Maglectric (💣) is the “new Emergency Shutdown”!

But:

  • It's pre-installed (not “post-played”): so it won't tax your hand-size if you draw it a turn early (before there's something impactful enough to unrez, or before you have prepped for the successful-run, or when you have a click to spare, or so on). CF. Maxwell James.
  • It's immediate: so you can derez an ice (on-success), then bounce that ice with Hermes (on-breach), if you steal an agenda from HQ.
  • It can derez assets/upgrades too. (Though ice are still the most expensive card-type in rez-cost, as well as the most constrained in (re-)rez-timing. Besides badpubbing-assets or, esp., forfeiting-assets like Plutus.)
  • It's unique: so you can't spam two after a single HQ-success, let alone double-derezzing during the same click. (But you can still install a second in between HQ-runs.)
  • It's Hardware: for Az (creditlessly installed) and, esp., Baz (clicklessly installed). Baz can even derez the ice that “installed” Maglectric with Maglectric (afterwards).
  • It's a Weapon: for Asmund Pudlat jank. (This is the most important difference.)

Illumination (💡) is “Joy Ride for installation”!

  • At best: If you are holding 3 programs/resources/hardware each costing at least 1 credit, then you will get 6 “units-of-value”, while still breaching R&D. In particular, you will compress 4 clicks (3 installs + 1 run) into one.

  • At worst… Mass Install is fun?


For example, you can “illuminate out”:


Ritual (☕) is a “quasi-Priority Diesel”, IE.:

Morning Energy Drink
0 EVENT: Priority
Play only as your first .
Draw 3 cards.


It's the same cost/inf/effect, but you can't basic-draw to topdeck it and then triple-draw the same turn, like Diesel can.

I love its “lenticular” design for a core-set, it both:

  • pushes newer players into the correct sequencing heuristic, IE. you should draw before you play/install anything from hand, because you might draw into something better (and you want to draw all three cards, right?); and
  • excites them later with the possibility of gaining extra clicks, like with Hannah (to draw a fourth card).

Thus, Ritual is the complete opposite of VRcation (a “quasi-Terminal Draw”).


However, Diesel’s obvious “Pay 0[$]Draw 3” is extremely exciting for players coming from card games like Hearthstone/Magic the Gathering (Ancestral Recall!, Yu-Gi-Oh (Pot of Greed), or even from other action-based games like *Dominion (Smithy). I still remember my own "No way!" when I first saw it. See “How Good is Drawing 2 Cards in Every Card Game?” | @SodaTCG (YouTube).


“Knickknack” O’Brian is the “new Aesop’s Pawnshop”.


For example, Knickknack gets Gain 2[$]. Draw 1 card. for sacrificing an empty Coalescence, while Aesop got Gain 3[$].. However:

  • Knickknack “reimburses” you: if you buy for $1, you sell for $1, as well as the 1 card itself (like Geist).
  • Aesop just “swindled” for you: if you buy for $1, you still sell for the full $3, having had a much higher floor than Knickknack.
  • Its The first time each turn a run begins, … is a (slightly) more interactive Whenever your turn begins, …; and can even be (slightly) more frequent, since you can run immediately after installing the resource.
  • Both enable if you trashed your … gates (of Simulchip or Boi-tatá).

Synergies:

  • Multi-Cards: While Netrunner lacks “card tokens”, one MuseCoalescence provides two, $2-cost sacrificeables (from a single click/card, over the next two turns).

  • Cost-Redux: If more self-cost reductions get printed (like Carmen, which costs $3 to install but reads with a printed install cost of $5) in Shaper, then Knickknack can actually profit off the sacrifice (like Aesop did). As well as cost reductions in general (like DZMZ Optimizer and Simulchip).

  • “Spendables”: With virus counters, like Pelangi (or Cordyceps?). And a few with power counters, IE. those without When this _ is empty, trash it., like Coalescence (or the new Devadatta Drone?); as well as the disposable breakers like Revolver (wasting only one “bullet”, to gain two credits and a card), or even Propeller.

  • “Front-loaded’s” cards: With high-value When-Installed triggers (like 5inf The Class Act?).

  • Compression: If you can compress installs (like the new Illumination, which also cheapens those installs), then Knickknack’s econ can “fully-reimburse” the sacrificed installations (credit, card, and click). Likewise within an Ari or Magdalene deck.

Thus Pawnshop, with its the higher floor and its non-interactivity, seems more powerful, but the design of O’Brian feels more exciting (IMO): you have to care about printed install costs, you get a “card flow” (like Geist), you have to make a run, and so on.


PS. My hope is a Shaper card with large self-cost-reductions, like:

  • a gated [$5]; This resource costs 3[$] less to install if you've trashed one of your cards this turn., which works with the Pawnshop archetype (and Simulchip in any archetype).
  • or even a scaling [$6]; This program costs 1[$] less to install for each power counter among active Runner cards., which is unbounded.

NB. While it can sac a 4[$] Principia that only cost you 2[$] to install (for Gain 4[$]. Draw 1 card.), you don't want to be sac'ing Fracters. Like how Aesop sac'd a just-used/off-matchup Paricia (for Gain 3[$].).

Biawak (🦎) is the “new Archer”!

The facecheck is similar (though not identical): 4[$], 6 strengthTrash 1 installed program. Trash 1 installed resource. End the run.. Thus, the Corp can still destroy two installations, even including two “icemelters” in general (like Bankhar and a Botulus), but not two icebreakers in particular (like the Fracter and Decoder that were breaking ↳ End the run.’s elsewhere).

Its rez-cost is either 4[$], forfeit 1 agenda (like Archer (with a Data Dealer-ish exchange-rate), or 14[$] (post–Government Subsidy?). As with Valentão, you (almost always) want to forfeit the agenda or take the badpub; but you can (sometimes) just pay the extra credits or remove the tag. I like including “secondary” costs alongside “primary” alt-costs.

Its first two subroutines (↳ Trash 1 installed _ or end the run.) are choices (like Ballista), but encountering Biawak can both EtR and trash programs/resources (like Tithonium). Thus, even if the Runner had no (relevant) non-hardware installed, the Corp can still tax with three “must-break” EtR-subs: un-Boomerang-able/un-Botulus-able (if they want to “just pass through”).


Flavor-wise, the art is a Komodo dragon (the largest lizard), and "biawak" means "monitor lizard" in Malay/Indonesian.

Like ppl ever facecheck anything in this game anymore. Nobody runs without either full rig or some stupid broken PRO RUNNER cards. So sure even a Rototurret facechecked can hurt you. But if we all still pretend that the magical fantasy land called Netrunner still exists in this game then your absolutely right. But we arent living in this wonderful place anymore brother David. So pls stop comments like this like this ICE is good or dangerous when in the real world at the table your situation never happens.

I think it might be time to politely go ask your mommy for some chicken tendies, you seem a bit hangry. It's ok hun, bad takes can happen before actually playing a card.