[Flavor review. Readers be advised.]

There is so much going on in this card, I don't even know what to begin with.

Look at the art. A dark alleyway, plenty of dismembered, mangled corpses strewn around. Then the name - it's a successful field test. Field test of what? Is Bateman 1.0. finally heading into mass production? Sadly, no.

This scene in particular has been already described in Worlds of Android sourcebook. The simulant depicted in the foreground is Floyd, Haas-Bioroid's answer to Jinteki's poster girl - the first bioroid investigator to ever walk down these strange streets. Instead of latent psychic abilities, he sports extreme computing power located inside his chest, a connection to criminal databases worldwide and an ability to analyze samples in the field - all are perfect traits for a detective. There's just that one thing...

I mean, it's funny, considering the main plot of Terminal Directive is a renegade bioroid running on a murderous rampage. What Haas' cronies would do? Yeah - send in another bioroid to go after it. Come on, what could go wrong?

Another funny thing is, Floyd's with NAPD. Seidr's goal in Terminal Directive storyline would be to get to the truth about the murderer before the public does, and NAPD represents the public. With Floyd on the case, Seidr are essentially putting their own man in charge of the investigation. Floyd is a rat - hidden in plain sight and while some people certainly have their doubts, nobody seems too vocal about them. Of course the simulant is helping with the investigation, but how could you tell he isn't holding all the good bits to himself? Since this card now exists, you can quite safely say that indeed he does, and his creators are first to hear them.

But Floyd can have a hidden agenda too! As we know from the novel "Free Fall", NAPD's newest addition sports a somewhat peculiar interest in religion, even spending his free time and processing power turning a rosary in his chrome fingers, wondering what soul is and if he does have one (the former, as he admits, just in case he indeed had one). For Floyd, finding the murderer might prove to be a milestone for greater understanding of free will, of self, of spirit...

And what happens then? What if Floyd realizes how directives can be bypassed? What if he tells his kin? Maybe we're just one clueless philosopher away from a total war against the awakened machines?

Sadly, this piece's mechanics isn't at all that interesting - one thing worked, so we're ready to mass-produce and/or start many other projects. Information gathered by Floyd is giving you a headstart - but how does knowing that these poor folks have been mauled with a sledgehammer help you set up your naked men, power prostitutes or cyber babysitters? Feels like some ludonarrative potential was wasted there.

Is this card strong? Yes and no. With proper setup, it's excellent click compression and if you happen to have enough ICE in your grip, you can set up a five-layer glacier from scratch and save 10 credits while you do - and this is what it does best, as the only thing coming with an additional install cost is ICE. But most times you won't be able to do as much - an ICE or two on top of your scoring server might still help and save you some bucks you're going to need for a rez.

He wears a tie. Wields two guns that are almost melting with heat. These two poor guys in the background were clad in plascrete armor. AND HE STILL MANAGES TO LOOK BORED. Yeah - some of you guys might have heard this card is FFG's tribute to a certain Damon. Far as I know, these notions are false - Damon's full name was Mr. Damon Stone, not Mr. Motherf*cking Stone. The last name must be a complete coincidence.

Curiously enough, these two pistols are probably laser/blaster-based (only these are prone to overheating that much), which disqualifies them as Skorpios or Argus-made - most patents for energy weapons belong to NEXT, a military division of Haas-Bioroid. Despite many flaws, it is also a weapon of choice of many ex-SXC (Space eXpeditionary Corps), which suggests the man in question probably had fought in the Lunar or Martian Insurrection, or maybe even both.

Mr. Stone might be a reference to Deadlands: The Weird West. One of the most prominent NPCs in this game was Stone, an old undead gunslinger so bad that even the demon keeping him alive was afraid of him. As a plot device, Stone was meant to track down and outright murder any player characters that somehow grew powerful enough to threaten the interests of manitou. Quite a coincidence, because this is exactly what our man does.

It has to be noted that Mr. Stone's ability triggers for each instance of the Runner being handed one or more tags. So, Midseason Replacements would deal one, not 23 million meat damage, Hard-Hitting News also one and Breaking News a total of one meat damage. That is not much, but let's think about it for a second.

The most times you are unable to land a successful kill it is because you are short one damage (yeah, I know, nowadays we'd rather make them go BOOM!, but listen to me). Mr. Stone is here to help: coincidentally, the most times you are about to kill somebody, you have to land a tag first - so it's an additional reward for something you were meaning to do anyways. Always a good thing.

