Cyber Bureau is an undisputably wild ID. It's the first asymmetric multiplayer ID we've seen so far, it has about five regular IDs worth of abilities, and with its unlimited influence and access to every agenda in the game, building decks for this thing is one heck of a ride.

On paper it looks like it could build in a lot of ways, but I've found that fast-advance is the best way to build it, since you have twelve clicks of angry Runner that want to sneak into your house and kick over your sandcastle. The sooner you can score out and close the game, the better!

I've played two games with it so far, winning one and losing the other. Both were pretty close games! I believe there's a lot of really interesting gameplay to be found here.

Anyway, let's go over its assortment of abilities.

1: Basically Andy - draw an opening hand of ten cards.

This is huge, especially when coupled with a minimum deck size of 40 cards. You can clear out up to a quarter of your deck before you even take a turn! Your mulligans are legendary, too.

2: Better NEXT Design - install up to five cards, rez any number, reducing the total cost by up to 20.

Cyber Bureau's trademark ability, this lets you get set up really quick. I think ice is the main thing you want to install with this - it's hilariously easy to keep people out when you start the game with beefy ice on all of your servers. Stuff like Tollbooth and Anansi are ideal here. Keep in mind you can rez above 20, since you start with five credits!

Other cool stuff you can do is drop a 3/X agenda in an empty server, then score it on the first turn! With the help of Jeeves Model Bioroids, you can even score out a 4/X, or over-advance a Project Atlas, before the Runners even get to take a turn.

There are MANY possibilities with this ability. The way you play it out can make or break an earlygame!

3: Punitive Siphon - the first time a Runner runs each turn, steal credits equal to the agenda points in their score area.

Of all the abilities on this card, I think this one is the least powerful, even though it looks busted. In a lot of cases, the Runners can coordinate to have a single player steal your agendas, leaving the other two to run without fear.

The Runners get up to all sorts of horrible, nasty stuff against Cyber Bureau. It's very rude.

In cases where you can get it to fire, it's a very good source of funds, and an even better form of econ pressure.

4: Mega Mopus - : Gain 3.

Your best friend in this deck - the Runners can tax you out very very quickly if they gain ground somehow. Emergency Shutdown, Diversion of Funds, Corporate "Grant" and even stuff like Hijacked Router hurts you a lot, since you have three clicks to their twelve. Figuring out your econ plan is crucial in this deck, and Mega Mopus lets you care a little bit less about how you get that money. Clicking for 12 with Jeeves is a great feeling, too.

5: Anonymous Tip on a Stick - : Draw 3 cards.

You probably won't use this much, or shouldn't, since it can very quickly flood you. Clicking it once on a turn where you're low on cards can be really good. Otherwise, maybe there's some weird plays with Reuse or something? I feel like this has combo potential, but I'm not the player to figure it out.

So, with all of that at your disposal, it's... still kinda Runner-sided? You get punished real hard by any sort of cohesive plan. Even with the infamy system, which makes it so that only one Runner is "in play" at a time, you still have a lot to worry about. Twelve clicks is a lot of clicks to defend against!

Employee Strike turns off your tax power and your two super click abilities, which is very very saddening. Apocalypse can straight up undo your initial foundations, if they can find a way into each of your centrals. Since you're usually pretty top-heavy with ice, Emergency Shutdown or anything else that hurts your ice will really ruin your day.

Particularly against fast-advance, a cheeky well-timed Clot on the right turn can buy the Runners a whole extra round. Beth Kilrain-Chang is usually pretty good against you, firing for the + on any turn where you're moneyed up. Indexing is just endlessly sad - one Runner can do the reordering, while another runs and collects the goods.

Conclusion

I think the best way to play with Cyber Bureau is to throw three regular Runners at it. If the Runners specifically tech against you, you're screwed. Rather, if you're up against three decks that are just sort of doing their own thing, that's where you find the best gameplay.

As a Corp, you get to wield UNLIMITED POWER, with a deck beyond your wildest dreams. As Runners, you get to actually be friends with your fellow hacker-peers for once! The cooperation space is immensely deep, and I'm sure people will be exploring it for a long time to come, especially if more IDs like this ever get made.

