This card is actually really good. It just hides it well, with numbers that feel unexciting.

"But wait!", I hear you say. "It's just a wimpier Liberated Account!"

And you're sort of right. But the key is, it's a liberated account that is significantly cheaper to start up and provides the exact same click efficiency.

Consider:

Liberated Account, you spend 6 and a click installing it, and then you spend to get 16. So ultimately, counting the install click, you spent 5x to get 10. Liberated accounts is basically renting a Magnum Opus. It lets you convert five of your clicks into 2 each.

Now let's look at Telework Contract. You spend and 1 to install it, and after spending , you gain 9. So overall, (counting the install click), you spend 4x, to gain a net 8. Again, 2 per .

The three big differences of course, are the total output, the cost, and the speed. We'll get to speed in a minute. Let's talk about the output first: Telework Contract gives you 9, which looks downright pathetic, compared to the massive 16 that Liberated Account provides.

But you have to factor in the cost! Liberated Account costs a whopping 6 to install, which makes it much harder to play, and cuts into the profit considerably. Telework Contract only costs you 1 to start, which means that even if you start the turn broke, you can click for 1, install, and then spend , ending the turn at 3, (same as if you had just clicked for credits three times), but with 6 left on the card for future turns. That's pretty good recovery when you're broke!

The speed is the one place where it is a bit behind Liberated Account. Liberated Account could be installed and clicked three times on one turn, to start out next turn with a net gain of +6. (And one more 4 click saved for later.)

Telework Contract cannot match that speed. If you need to pull more than 3 per turn from it, then you're just out of luck. That said though, the comparison is not as one-sided as it might look! As mentioned, if you spend a turn installing and clicking Liberated Accounts, your 4 clicks net you a total of +6 for next turn. If you install Telework Contract, and click it once on one turn, and then once more at the start of the next turn, you've spent 3 clicks, for a net gain of +5. It's hard to overstate how much the reduced pricetag helps out Telework Contract. It really frontloads a lot of the credit gain. For the first two clicks, Liberated Account is actually worse than just directly clicking for credits. (at two clicks you have gained a net 2, and spent 3 clicks installing and clicking.) Telepresence breaks even on the first click, and just goes up from there.

Don't be fooled by the low-seeming numbers. Telework Contract is a solid econ card.

TL;DR: This card is pretty good.

I'll admit, at first glance, it did not impress me. Sure, it's neutral and zero influence, but +1 card access? Basically everyone has some kind of in-faction multiaccess that is better than this. So why would anyone bother with a neutral event that only gives +1 card?

Because it is both cheap and flexible.

First, the flexible bit - Most of the other multiaccess is either aimed at a specific server (Shaper and Criminal are almost entirely focused on HQ or R&D, respectively) or has some kind of extra condition or requirement. (Stargate requires an archives run later, Climactic Showdown has the whole corp choice thing, Counter Surveillance requires tags, etc.)

Jailbreak, on the other hand, requires nothing. You just pick a central server you'd like to see an extra card from, and off you go, seeing twice as many cards as normal.

But now let's talk about the cost aspect. Jailbreak costs 0, and draws you a card. (Assuming you get in, but that's something runners are usually good at.)

Cards that cost 0 and replace themselves in your hand are really interesting. Especially if they also replace an action that you might want to do, like run on a server.

Because they replace themselves with the card-draw, a 45 card deck with x3 Jailbreaks is actually pretty close to a 42 card deck, in terms of how fast you cycle through it and find things. (Assuming that you can get into a central to trigger the jailbreaks.) That's pretty cool.

Jailbreak isn't overwhelmingly powerful in any one single area, but it's flexible, has a useful effect, and it's basically free to play, and include.

I think this is a solid card. I expect to start seeing it around.

Hey, it's the new Project Junebug!

It got buffed by quite a bit. Let's go down the list:

• It now does damage even if you haven't advanced it yet
• It doesn't cost credits to set off, so you can explode people even when you're broke
• It costs 2 to trash instead of 0, so it's no longer insta-dead if they find it in R&D

It does grow more slowly than Junebug, but thanks to the free +2 damage, it still keeps pace for a while. At 0 and 1 advancement, it's the better than junebug. At 2 they're even. 3 advancement and onwards, Junebug is in the lead, but in practice, it was very rare to ever land a junebug for more than 4 net damage. (Not impossible of course, but unlikely.) And of course, if you have 4 or more advancement on it, it's probably a moot point, since 6 net damage will kill almost as many runners as 8...

So this is very close to a strict upgrade from the venerable Junebug.

The only real big downside that I can see is the influence - Junebug was one influence, so it was extremely easy to splash. (Which was important, since in Jinteki everyone thinks about the possibility of Junebugs, but they're a lot less cautious around, say, Weyland!) Two influence for Urtica Cipher makes it harder to casually throw a copy or two into your non-jinteki decks.

Overall though, a welcome improvement to one of the most iconic traps in Jinteki's arsenal!

One other thing - this card is in the same set as Clearinghouse, which allows for some really nasty corp mind games. Just something to think about...

Well, here it is. The replacement for Stimhack. It's a bit less swingy, (+4 instead of +9) but it's also neutral now, and doesn't cause brain damage.

I think we're going to see a lot of this card.

Because any time you know a run is going to cost you at least 5, this card is basically a Sure Gamble, that doesn't cost a click to play. And people like Sure Gamble. They like it a lot. Many people would add 3 more sure gambles to their decks if they could, and this card basically lets you.