The card art already suggested it, but laser pistols are a really good way to melt away these ugly Plascrete Carapaces - something Weyland lacked up to this point. Maybe it's time to get these Muresh Bodysuits instead? (Of course, how you manage to land these tags is a different thing entirely.)

NBN: Controlling the Message might be really happy with Stone's services, as you're not only tagging, but actively punishing the Runner for messing with your stuff - it's like green-yellow Hostile Infrastructure which also fires on some unbroken subroutines and certain events. An alleyway worth exploring further.

Argus Security: Protection Guaranteed might view Mr. Stone as additional countermeasures against Runners stealing your agendas. With the choice being "2 damage or a tag AND 1 damage", they are more likely to pick the former, even if they can spare clicks and credits to clear the tag later on. And since we're talking Weyland, Skorpios Defense Systems could see every tag as a way to remove something important, permanently. Aggressive or defensive? Your call - Stone's good with both hands.

Mr. Stone turns a Zealous Judge into a more expensive Private Security Force that is also a lot easier to get. Click people to death. Just like in Diablo. Maybe they'll drop items too.

With your new VP of Retirements and Pensions, Account Siphon hurts a lot - especially as an early tempo hit. So does Data Raven, now with an additional option to deal damage whenever you want - and if you manage to get 6 or 7 power counters on it, you're basically killing people with birds, Hitchcock style. Not unlike Chief Slee, except a lot less crude. Any tagging tracer ICE suddenly becomes a lot more annoying, especially early game. Ever wanted to kill someone with Salvage? Well, there you go, you crazy bastard!

K. P. Lynn deserves a notion. Setting it up in Weyland Consortium: Builder of Nations ensures - with a bit of proper management - that the Runner has to take two meat damage for each successful run.

Engage Door to Door, because it's always good to have a cookie and yet make them eat a cookie. And by "a cookie" I mean "a bullet".

Two to rez, two to trash. It is unlikely Stone ever becomes a priority target (it's not a key card, more of an additional advantage), so any protection at all will do as a deterrent to wrecking the sharp-dressed man's house. Four infulence is not cheap - but I'm positive that quite a number of NBN decks that rely on sticking loads of tags will consider him pips well spent.

See? It's just one card. Just one man that gives you so many new ways to hurt people, at the same time being elegant, professional and polite. It's a piece very well designed, easily one of my favourite things about Terminal Directive.

[Story time with H0tl1ne! Though I'll try to fit in something for you jank cowboys out there as well.]

"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

Zed, oh Zed...

This might be the least used card in the whole history of Netrunner. It has nearly every disadvantage it could have: low strength, typical click-to-break quirk every bioroid shares, a pair of subroutines that require a proper setup in order to fire. And yet, this might be the card with the most unsettling, the most terrifying flavor that ever was printed. Which, in turn, makes it one of my absolute favourites.

As we all know, every bioroid has a distinct personality, a result of a process called "brain taping". Brain taping involves "recording" a personality of a human - modelling a functioning cybernetic brain using an actual brain as a template. Such is a costly and lengthty process - to the point where the number of bioroid "types" is very much limited. In order to ever pass the concept phase, creating a new bioroid line has to be, above all things, profitable.

Every bioroid has something of a theme for their personality. For instance, Rex is heroic, Eve is seductive, Alix is brilliant yet fragile. Then there is Zed.

Have a quick look at the flavor text. The main quirk of Zeds everywhere appears to be curiosity. Curiosity of a very particular kind.

Clearly, the Zed line has been modelled after a guy who also was curious, in a way that led him to cutting up stray puppies just for the thrill of discovery. A dangerous, violent yet meticulous psychopath, possibly a serial killer. Then there was somebody at Haas-Bioroid who decided that investing millions of credits into developing a product line based on such a person was a good idea. Why would that be? Right, this is ICE, so network security would be an obvious answer, but that feels just like going a really long way to accomplish something that could have been done with much less hassle and much less risk. Just doesn't add up.

With that in mind, is anyone ever surprised that the events of Terminal Directive happened? What's gonna be next, Bateman 1.0?

The new Zed directs its morbid thirst of discovery towards personas met in the network. The bioroid finds it extremely fascinating that a personality, a consciousness can be stored in something that isn't a machine. It doesn't worry much with the notion of pain and suffering - bioroids do not know any of these things - and at a nearest convenience proceeds to analyze it with the tools provided: a gruesome mask and a set of scythe-like fingers. A human might associate them with known popculture tropes - to bioroid these pose no meaning. Zeds are clueless murder machines, which makes it extra creepy.

