Editor’s note: Although Lotus Eater is typically intended for a general audience, this post may be of limited appeal for those without at least a passing familiarity with the card game Netrunner. If you are curious about the current state of and future plans for the game, along with my thoughts on these topics, you may find the first and third sections of this text of interest. If you are not curious about those things but you would like to read something of mine, I invite you to come knock on my living room window and I will happily and freely pass you any number of discarded notes, lists, thoughts, and the like. Thank you.
MARE COGNITUM
As previously discussed on this website, the card game Netrunner1 has been under the stewardship of the community organization known as Null Signal Games (henceforth referred to as “NSG”) since around 2019. As they have printed new cards, they have progressively “rotated” sets of the original FFG-printed “official” Netrunner cards out of standard legal play. This was conducted at a fairly steady clip but, in 2023, NSG declared a bold new schedule: with the release of the next then-unnanounced set, all FFG cards would be rotated out of legal play.2 The set in question was codenamed Dawn and was intended to be a “foundational product,” joining System Gateway in replacing the core collection of FFG cards that have heretofore formed the basis of Netrunner. Now, 18 months later, we are staring down the barrel of the release of the somewhat-less-evocatively-titled Elevation. Come April 24, 2025, you can throw all those FFG cards straight into the toilet because the only legal cards will be those printed by NSG. Though opinions on this decision vary wildly, there are few among us who will not mourn the loss of so many of these cards.3 This grief is salved, at least, by the promise of new cards, and NSG was kind enough to grant this gentle blogger the opportunity to reveal one such card. And so, with only a mite more ado,
MARE FECUNDITATIS
It has been observed4 that, when it comes to me and my dealings, the universe has a twisted sense of humour. Thus and so, it is with a potent mix of dismay and sweet self-directed schadenfreude that I can reveal to you the card assigned to me by NSG.
Cost: 1 — Asset
When your turn begins, gain 1 credit.
Threat 2→ When the runner trashes this asset
(while it is rezzed), give them 1 tag.
Trash Cost: 2
As far as I know, no one in charge of the decision to assign me this particular card knows me personally. They do not know, for example, that I despise asset spam—and specifically NBN asset spam—more than any other archetype in the game. Similarly, they do not know that I think Controlling the Message (more commonly known as “CtM”) is one of the worst cards ever printed from a design and player-experience perspective5 6 or that I have a tendency to sign off my public decklist write-ups with “fuck ctm”, even when it is not especially germane. Thus, I take great pleasure in being the one to reveal the new card that is sort of like a Mini-CtM (if much less noxious).
As far as I can tell, Public Access Plaza is a lot like CtM: it gives the runner a tag for trashing it (at least, after an agenda or two has been scored/stolen); its strategy is extremely self-evident both to the player and their opponent; and it sort of just plays itself. As for its power level, it is in the awkward position in which assets often find themselves: its effect is reasonably good but its trash cost is low and so it is not viable to play unless your plan is to play so many assets that your opponent cannot keep up with trashing them. And given how many asset spam-oriented cards and IDs are in Elevation7 and how heavily runner econ has been nerfed,8 that is likely to be a robust strategy. It also isn’t unique, so you can get several of these bad boys ticking at once, assuming your soul doesn’t collapse under the moral burden. Should the runner succumb to impulse and trash one of these Public Access Plazas, it remains to be seen exactly how the corp can punish them, given that some of the vaunted tag punishment tools of yore are rotating. Still, there is at least one new and intriguing option and you can always just kill them.
Now that we have attended to our corporate duties, we can address the true purpose and contribution of this blog post: the unveiling of the first promotional alt-art for Elevation. Revealing a new asset spam tool was a unique if emotionally-complex honour, but creating this Extremely Official, Extremely Valuable, and Dubiously-Rare alt-art was truly the highlight of this occasional-blogger’s occasional-blogging career. It is reminiscent, of course, of some of my past promotional alt-arts9 but has the unique distinction of being probably10 the first of the set. It also has the singular dignity of being the only alt-art I have ever created intentionally and not through incidence, accidence, or negligence.11 It will, of course, be available in the usual channels: on the wind, in the fog, or beneath a sea of tranquility.12
MARE CRISIUM
It is probably not controversial to state that Netrunner is in a bit of a delicate position right now. The cards responsible for the game’s flavour and structure—the cards that led us to fall in love with the game—will all soon become charta non grata. Major archetypes that have been viable since the game’s release in 2012 will cease to exist as cards like Snare and Personal Evolution are removed from the game without replacement.13 Hundreds of cards will be replaced with 85, some of which are exact reprints of extant cards or are effectively-worse versions of them. Factions that have long been lower on the tier list will be losing significant tools through rotation and banning without (as-of-yet-revealed) substantial replacement.14 Other higher-tier factions will be affected much less by rotation, due to having already received extremely-powerful tools in NSG-released sets.15 The designers are, as best I can tell, attempting to significantly reduce the power level of the average deck, though this will affect some factions and archetypes more than others. This is also difficult to do with limited toolsets: NSG releases about one pack (65–85 cards) per year on average and uses only a strict ban list.16 Given these restrictions, vastly reducing the cardpool alongside deck power and diversity is, to put it mildly, a Bold Move.