It has most of Stimhack's advantages, too. You can throw off corp math, when they're trying to figure out if you can afford to get in. You can use the credits to pay for things during the run, like Self-modifying Code or Simulchip. You can use the credits to help you trash expensive assets. You can pay for things like Tollbooth or Whitespace. Or you can just crank up your breakers with more money than they expected you to have, and smash your way in.

It's good stuff. I tried out a deck with x2 Overclocked, and quickly added a third. I was basically never sad to draw it. If you haven't yet, give it a shot!

Hoshiko is pretty neat.

I've been out of netrunner for a few years. Stopped around Flashpoint, and only recently got back in, when some friends said "hey, let's play Startup!" So this review is from the point of view of someone who mostly plays Startup format these days. It's possible that there are deep, subtle nuances that I'm missing from not having played this card in standard. You have been warned.

That said. Hoshiko is pretty cool.

It took me a game or two to really "get" her ability. I found it kind of hard to parse, since it's spread out across two sides of her card, but the simplified version is basically:

• As long as you can keep accessing corp cards, you get to turn 1 into 1 card draw at the start of every turn.
• The first time you do this, you get a bonus of 2.
• If you ever stop accessing cards, all this goodness stops, and you go back to being boring until you get some more card access. (But you do get the 2 startup bonus again!)

Or, the REALLY simplified version is, Hoshiko is an alternate take on MaxX: Maximum Punk Rock - She gives you clickless card draw every turn, but at a cost. Hoshiko's cost is different (1 instead of milling 2 cards), but she also has to keep running to keep it going as well. This might seem like I'm being overly reductive, but as someone who played a fair bit of MaxX, Hoshiko felt very familiar.

So let's talk about the specifics, and why Hoshiko is so great.

First, there's the upgrades Hoshiko gets when she's in her virtual magical girl form: One of these is obvious - she's got an extra 1 when she's flipped. But the other one is more subtle - she gains the Digital keyword, which is not on a whole lot of runners. (I think Apex might be the only other one?) Digital is neat because it lets her (And Apex!) make extremely good use of DreamNet. (Which, to be fair, is obviously a card designed with her in mind.)

These are nice. But the real power in her ability is from the ability to get a constant stream of cards without spending clicks. This gives you a huge amount of tempo. Yes, it costs her credits instead, and yes, when evaluating cards, we often assume that 1 is roughly equivalent to 1 card. But they're only roughly equivalent. Cards are still usually better. Runners are super good at getting credits, and only mostly good at drawing cards.

Or, to put this another way, Hoshiko lets you turn your efficient credit-gaining cards into efficient card-drawing, which is almost always a good deal.

Or, to put this another way, if you fill a Hoshiko deck with cards to gain credits cheaply, you'll have plenty of credits AND cards.

So, given that - what's the best strategy for Hoshiko?

After playing with it a bit, I think that ultimately, Hoshiko's goal should be to try to stay flipped as much as possible, and stay rich enough to afford it. And then just ride the crazy tempo she generates to outspeed the corp. There's also probably an argument to be made for running every other turn, and flipping as much as possible, for fewer card draws and more free credits, but I'm not convinced that this is really worth it, since then you lose out on things like DreamNet.

So if you want to access cards once per turn so you can stay flipped, that has a few implications for deckbuilding. Overall, I've had the best luck building for Hoshiko when I build around cards that give extra benefits to successful runs, but don't replace card access. So for example, Dirty Laundry is excellent, but Security Testing is less so, because it doesn't help keep you in magical girl mode.

So Dirty Laundry is great. Bravado is also great, but a bit expensive on influence. Red Team is another excellent Hoshiko card. Overclock doesn't give you money directly, but might as well be a clickless Sure Gamble, any time you're starting a run that you know will cost at least 5. Leech is not technically credits, but it might as well be, given how much cheaper it can make your runs.

Drip economy is also good. DreamNet is obviously built for her, and probably belongs in any Hoshiko deck I can think of. She has a pretty cool console too, in Keiko. It doesn't directly tie into her abilities, but it has the potential to generate a lot of credits, without having to spend time clicking for them. (As long as you include some companions in your deck at least!) This is not a huge burden, since they generate a lot of passive income themselves. Paladin Poemu, Trickster Taka, Mystic Maemi and Fencer Fueno are all good sources of drip econ in their own right, as long as you have something to spend them on. Which you should, if you keep running and drawing cards.

As with most runners, Hoshiko also wants multiaccess, to provide threat against centrals. Here things get a little weird, since the default Anarch solution, Stargate, does not play super-well with Hoshiko's ability. It doesn't allow you to access cards. I've actually had better luck importing The Maker's Eye. The new Jailbreak card is also excellent here - even if it's only +1 card access, it more than makes up for that with the zero cost and free card-draw.

What else. Icebreakers? I don't really have any strong opinions about icebreakers for Hoshiko, other than Odore is amazing, if you go the virtual companion route. (It also plays very nicely with Leech!)

Overall, I've found Hoshiko to be a lot of fun to play. Her ability feels strong enough to be viable. (She's definitely viable in startup. I assume she can do okay in standard as well.) Her theme is unique. And her mechanics are great because they encourage you to always be running. And really, at the end of the day, isn't that what Netrunner is all about?