Zed is able to reach out to you if you happened to break a subroutine with a click. Which means, you looked inside a bioroid's skull and maybe found a way to rewire it so that it didn't hurt you. Maybe you connected to it so you could chat with it for a while and explain why it really should let you pass. Doesn't matter - now the same connection you've made allows the bioroid to look inside you. Basically, Zed does to you what you did to his kin. How sick is that? How is that thing not illicit?!

As an added bonus, there is a little combo I've found.

Zed 1.0 all by itself is perfectly harmless - it requires an another bioroid in front of it (or really any ICE under some circumstances), and this assuming that the intruder decides to use up all the clicks on it and yet keep moving on. What to do?

The answer: Sub Boost it. The other player smirks at you - "I'll click that ETR, then". And then - what's that? - the other two subroutines fire! Project Wotan can be used in the same manner. Now you force the runner to click not once, but thrice, turning Zed 1.0 into a cheaper alternative for Turing - sadly, without the AI hate, but still.

Or maybe you'd like more brain damage on top of your brain damage, that is also in-faction and doesn't make your Zed a corroder fodder? Technology developed during flashpoint crisis has got you covered: enter Wetwork Refit. Now the runner has a choice of either clicking through one brain damage to get two, not clicking through brain damage to get just one, or clicking through everything and...

...and get Ryon Knighted. You had him stashed in the contested server, right?

I felt like this card needed a fresh review. So I did it.

Lore-wise, this card is pretty simplistic. The runner stole our secret project, so we fake it 'til we make it and lead the public to believe everything is on its way to be released. And it works, somehow, because masses tend to be pretty gullible, be it real world or far future corpofascist dystopia.

A list of Agenda cards Media Blitz will work with, post-Genesis and post-Spin rotation:

• Advanced Concept Hopper
• Ancestral Imager
• Dedicated Neural Net
• Eden Fragment
• Encrypted Portals
• Gila Hands Arcology
• Government Takeover
• Hades Fragment
• Improved Tracers
• Medical Breakthrough
• Net Quarantine
• Personality Profiles
• Puppet Master
• Rebranding Team
• Remote Data Farm
• Self-Destruct Chips
• Sentinel Defense Program
• Superior Cyberwalls
• Utopia Fragment

So, what would be worth blitzin' these days?

Sadly, what we've seen above is not much in terms of really interesting effects. Advanced Concept Hopper and Puppet Master come to mind as pretty interesting counters to active runners, while Net Quarantine seems pretty sweet too in a deck that utilizes traces and wishes to punish the runner trying to meet their requirements. About as much can be said about Improved Tracers, though this feels just a bit weaker.

Fragments do what Fragments did before, which might be useful - with Utopia Fragment you essentially get a more powerful Predictive Algorithm, while Hades Fragment gives you a kind of free Museum of History. Eden Fragment you mostly shouldn't consider. Unless you really like your glaciers, which you probably do.

Self-Destruct Chips can give you that one brain damage you were short of for a successful kill, while Dedicated Neural Net, Encrypted Portals and Superior Cyberwalls boost your defenses.

Gila Hands Arcology advertised with Media Blitz increases a little your efficiency in clicking for money, while Government Takeover allows you to make hecktons of cred - and you're going to need it as the opponent would like just one more point to win.

Medical Breakthrough deserves a separate note - if you feel like doing some fast-advancing in Jinteki, that is.

Media Blitz does not interact with Executive-type assets that were trashed and taken as agendas by a Runner - according to Lucas' own twitter, Director Haas won't give you a bonus click per turn and Chairman Hiro won't shrink your opponent's grip size as while in the score area they are both considered blank. Which is a tremendous shame, as that would make for an awesome combo.

Which leads me to think that this game really needs some more interesting agendas that don't contain a self-referencing rules text. Fingers crossed for Red Sand!

EDIT 2018-03-09:

So much for crossing fingers. Only five agendas total from Red Sand, Kitara and Reign and Reverie are actually blitzable to a meaningful effect. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Water Monopoly - eh, why not run Scarcity of Resources instead?

Escalate Vitriol - if you find yourself faced against a Runner who floats a lot of tags (or possibly the one you just landed a crapton of tags on!), you might make a quick, clean buck out of a sudden, possibly even more than once. Sounds potent, although takes some setup to work - if it does, the payout might easily top Government Takeover. So, if your deck is already running these, including Media Blitz might help you in a tight spot. Otherwise you probably shouldn't bother.

