already good enough.