Images courtesy of Null Signal Games
The cyberpunk card game Netrunner has had its biggest shakeup with its newest expansion, Elevation. Continued by Null Signal Games (NSG) as a non-profit project, this set has rotated out the Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) cards, and has compressed the Standard format into the smallest card pool it has ever had in the longest time.
Today, we’ll deep dive into some of the best (or most contentious) cards from the expansion, as evaluated by some of the best players in the game.
Anarch
The newest Circuit Breaker, Kikai keeps tabs on the competitive scene of the game through his substack, The Surveyor. He has piloted various flavors of Anarch decks for the longest time, and has consistently refined and redefined the faction in the game’s modern era.
Ryō “Phoenix” Ōno
In terms of both aesthetics and mechanics, Phoenix is the most on-brand Anarch ID that’s ever been printed. It’s an ID that actively encourages you to run Ice and to let the subroutines fire. Live fast, break things, and — potentially — die young. It’s cyberpunk with a capital P-U-N-K.
I don’t know whether it’s the unusually generous deckbuilding restriction, or just the pure punk rock aesthetic, but I know plenty of highly competitive players that can’t wait to get their hands on Phoenix. Will that translate to winning tournaments? It’s impossible to say at this stage — I just know that a whole bunch of people are excited to find out.
Gourmand
Gourmand costs zero to install, can trash any non-agenda card regardless of trash cost, and will draw us a card at the same time. This is, of course, going to see play as part of an Audrey or Solidarity Badge engine — an engine powered by trashing Corp cards — but I think there’s a world where we could see it as a value one-of in other Anarch decks as well.
It’s easy to overlook Gourmand as just an Imp nearprint, but this little gremlin is going to be much easier to play than its precursor.
Meanwhile, we have maninthemoon, the 2023 Netrunner Intercontinental Champion, among many other accolades, and the regular host of the online Showdown Tournament series, who weighs in on one of the most divisive cards of the set.
Bling
I’m really excited by this console. I’m a big fan of two cost one memory consoles in general, and this ability seems so powerful. It certainly takes building around to a degree, but it functionally makes your free and discountable cards into a draw engine. If your whole deck is almost free cards to begin with, you’ll potentially be able to proc this multiple times per turn. Multiple different Runner IDs could host the deck, but the deck is always gonna be a Bling deck as the zero cost archetype is gonna be the defining feature of the decks with this console.
Criminal
From Criminals, who best to ask than Whiteblade111? A member of the Snare Bears, he has taken Crims to several top 16 finishes at continentals and the World Championship, and has won the 2019 US Nationals with the same faction.
Barry “Baz” Wong
Barry “Baz” Wong promises a new direction for the faction, one less predicated on raw value and instead exploiting the corporation rezzing Ice and pivoting to apply maximum pressure. Baz’s ability allows to convert an Ice rez into a free install, where you can manipulate your boardstate to get through Ice you might not have otherwise.
Any Ice rez can now be weaponized against the Corp, turning what they thought would be a game-ending facecheck into a costly mistake as your waltz into their server. Rezzing a Tatu-Bola for value? Now Baz can bounce harmlessly off that Ice and install his copy of Hermes. Rez a Stavka meant to wipe the board? A game saving Boomerang now enters play.
Open Market
But how do we pay for all these cards we install? Open Market is a key piece of the puzzle. Mathematically it’s a Sure Gamble’s worth of value paid out over six turns. Probably too slow normally, but Baz can use Ice rezzes to install cards clicklessly, paid for by his Open Market. Notably you can use your Open Market to discount the next one, keeping the money flowing. A variety of draw cards can also be discounted with this effect. Expect to see Dr. Nuka Vrolyck and The Class Act played in Baz, all paid for by the markets of Kota Kalimantan.
Transfer of Wealth
Transfer of Wealth promises to be a standard defining tempo tool, punishing bad rezzes while putting the corporation in no win situations. While other criminals will likely slot this (MuslihaT loves to draw this off the top of her deck!) It is strongest in Baz. Instead of pre installing your Boomerang and then playing this, why not wait and see if the Corporation wants to rez their HQ Ice first? Putting the Corporation in unwinnable forks is Baz’s specialty and this card enables him to turn up the pain.
