This card appears to be overpowered.

Turning off the runner ability is not going to bother most runners.

Turning off the corp ability will enable safer accesses and agenda steals.

This is another 3+ copies of Employee Strike without being on the MWL.

Maybe this is a knee jerk reaction, but I think this card should not exist.

Many cards get touted as Hedge Funds #4 – 6 and this card just gets added to that list. At 1 influence, it will see play anywhere, including the mini-factions, and is a great way to turn off a pesky resource that has overstayed its welcome such as Drug Dealer, Stim Dealer, Lewi Guilherme, or even Always Be Running. This card can also work on any normal self-trashable resource such as Crowdfunding, Armitage Codebusting, or Daily Casts. For that reason, Isolation won’t see much play in decks that already run Aesop's.

For the most part, Isolation is definitely a vanilla economy card – and that’s OK. Remember to factor in the install cost of the resource trashed. You wouldn't want to find yourself having played a crappy Lucky Find.

Most importantly though, can we take a moment to appreciate the flavour of this card? What happened to Hoshiko? Have they always been alone? Did they murder someone close to them to get these hard-earned credits? Are they now suffering from the guilt and burden of – no? Oh, okay.

When you think of Weyland 5/3’s, they’re often very specialized and require building around:

High-Risk Investment barely sees play outside of Titan and Hollywood Renovation the same treatment outside of SSO. City Works Project generally does not require being built around and synergizes well with common green cards Punitive Counterstrike and Dedication Ceremony but it does have the Public subtype downside and is blank in centrals.

So for a Weyland 5/3 to see play alongside GFI and SSL, what will it need?

• On-score/on-steal ability like SSL? Check.

• No influence or unicorn unlike GFI? Check.

• Throwback to now-rotated flavourful Weyland card? Check.

SDS Drone Deployment is nasty and is the program-trashing Weyland card that might keep runners honest again. Sure Clone Chip is back in full force and yes, the conspiracy breakers are everywhere but icebreakers are bigger and more expensive than ever these days.

Unfortunately, SDS has one big weakness and that is on-steal, it allows the Runner to choose which program to trash. Whether that be a Rezeki, a Datasucker, or maybe even a Bankroll, the flexibility is huge and I wish this had specified “icebreaker” instead.

Overall, I don’t see this agenda seeing too much play over SSL or GFI. It’s just as weak to Film Critic or Whistleblower, provides flexibility to the Runner, and it has additional hate in popular cards Clone Chip, Dummy Box (on-score), or the conspiracy breakers. It’s disappointing that this is the case though as this card screams Weyland.

While it is slightly situational, I think Focus Group is the one card in Downfall that really screams "overpowered" to me.

For starters, let's compare it to the most famous fast advance tool, Biotic Labor. While that operation might be more flexible, giving you an unconditional extra click, it will nearly always be used to score an agenda requiring triple advancement. For this purpose, you are set back 3 clicks, 1 card and 7 credits. For Focus Group, it only costs you 2 clicks, 1 cards and 6 credits, provided you "hit" at least three cards in the grip. If you hit two, it still gives you the same return as Biotic. Not cheap, but also not terrible in my opinion. Let's also not forget this card is harder to effectively counter with anti-FA-best-boy Clot.

But the real strength of Focus Group is in its potential upper limits. Many runner decks consist mostly of events and resources, and having 4 of either on hand isn't that uncommon. And if that happens, you can fast advance a 5/3 from hand. If you have multiple copies it even becomes child's play, while admittedly very expensive. It also works nicely with the never advance game, especially if you have won the game of Beale or no Beale, so that you can get 3 or even 4 points instead of 2.

Obviously the main balancing factor of FG is its dependence on the runner's hand, meaning it can backfire spectacularly. Luckily (for the corp), NBN has a few tools to peek at the runner's hand. The most obvious is Standard Procedure, which was always a decent card but willl become a staple in yellow FA. Peeping Tom and Waiver might actualy start seeing play. Harishchandra got a a fun new toy and I think Focus Group will be good in Azmari too since they have some control over the runner's plays, especially backed up with Scarcity of Resources.

Requiring a succesful run is another drawback, but as most runners will be set up and aggressive by the mid to late game, this card will rarely be dead, especially in non-glacier decks.

A possible counter play the runner has is of course keeping their hand size low, but this obviously carries the usual risks associated with having few cards on hand. I could totally see this card replace Biotic Labor in Jinteki PE decks, especially considering the lower influence. There are also ways to keep the runner's hand full, like Personalized Portal and Pālanā Agroplex.

Looking at the card pool again, I think Focus Group comes out strong in most comparisons. Game Changer and MCA Austerity Policy are technically stronger but take way effort to set up and can be trashed by the runner. Shipment from Tennin is cheaper for 3/1's and 3/2's but it doesn't let you fast advance a 5/3 and you need two copies in your hand for a 4/2. Calibration Testing, with Breaker Bay Grid and Team Sponsorship is also powerful but folds to asset hate.

So yeah, maybe I am overestimating the potential of this card, but I think it will be a serious problem for the upcoming meta.

A shaper console in blue disguise! For the low cost of 2 credits, hardware you install after this will give you a free card. This is especially strong in Geist in combination with Spy Camera. Other hardware to combo with this console include Sports Hopper, Clone Chip, HQ Interface and Lucky Charm.

The second ability obviously works very well with Az McCaffrey, whose ability negates the +1 cost so that you can install one piece of hardware for no click each turn.

While this card will definitely see play, run-oriented criminals might still prefer Paragon. Probably won't see play out of faction either due to the 4 influence pips.