All that said, I am looking forward to seeing how the game progresses and grows. This is, as the NSG website puts it, “the single biggest change to the Netrunner cardpool in the history of the game.” Concerns aside, I am of course excited to see how things shake out. And irrespective of these changes, I have no doubt that I will continue to play weekly with my local meta and that I will travel to play with friends abroad when given the opportunity and that I will do my absolute best to play decks that vex and endear my opponents in equal measure.17 I look forward to seeing what else NSG has in store for us and if they ever need someone to remind them of the text on Biotech so that they can reprint it, they know who to call.
Some final errant thoughts:
- The term “mare cognitum” really sounds like it should refer to a pensive horse.
- I strongly considered only including my alt-art version of Public Access Plaza in this post and relegating the actual card to a secret link hidden in the page somewhere or at the end of some wikimedia rabbit hole. I decided against it out of respect for the actual artist responsible for the card art and for NSG providing me this unique opportunity.
- I referred to myself as a “blogger” somewhere between two and three times in this post, depending on how you count. I found this deeply upsetting to do. I am not a “blogger.” My parents did not raise a “blogger.”
- This is the first time that a post on this website has served anything other than a whim of mine. Writing it was an unusual experience as I was distinctly aware that 1) it is ultimately being done in service of Something Else and 2) that it would be read by people who were not familiar with Me or with My Tone On Here. Ultimately, I tried to not to stray from my path or mine instincts too much, as it would feel alien to affect a new (and, ultimately, inauthentic) voice, and because my cilice is at the cleaners. If anyone wishes to lambast me for my feckless attitude when discussing my blisteringly-hot takes on this children’s card game, I am available at literally any time. I truly have nothing else going on.
- Obviously I cannot draw and that is “The Bit” but damn if it isn’t difficult to draw a hand.
- People often get mad at me when I say that CtM has an extremely high skill floor. I am keen to relive that thrill.
Footnotes
best game ever made and so on and so forth↩︎
(other than a half-dozen or so that had already been reprinted as NSG cards)↩︎
by others (though I am inclined to agree)↩︎
It is probably not a good use of my time or yours to explicate this perspective in full, but suffice it to say that I think printing (or failing to ban) an identity that implicitly adds extremely powerful text to every corp card with a trash cost is an incredibly foolhardy thing to do. It warps design space on both the corp and the runner side and, in practice, often made it so that very few runner decks were competitively-viable. CtM dominated the competitive space off-and-on (though mostly on) for years, despite having an extremely high skill floor (just toss assets onto the board and you’ll probably win if your opponent isn’t teched or playing a top-tier deck) and mostly avoiding doing what would normally constitute “playing Netrunner.”↩︎
Obviously I do not feel this way about Public Access Plaza, which seems Essentially Fine.↩︎
e.g., the new Jinteki ID AU Co., the new HB ID Poétrï, the new HB click-compression operation Top-Down Solutions↩︎
e.g., banning moderately-powered econ cards like Creative Commission, rotating important anti-asset tech like Miss Bones, replacing neutral econ staples like Dirty Laundry and Daily Casts with the generally-weaker Clean Getaway and Side Hustle↩︎
which were of similar value, rarity, and officiality↩︎
There is simply no way to know.↩︎
Listen. I know that “accidence” is a word and that that word is not a conjugation of the word “accident.” This joke only works if I spell it like that. If you cannot accept that then there is nothing left for you here and it is time that we go our separate ways.↩︎
or I’ll get it printed and give out copies of it at a tournament if I do not Tire of the Bit before then↩︎
It should be noted here that there has not yet been a replacement for Snare revealed, though there may be one forthcoming. More importantly, there is no replacement for Personal Evolution forthcoming, at least not in Elevation.↩︎
i.e., Criminal, Jinteki, and (until recently) Shaper↩︎
i.e., Anarch, HB↩︎
Netrunner has previously also used a “restricted” list, which is common in competitive card games. This can be implemented in a variety of ways, but the approach most favoured in Netrunner was to put especially-powerful or -synergistic cards on the Most Wanted List. Each deck could play only one card from the Most Wanted List. This allowed the printing of powerful cards while mitigating the risk of overly-dominant decks. It is also a much more nuanced balancing tool than a ban list, which is often unable to distinguish between strong cards, seldom-played and ultimately-weak cards with high synergistic potential, and absolutely busto monster cards that clearly should never have been printed.↩︎
Admittedly, I am often more successful at the former than the latter.↩︎
