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What Lies Ahead

Announcing the First Data Pack from Android: Netrunner's Genesis Cycle

“You want to be cheap, be cheap. But you want to flex your muscles? Go ahead and do it. Do it right. You’re driving one of the world’s mightiest megacorporations. You have credits like most people have red blood cells. Now, you can use it. Lock up your servers. Safe.”

    –Ulrich Heiner, ice programmer and designer of Draco

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of What Lies Ahead, the first Data Pack in the Genesis Cycle for Android: Netrunner!

As lead developer Lukas Litzsinger explained in our announcement of the Genesis Cycle, he wanted to expand upon the concepts of identity cards, faction-specific agendas, and skill to give both Corp players and Runners “greater freedom to choose the themes that best fit them.” Now, as we look forward to What Lies Ahead, the Data Pack’s sixty new cards (three copies each of twenty different cards) appear ready to do just that.

What Lies Ahead adds muscle and theme to each of the game’s seven different factions. Each of the corps receives a new agenda and a flavorful piece of ice, perfectly tailored to its base strengths. On the other side, the runner factions launch into the ongoing cyberstruggles with new icebreakers and support cards. Meanwhile, fans of the Anarchs and Haas-Bioroid should find the Data Pack particularly rewarding as each gains two additional cards, including a new identity. We’ve already revealed the new Anarch identity, Whizzard (What Lies Ahead, 1) in our announcement of the cycle, and he provides Anarch players a whole depth of new strategies based around trashing the cards they access.

Year of the Dragon

One of the most compelling aspects of Android: Netrunner is the amount of control it puts into the hands of its players. Yes, you have a deck full of cards and need to draw the right types of cards in order to piece together your strategy, but Android: Netrunner gives players a range of actions they can take every turn, with or without cards to drive the actions.

With the right cards, however, players can refine the efficiency of their actions, and this economy of actions lies at the heart of the contest between Corp and Runner. The Corp must find clicks and credits to advance its agendas and install its ice, and the Runner must draw into his icebreakers and bank enough credits in order to hack into corporate servers. At the higher levels, much of the game depends upon how well players read their strategies and either pursue or modify them based on what their opponents do.

Many of the new cards in What Lies Ahead will make their impact upon this economic balancing act. The trace system forces players to evaluate what it’s worth to them, in clicks and credits, to win or avoid Corp traces. Similarly, the neutral ice Draco (What Lies Ahead, 20) presents Corp players a tremendously interesting dilemma. What is it worth for them to win a trace? Fed enough credits, Draco becomes a nigh-unbreakable beast of a piece of ice, meaning its trace subroutine should trigger every time, but if the Corp feeds Draco enough credits to put it out of the Runner’s reach, can it still pay enough credits to succeed at its trace?

Or the Corp may be tempted to feed Draco just a couple of credits, just enough that the Runner will continually pay to break it. In this way, the Corp may subtly siphon the Runner’s economy, especially if it keeps enough credits on hand to scare the Runner away from allowing it to initiate a trace.

Moreover, most low-cost ice are easily broken. They may be good early in the game, but in the late game they often don’t have the stopping power the Corp most desires. Draco breaks this mold. It’s a low-cost piece of ice that can play early, but if left unrezzed until the late game, it can power the Corp to a magnificent coup de grace.

Coming in What Lies Ahead, Draco is one piece of ice that can be as good as you want it, reinforcing the importance of getting ahead of the game’s economy, and serving as a sign of future cyberstruggles.

Look for Draco, Whizzard, and the other cards from What Lies Ahead to arrive at retailers everywhere in the fourth quarter of 2012. Until then, keep checking our website for more previews and other information!

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Source: What Lies Ahead (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3569)