This game has seen its fair share of broken stuff, as have most games. And in the spirit of learning from one's mistakes, we often see retrains of old cards attempting to fix those problems. Conduit replaces Medium, now in the right faction and slowed down a tad. Pennyshaver and Paragon each try to replace Desperado, each with their own twists. And I've been pretty satisfied with these callbacks and fixes. They've been balanced, fun, and still pushed enough to be relevant.
But when I saw the Spin Doctor, I thought I had something crazy in my eye. Surely they didn't just give us a retrain of Jackson "Three Influence" Howard? Jesus Howard? The savior, the staple, the must-include, the card you were surprised if a corp deck ran any less than three. While it may look innocuous to newer players, the old guard knows. Jackson was dominant. He was the face of Corp recursion and the reason running Archives was a wasted click.
So let's say it is with reserved optimism I look at Spin Doctor. On the one hand, I've seen good retrains, and the playtest teams seem to have a good finger on the pulse. On the other hand, I've been burned before. I've seen Jackson in action. I played during the Museum format, so I know how bad it can get when Corp recursion gets good. I hope the Spin Doctor doesn't take us back in that direction.