Wake up everyone. New big-ass ICE just dropped. Big in cost, big in strength, big in impact, big shits in your pants if you get hit by it. Any unique piece of ICE had better be like that, given that you can only have one rezzed.

Interesting mechanics surrounding its encounter status, too. We all know the "when encountered" ability, having paid for more Tollbooths than a lot of us would have liked to (on both sides of the game!), but how many ICE have "when the encounter ENDS" abilities? Not like Kakugo where the net damage hits after you pass the ICE, because an encounter with a piece of ICE ends whether you break the subroutines or not. Touch this snake in any way and you will get bit.

And what a bite! You as the corp trash one of the Runner's cards unless they take two tags or three net damage? Brutal. Those are the subroutines you'd have to break anyway! No wonder this thing costs 10. That still might be cheap considering how much tempo this will cost the runner. Maybe even if this was illicit and gave the corp bad puclicity if they rezzed it. That's how hard this thing hits.

One question I have is how bypass abilities work in relation to the encounter ending. My assumption is that bypassing essentially acts like the encounter didn't happen, so you would pass through without dealing with this monster.

Bottom line, find ways to avoid encountering this most dangerous noodle.

Two things pop up at me about Arissana right away.

1. That. Jacket!! I don't know who was in charge of the clothing design for this cycle but there are some killer fits that I want to wear all over this set. This is merely the top of my list of favorites.

2. The zero-credit ability. I don't think we've had many abilities like this. Run-based abilities you pay with clicks? By trashing? Paying multiple credits? Lots of those, on both sides of the game.

(Run-based here referring to abilities that trigger during a run, and I include bioroids "click to break" subroutines in that for these purposes)

But this is a new one. Yes, you're paying for the program you're installing, but that's not from the ability itself. The best comparison is Self-modifying Code, but with SMC you're paying 2 to activate, however many credits your program costs, and two MU until you pop it off. Arissana here just skates over to the server and starts tagging it with Trojans.

Naturally there's some balance here in that once-per-turn, only during a run, and limiting the "search" to the grip, but this is still a powerful effect that I believe will be impactful immediately.

Overall, one of my new favorite cards here. The art, the lore, the theme, the effect, it's all good. Fantástica!

Let me tell you a tale. A tale from the olden days of Netrunner, before the System Reboot.

"Political" is a really interesting idea for card design here (these megacorps practically own governments, after all. NBN can play into the surveillance industry, Weyland's your private military but you still need lobbying and willingly corrupt politicians. Why didn't we get more explicitly "political" cards before then?), and it led to one of the more intriguing one-cycle mechanics from the days of Mumbad. Keep your servers open and very trashable, but get some sweet payoffs for keeping them clear. Whether that be recursion (Clone Suffrage Movement), draw power/agenda management (Sensie Actors Union, the one actors union I personally think its OK to boo), or steady net damage (the infamous Bio-Ethics Association).

"Wait!" I hear you say through this series of tubes "There's four corp factions, but you only listed three cards? Didn't Weyland get one of these?" Yes they did. However, Commercial Bankers Group just made 3 credits a turn. Stealing a joke from one of Willingdone's old videos: Weyland's signature mechanic is making three credits.

Now, the concept is back, and that's not the only mechanic getting a new Null Signal shine.

Jinteki: Replicating Perfection was the first Jinteki ID outside of Core Set 1.0, and it was an absolute beast at glacier...once it got a few more tools. Sundew gave RP a potential SIX credits per turn (2 creds for each of the three copies you could have rezzed). Honor and Profit was decently kind to RP, what with Komainu, Susanoo-no-Mikoto, and The Future Perfect adding to tools like Tsurugi and especially Caprice Nisei as ways to tax the Runner. Ultimately, RP fell off as glacier was out-paced in the meta, and now it is currently out-of-rotation.

But now, we have the lovechild of RP and Bio-ethics, though more fair than the latter being, unique this time. This is, I believe, a very good move. As fun as it was to pilot Bio-ethics decks, it wasn't nearly as fun to play against them. 3 net damage per turn will do that to you. I know its tempting to call this power creep, but given this and the other restrictions I think its more of a lateral move. It hurts more on the surface, but it also takes more setup and isn't able to chain itself. And it still only works if you don't ice the server, and with that low trash cost this is going to be a high-priority target that is easily disposed. Fine design, and I hope the Liberation cycle gives us more cards like this!

Huh. This is...neat?

I don't know, folks. I keep thinking there's something here but I can't shake my doubts. I like how its hardware, its unique so you can't just spam it, I like the influence cost, the art is awesome, I think running on a central server is a good prerequisite, but this doesn't feel like it will get played. The closest comparison I can think of mechanically speaking is Public Support, what with the ticking clock of power counters leading to a pretty decent impact. That was a good card that didn't see much play in my experience. However, that's a corp card, so I don't think this is a fair comparison.

I suppose you could put Stim Dealer as a comparison? The Black File? (And before y'all bring up something like Parasite, those are pretty explicitly "VIRUS" counters, and those can be purged. Not power counters, which aren't as easy to remove.) However, both of those cards weren't really played because they weren't really good. The Black File was really underpowered for what it was. Core damage was more of a taboo in the old game (no wonder they switched it from "brain damage"! A good move, in my opinion), so Stim Dealer really wasn't played. Unless you were one of those true galaxy brains that used Dr. Lovegood jank...

But that's not my biggest issue with this card.

There was already a "bomb" subtype...and you literally named the card "Time BOMB," and yet you didn't use it. I know EMP Device was forgettable crap, but come on!

Well, if you ever wondered what happened to those Itinerant Protesters that camped outside Weyland's HQ until the cops were called and currents got the boot, I guess one of them got her degree and started working for Jinteki!

If Cybernetics Division: Humanity Upgraded were legal to play, this would be an absolutely crippling for most runners. Already you're playing with a 4-card hand as a base, then they rez Dr. Keeling and now you've got a ticking clock until you run out of hand size. Leave it up for too long and your hand size would go down to 0 or even -1, which would result in a core damage flatline and a corp victory.

Four to trash isn't exactly peanuts either, but that's honestly a good development in my eye. It was frustrating as a corp to have runner economies that were so robust that they could trash most of your stuff. (New players, be glad you missed the bad old days of Temüjin Contract. shudders)