Shaper
When we mention Shaper, xiaat is definitely a name that immediately comes to mind. He has played Shaper for the longest time and has piloted Lat to several top finishes, while his team the TAI Breakers, even created the dreaded World Tree Arissana deck — which eventually got the program banned.
“Knickknack” O’Brian
An Aesop’s Pawnshop replacement, “Knickknack” O’Brian as a value engine has a lower floor and a higher ceiling than the FFG card. Its average return of two credits and one draw is comparable to, if slightly worse than Aesop’s. Overall, I’m a big fan of NSG’s decision to keep the archetype around by really putting “runner” into “installrunner”, as a means of increasing the amount of interaction between Runner and Corp. The new resource also enables the new Shaper IDs in quite an elegant manner, so I’m sure we’ll see a lot of it in the coming months!
Scrounge
For xiaat, Scrounge seems like a card built for Shaper.
In a meta where recursion comes at a premium, and neutral economy gets a paint job and leaks into the color pie chart, I personally would be delighted to pay a modest price of one influence for an event recurring not one, but two programs! Just think of all the extra Knickknack targets, LilyPAD triggers and Environmental Testing counters this bad boy is going to shower us with. The possibilities are endless.
Ritual
No Diesel, no fire. As Runners are getting older, caffeine bomb energy drinks are replaced with healthier morning routines, but who’s to say that turned out to be much worse? This is certainly a downgrade of the old Core Set Shaper staple, but the drawback seems so miniscule that we might continue seeing Ritual imported across all factions.
Haas-Bioroid
For Haas-Bioroid (HB), we need to consult RotomAppliance, the 2021 Netrunner World Champion, who has been an HB faithful from the get-go. He piloted Precision Design in his worlds bid, and has brought it to top finishes in other prestigious tournaments as well.
Humanoid Resources
Humanoid Resources is the closest thing we have to a Rashida Jaheem replacement in Elevation. It nets you three credits and three cards, and then allows you to potentially get three clicks worth of value by installing twice and playing an operation. It subtly affects deckbuilding, by asking you to play enough operations in your deck to consistently have one available when you use Humanoid, but not so much that the whole deck has to be built around it.
Scatter Field
I think Scatter Field is a very well designed card. Those looking for a Gatekeeper replacement will be disappointed — it’s pretty average in Ice-based decks like PD or LEO, as your Ice stacking will quickly make it zero strength. Instead, it excels in asset based decks, with Poétrï Luxury Brands being the natural home. It can be used on a single Ice remote to put annoying assets behind such as Plutus and Otto Campaign, and is quite hard to break cheaply.
Jinteki
For Jinteki, we have DeeR, the 2024 World Championship Runner-Up, and a member of the Snare Bears and Queering the Message, the latter which pioneered the Loud Jinteki variant — revolutionizing how Jinteki decks should approach the game on a philosophical standpoint. If there’s anyone to ask how red cards can best inflict pain on Runners, it has to be them.
AU Co.
AU Co. (Egginfusion for short…well long) is proving to be the Corp to beat in my early testing of the meta. For Jinteki, there is so much power in Archives that the ability is effectively a draw three every turn or two, a significant improvement on the already-powerful Near-Earth Hub. When the deck is optimized, it will constantly be putting pressure on the Runner. Who knows what direction this will push the meta in?
Mitra Aman
Ignoring the ice swap, Mitra’s ability is already three credits and a bluff, effectively a slightly less dependable Advanced Assembly Lines. However, with the Ice swap, the use cases for Mitra are expansive. Without a full rig, a tempo-based deck can prepare to address the exact weakness in your game plan. But even with a full rig, this card can recur frustrating and powerful effects like Ablative Barrier and Anemone, while paying the Corp to do it. I’m especially curious to see how this card fares in Ob Superheavy Logistics, which often was very good at fetching exactly the right Ice when needed. Now Ob can do it twice!
NBN
In the final era of the pre-Elevation metagame, Azmari EdTech has solidified its reputation as a consistent combo deck that can kill the Runner — even when they knew what was coming. CobraBubbles, the 2024 Scottish Regional Champion, has been one of the most consistent pilots of the Dial EA For Murder deck, alongside their team, EA Sports. Let’s see what their sick and twisted mind thinks of the NBN cards.