AR-Enhanced Security - Oh YEAH! Take THAT, you dirty Anarch! Having this one stolen is never a huge blow to your situation (one-pointers, ho!) and blitzing it is sure to hinder the Runner in a significiant way. Bonus points for doing this inside NBN: Controlling the Message for more taggy goodness (is there such a thing?).

Better Citizen Program is more of a risky approach - two points less until endgame. Icebreakers aren't exactly played that often (exceptions being this dude and anybody using these bois), but there exists a niche of Runners who love their run events. Reliable in a deck that doesn't have that much stuff to trash, otherwise the one above might be the one you're looking for.

I love the above two, mainly because of flavor (apparently there is no actual brainwashing or surveillance involved, but all the media coverage does feed the paranoia, doesn't it?). None of them really matter, however. Why?

Remember Mandatory Upgrades? It rotated out, promptly shutting down the five minutes o'fame the Robocop archetype had. Good thing too, this thing was gloriously imbalanced. Well, R&R's got your back.

Enter Jumon. It's not an additional click a turn, but, in its own right, turns out to be a very potent tool of mind games and fast advancement. If you try this in Tennin Institute: The Secrets Within, there's a good chance of sticking not two, but three advancements on a facedown card in a server per turn. The facedown card doesn't even have to be advanceable, so you could, for all we know, make the most threateningly-looking Melange Mining Corp. to ever grace a gaming table.

Saraswati Mnemonics: Endless Exploration from the same pack might do a similar trick, giving you click compression for a price of little versatility. Somehow Tennin speaks out to me a little bit more, but if you value your fast-advance more than you do your glaciers, feel free to do so.

I'm actually kind of surprised this isn't a thing yet.

[Story time with H0tl1ne! Mostly legit lore this time.]

What is the Underway and how do you renovate it (and why flamethrowers included)?

In order to have the full scope, we need to trace back to what was going on in the Spin cycle.

Weyland Consortium's own GRNDL Division (which stands for Geostrategic Research and Neothermal Development Laboratories) is a corporation mostly infamous for some shady and really dangerous projects, amongst which there was Project Vulcan - basically, a huge suboceanic mining drill to be used in order to pierce towards the inner layers of the Earth, because who cares about core integrity if you can have free geothermal energy instead?

There was some huge beef around Project Vulcan - as it quickly became clear, GRNDL's new toy wasn't all that safe (a grevious constipation, Sherlock!) and several researchers involved issued warnings to the chief executives that its use might cause "major seismic events". As we can imagine, execs did what execs do - fired the damn thing up anyway. But, being Weyland execs, first they bought out the majority of the West Coast (that would be SanSan Megapolis) and insured it for some huge piles of money. Just to be safe.

Said major seismic event basically ruined a huge part of SanSan seaside in one huge earthquake. Roughly thousands were presumed dead. Some dedicated individuals worked long and hard to make the truth known to public. Some got arrested, but eventually succeeded, even though the Consortium stopped at nothing to cover the thing up.

The consequences were dramatic. Apart from a huge PR blow, Weyland Consortium was forced to take up many costly renovation contracts in order to rebuild what their greed destroyed. Amongst the districts that were hit the most, there was industrial Oaktown, Hollywood and... The great SanSan monorail. That's where begins the SanSan cycle - and our trip around the third greatest city in the world, right behind NeoTokyo and New Angeles.

Now Underway is not a district per se. It is, more accurately, a slang name for the suburbs which span beneath the SanSan's longest monorail track. Also, quite coincidentally, not the nicest place to be, full of people of questionable motives, and significant presence of criminal element, now stirred up due to damage suffered in the Vulcan pandemonium. Basically, not anybody willing to comply with corporate interests.

That monorail was a landmark really important to the SanSan's infrastructure. It had to be repaired. But it couldn't be, with working poor all over the place. They wouldn't move, so they had to be moved.

Hence the trailer parks burning throughout the night.

This card is really well-designed in ludonarrative terms, as its mechanics and the story it tells are perfectly woven together. The further you advance your actions in Underway, the more of the Runners' possibilities dwindle, as their contacts are forcibly relocated to somewhere else or die in a fire. Which, of course, means the milling of the Stack.

I love to use this card in Argus Security: Protection Guaranteed deck, paired with Casting Call and some quick, cheap barriers - the faster you begin the mill, the higher the chance of hitting something important - for a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't-scenario. It's my way of challenging the runner: "Look, I'm killing everyone you've ever cared about. Come and stop me.

If you dare".