Watch the World Burn has two primary uses: trap disarming (this removes the trap from the game before it can fire) and countering asset spam (avoid trash punishment/cost.)

The first is exemplified versus Jinteki Biotech: Life Imagined that's running Cerebral Overwriters, Mushin No Shin, and 5/3 agendas. If they Mushin out a card and advance it, you're usually stuck with gambling on whether it's a trap or an agenda. Watch the World Burn eliminates that threat, letting you run it without fear. But not only does it remove the trap you access from the game, it also makes you immune to that trap for the rest of the game.

The second is obvious against NBN: Controlling the Message, avoiding the trace, and getting a discount on trashing expensive cards. Being able to do it on all subsequent copies lets you cripple a part of their gameplan. Just beware of passing through a Data Raven on your last click (this event is a terminal, so you won't be able to clear tags afterward.)

Even if the card you remove has a trash cost of 5, you still only save 2 credits, which is a bad return on investment. So unless the remove-from-game ability or the all-copy removal are relevant, as it is in the above scenarios, it's not worth using.

4-2 agendas have historically needed to be "the shit" to be considered playable. Unfortunately, I don't think this card is quite there in terms of power.

That is not to say this card is bad. First and foremost, it is incredibly versatile. Placing ice in any position on any server is not an effect I think we have seen before. It allows for some really cool tricks with positional ice and installs from both archives or your hand. At worst it saves you some credits from installing at the outermost position of a big server, which is still valueable.

It being a one time thing is what keeps it down imo. I think if it received 2 counters on a score, it would definitely be playable in glacier. You probably don't play something like Bifrost Array just to get 1 more counter on this. Maybe if you combine it with other 'when scored' agendas? But now we might be going into jank territory.

So I think this agenda will join my list of 2-pointers I like but never play, like Remote Data Farm,Private Security Force and Meteor Mining.

Liza's ability to draw 2 on the first run on ANY central server is an extremely powerful one. Not only does it give you 2-click value for the price of 1, you get essentially 3 clicks of value if you wanted to access that central anyway. Her ability is balanced by a larger deck size and, more importantly, the fact that you receive a tag from the run.

There are basically two ways to play around this. 1 is to remove or avoid the tags. While definitely not unplayable, this archetype suffers from some problems. Removings tags the old-fashioned way is expensive and negates the purpose of click compression. You can of course play cards like Dorm Computer and Crash Space, but this requires a not insignificant number of slots and forces you to draw into these cards, reducing your speed.

The second and more popular variant is tag-me Liza. This is an interesting archetype as until now anarchs were the only faction that often went tag-me on purporse. As it completely ignores the tags, it means you can go like a hst and never slow down, pressuring the corp while drawing like mad each turn. This deck has lost the bonkers Mars for Martians due to the MWL, but it still does well at a lot of tournaments due to the recent rise in run based econ. Paragon, Bankroll and Diversion of Funds are all strong cards for this deck. The deck can run resources backed up with Wireless Net Pavilion but usually doesn't bother. Due to relying on events and expendable breakers, Apocalypse is also popular and something the corp has to respect.

What is interesting about this Liza is that she is great against a ton of different decks but gets countered very hard by kill decks on High-Profile Target. Certainly fun thematically, with her being a politician, but not ideal if you hate the idea of having a potentially terrible match up at a tournament.

If your meta is low in Weyland, SYNC and Acme, then this is a solid pick as a powerful id and fun criminal to play. Or you can just rely on your metaphorical balls of steel, go fast or go home.

PS: she is also an amazing DJ Fenris target for Jesminder.

Who here likes Daily Casts? I do. It's a solid economy card. This is better. Let's compare:

Turn 1 (installation): Daily Casts -3, Crowdfunding: +0.

Turn 2 (1st drip): Daily Casts: -1, Crowdfunding: +1.

Turn 3 (2nd drip): Daily Casts +1, Crowdfunding: +2.

Turn 4 (3rd drip): Daily Casts +3, Crowdfunding +3, +1 card.

Turn 5 (4th drip): Daily Casts +5.

Pretty similar end result (difference being 1 card versus 2 credits the following turn), but Crowdfunding is positive the entire time. And it comes back.