Akhet is the newest "7 Wonders ice" (see also Hortum and Colossus) and looks like it will be a popular barrier for Weyland.

Three credits for a 2 sub barrier that etr is decent enough value as is. But at 5 strength this card becomes very expensive very fast. The "only one sub can be broken" clause (like on Afshar) makes it incredibly annoying to deal with unless it is bypassed. Giving the corp money and an advancement counter is nothing to sneeze at, especially since this combos perfectly with Builder of Nations. SSO will also love this card, since they can immediately bring it up to triple advanced with their ability.

Very solid card, one to watch out for.

1954
Don't forget Mausolus in there too! Akhet brings the total number of Wonders Ice to 4. —

Although this card will obviously be compared to Scrubber, both due its similar effect and identical cost, it is actually a very different beast.

Scrubber, with its 2 recurring credits, is slow and methodical. It takes a minimum of 3 turns for you to make a profit off installing it. You get to snipe an asset here, a Rashida there, or make an expensive but important trash (like Crisium Grid or Lady Liberty) a bit less painful. If you find Scrubber early, it will serve you well for the entire game and unless your opponent only has operations, it will never be a dead card.

Miss Bones on the other hand is more about instant gratification. She gives you 12 immediate credits, no questions asked, go nuts. While you can save them up over the course of a game, often you may want to spend an entire turn completely dismanting the corp's shit, especially against ID's like CTM or IG. Twelve credits is A LOT, and will trash a good deal of corp installs.

But that is about all this resource does. Because Scrubber also works on cards found in HQ and R&D, it has more universal value. Miss Bones is a more specific counter to horizontal decks. She is also 2 influence, which is why she is unlikely to be found out of faction. If I were to play criminal at a high-end tournament, I would definitely consider slotting one of two copies. When Miss Bones delivers, she Delivers.

1954

Together with Door to Door, this is thematically my favorite card in the game. I love the idea of the corp just cutting loose and going after the runner in meat space, with no regard for public opinion. The art on this is visceral and it feels excessively Weyland.

As far as the card itself, it is good but not amazing. 4-2's are hard to score, so they need to have a game warping effect. And unless you are The Outfit, this won't give you a ton of value. It's too slow for Argus and also has to contend with a strong agenda suite.

In The Outfit it is nice because it will refund you 3 credits on scoring and you are more likely to have a lot of bp early in the game. Doing 2 meat damage here is more of a way to hit the runner's tempo than to actual kill them. Although theoretically scoring 3 of these is almost definitely fatal. Good luck with that though.

1954
SIU

SIU

This is one of those cards I just looked at when it got spoiled and went "... Christ, what were they thinking". And many others thought the same.

The act of tagging a runner has always been an interesting process. Text on corp tag cards varies wildly, but with very few exceptions (a Data Raven counter is the only one I can think off atm) they always require the runner to have initiated a run and/or to have dealt with an agenda. In that sense there has always been an interesting choice in runner vs tag corp matches. You can sit back safely and risk he corp scoring out, or you run knowing you could get tagged, with all the misery that entails.

SIU turns that dichotomy on its head by making waiting just as dangerous as running. If the trace is successful, the runner is tagged, runs be damned. The only restriction is having it survive on the board for a turn, which is easy to do unless the runner checks every card. A gargantuan and perilous task vs many asset spam decks, which is where this usually finds a home in. And after the runner is tagged, the corp has 3 clicks left to do nasty things with, not the usual 2 after they successfully fire SEA Source.

Sure, if the runner finds this in R&D or HQ it is trivial to trash. And yeah, the unfront credit cost is not totally insignificant. But the decks that use SIU (Gagarin and CTM come to mind) usually have no lack of funds. It is a win con on its own and one that forces runners to make unintelligent plays that go against what I think is fun about Netrunner.

I was happy when this card got restricted and I wouldn't be sad to see it go again.

1954

Not much to say about this one, it is a strictly (much) better Cloak. Both cost 1 credit, take up 1 MU and are 2 influence out of faction. However, this covers all your program needs, not just icebreakers, such as using SMC or Misdirection.

On top of that, it ALSO pays for using hardware, most notably the newly spoiled Mu Safecracker for the stealth archetype and Rubicon Switch for credit denial decks. Maybe we could see a criminal deck that does both? How is our boy Az doing?

So yeah, definitely a very welcome card with the rotation of Cloak, and one I look forward to using in Smoke.

1954
Been testing this thing in Q-Loop Az, and it's actually pretty sweet. Not sweet enough to put in a stealth package, but pretty sweet ^^ —