The new HB identity is going to make HB players ask: "Which do I need more: money or stronger ICE?" This is going to be a tough decision.

Morning Star: I love how strong/efficient Anarch 'breakers are even if they're penalized by relying on other cards to deal with strength issues.

Criminals finally get a decoder in Peacock and it is typical of their faction. I like that it inherently has 2 strength. I dislike that it costs 2 credits to break 'routines.

Zu.13 Key Master and The Helpful AI- along with Chaos Theory and Test Run- make me want to switch more and more from Criminals to Shapers.

Plascrete Carapace: Weyland hates you already.

Project Atlas is going to be so good for Weyland the same way Mandatory Upgrades (and Project Vetruvius) is going to be good for HB. Weyland's cards are scattered between so many different things; this and Aggressive Negotiation should help get to the specfic cards you need when you need them.

Jinteki and NBN can really use their new agendas. Don't be underwhelmed- they're subtle. Braintrust is going make setting defenses up easier for its faction while Restructured Datapool is can drain the Runner's cash pool if not put him in a world of trouble.

Mandatory Upgrades is awesome. Even one of these scored is going to throw more pressure on the Runner. For game balance purposes, I'm glad to see a high advancement cost and low agenda score. For my own HB deck purposes, I'm gonna have to figure out how to integrate this into my deck, given boths it challenge and reward.

Janus 1.0 is another tough choice for HB deckbuilders. It's so expensive to rez, demanding Priority Requisition and Accelerated Beta Test. It's got high strength and a killer number of zombifying subroutines- but note that it can't end runs.

Hard choices ahead for us all- and that's a good thing. 

Toqtamish said:

Seems like a pointless waste of resources.  You cannot do anything with more than one identity… Even if the pack was only 59 card and 1 identity each, we would still get an extra useful card. Plus, if they managed to put only one hero in Lord of the Rings adventure packs, I don't see why they couldn't do it here as well. But oh well, I guess it is too late to b***h about this now… 

What I like is that the New Agendas put more pressure on the Runner to make runs against a Project Juneberg. How many times has someone not made a run on something that I had advanced out of fear? Mahahaha! Flatlining the runner for fun and profit.

Rince said:

LotR to this is not a valid comparison. LotR packs also include the new encounter deck cards which have different numbers of each card and not 3 copies of each. LotR does have 3 copies of all player used cards. Also in LotR you can only use one copy of an unique hero anyway in play at any time between all players so having more than one would be pointless. But the real reason LotR has 1 copy of each hero instead of 3 is because of the encounter deck cards allow for that change in the distribution of the cards and on the printing presses.

Netrunner on the other hand all cards are player usable. Also if it was your way then we get one card in the pack that we only get 2 copies of which would be really annoying and break the LCG model of the expansion packs. So what there is two extra identities in the pack, put 1 in your binder and burn the other one if it bothers you so much. It really is a non issue anymore than getting multiple agendas is in AGoT. It is not a pointless waste of resources but it is important to understand how printing works in large factory runs like these.

The only way to print 1 identity copy in each pack would be to have 3 different identities in each pack but this would not work with there being 7 factions as then one faction would be left out in each cycle.

I suppose they could have always printed 2 blank cards instead of the extra copies but I will take the extra copies instead.

They could also use the 'extra slots' of not printing 3 copies of each identity for rules reminder cards, lexicon of keywords, extra click/turn action cards.

That said, I don't really mind the extra Identity copies. Use'em as faction dividers, emergency coasters, or save up enough of them to wallpaper a small cabinet.

I am finding it a bit humerous that there are people wailing against FFG for not including 3 copies of each card in the core set, now there are others complainging that they are including 3 of each card.

Toqtamish said:

59 = 1 identity + 1 identity + 57 actual cards  (3x19), which is exactly one card more than the current 18-card setup. I don't know where you got the two copies. Also, it would be only one wasted space as opposed to the current four, which they could use for advertising, for some type of token, a nice netrunner cover image to put in the front of their new deckboxes, or anything really.

Toqtamish said:

Don't need to be snide! What bothers me is that the packs could have been containing 19 useful cards instead of 18 with the same 60-card format.

Keggy said:

Identities, of which you only need one, and actual cards that--occasionally--you need 3 of are really not the same thing . . .

There won't be 2 new identities in each pack.  So, if there was only one copy, there would be two blank cards.  Are you suggesting that they put 2 copies of a new card into those packs?  Because we have seen bazillions of threads about people wanting 3x of everything in the core set, and you have to know that such a decision that makes player by 2 data packs for a complete playset of 1 card would result in a flood of tears and complaining posts.  They said there would be 3 copies of 20 new cards, that's what they delivered, and I am completely missing how this is something worth complaining about.

This is the only pack this cycle that will contain 2 new identities the others will be 1 each. Next pack is Jinteki and February is Shapers turn. So if there was only one copy of each identity then that pack would contain a card that only has two copies. As stated previously this would be a very bad idea.

Keggy said:

Nowhere have I suggested that! This topic is about What Lies Ahead, so I was talking about What Lies Ahead and what bothers me about it . . .

But since you brought up the new expansions, the same principle applies to them as well. FFG could have put two (or even three) new identities into one pack and then none into the next few. Therefore, two pack would contain the rest of the five missing identities with only one wasted space, and the rest of the data packs could contain three whole new cards (nine all together with three copies each!) that you are not going to get the current way. Another way of looking at it is only two useless cards as opposed to the current fourteen in the cycle.

Considering the current situation, the new HB identity seems (to me) weaker than the "original" one. Raising the strenght only of the Bioroid ICEs (there's just 4 so far, and one is Janus…) makes it pretty limited, especially when it's quite easy to disregard the strenght by paying clicks to pass.

Morning Star seems quite useless when they have Corroder which costs only 2 credits AND can raise its strenght… you can't always possibly have enough tokens on Datasucker to lower the strenght of Barriers you encounter. Also, considering the frailty of Anarch's economy… 8 credits is a steep price to pay for an Icebreaker.

Plascrete Carapace might be the best Runner card of the bunch, especially if the Trace mechanic will indeed be empowered in the following Data Packs. This one could become quite a common sight.

Janus 1.0 is a monster, being impossible to pass just by paying clicks, it's indeed very dangerous to face… but the price makes it a LOT risky to play. If you place it without money to rezz him, it might get trashed (and there's Cortez Chip to help on that, now)… and using agendas to place it requires either a lot of time, or a careful planning (and Precognition too), which can't always be easy to obtain.

All in all, plenty new options, especially for the Corps.
Unfortunately none of the Runner cards has an influence cost of 1, but at least ZU.13 is a welcome substitute for Gordian Blade freeing 2 influence points that can be spent elsewhere… for another copy of The Maker's Eye for example!

Rince said:

This pretty much sums up of how I feel about the triplicates

I agree having three of each Identity is complelty useless. I would rather like to see either three different Identeties each pack, or one ID card and two reprints from the one offs from the core set.

LOVE the new NBN Agenda…

darkpact said:

First World Problems.

This has already been done to death in other threads as well, but ANR is being treated no differently from Game of Thrones, where 3x agendas means 2 useless cards.

Since each pack is probably 1 print sheet printed 3x, cut and packed, what you propose means increasing printing and packaging complexity, which in turn would increase the cost of the pack by a couple dollars or more.

FFG is pretty good about quality and value, so I think it's fair to assume they made the decision that works out best for everyone.  We can accept that, or we can keep beating the subject to death, but it's probably not going to change - AGoT players have lived with this issue far longer than we have.