Embedded Reporting
Getting multiple search effects out of a single card is rare in any game. When a card can do that, it usually comes with a huge cost or intensive restrictions. Not so here! Embedded Reporting is a 3/2 agenda — one of the best statlines a Netrunner card can have — and it gives you two tutors for just one extra click and credit. That level of search power on a non-identity card is basically unheard of.
Admittedly, this is a Vampiric Tutor-style effect: the searched cards go to the top of the deck, not straight to hand. But this ‘downside’ has extra implications in Netrunner. I’m excited to score this, then jam my next threat and fetch Oppo Research so the Runner knows they’re getting tagged if they interact.
IP Enforcement
A powerful search effect like Embedded Reporting needs compelling targets, and IP Enforcement is definitely a good one. Those who weren’t playing in the days of Exchange of Information will likely underrate this agenda-retrieval effect until they see it in play. At first blush, it seems like a clunkier and more costly form of multi-tag punishment than Shipment from Vladisibirsk, but it has some notable upsides over that card. Shipment allows you to close the game when the Runner goes tag-me, but only if you can draw agendas before the Runner finds them in R&D. With IP Enforcement, when the Runner steals agendas, they’re just drawing them for you!
Once again, we talk to maininthemoon on his opinion on one of the newest NBN assets.
Idiosyncresis
This is one of the first cards that really jumped out at me from the new set. A lot of Netrunner games come down to an economic battle. I think Idiosyncrsis is going to be a powerful card for economic battles. It looks like a trap, but is one of the few advanceable cards outside of agendas that you really don’t want the runner to find. It reminds me of the old Reversed Accounts, but with the potential of paying out quite a bit of money. I’m really excited to try playing around with it in Built to Last and Pravdivost Consulting.
Weyland Consortium
For Weyland, yours truly, Lunari, will take a crack at reviewing some cards. Netrunner-wise, I’ve placed Top 4 in a couple of Philippine Regional tournaments, and Nationals (a long time ago). Not as stacked as the other reviewers, but we have to start somewhere!
Plutus
Frankly speaking, Plutus is definitely one of the most pushed cards in Elevation. It breaks some fundamental rules of the game by giving free clicks and replaying transactions from Archives, which gives Corps that can utilize this immense pressure to take the game into their own hands and force the Runner to interact.
Measured Response
Currently, Runner decks don’t seem prepared to handle breaking Ice, trashing assets, all while being immune to the flatline threat from the Corp. While this feels like a toned-down Punitive Counterstrike, Measured Response will definitely be used to present significant forks to the Runner; will they steal your agenda, or will they let you score it? Either way, they will be presented with an even harder choice next turn.
3/2 Agendas
For the newest Dividends agendas, we turn to Jai, a representative of the Southeast Asian Netrunner scene and a member of the TAI Breakers, and has recently placed Top 8 at the recent World Championships.
Taken together, the four 3/2 agendas showcase NSG’s latest keyword: Dividends, a reward for overadvancing that FFG designs explored but never formalised. Compared to classics like Projects Atlas and Vitruvius (and shoutout to fan favourite Jumon), spending counters from these provide somewhat more value than their predecessors provided, at the cost of a more restrictive trigger timing.
The best use cases for these new Dividend agendas have yet to be discovered, but as we head into Megacity season I’m sure they’ll be figured out in due time. If you ask me, the best decks are those that can employ flexible scoring patterns, either overadvancing for benefit or fast advancing as a regular 3/2, as the situation demands.
No Change in Game State
Finally, with the release of Elevation, we finally have a much-awaited rules update, which removes the No Change in Game State clause, changing how some cards can be played. maninthemoon shares his thoughts on this update.
No Change in Game State getting removed is a huge update to the game with the release of Elevation. As an avid Ob Superheavy Logistics player, I’m really excited about the possibilities this opens up. This is primarily because of a card that has almost seen zero play.
Cybersand Harvester Is a two-rez four-trash asset with a paid ability window trash ability. The rest of the text on the card honestly doesn’t matter that much, but with the removal of No Change in Game State, you can fetch any one cost asset or upgrade from your deck. This could be Amaze Amusements, The Powers That Be, Humanoid Resources or even something like Tithe. The possibilities are really intriguing for this interaction.
If you want to get you or your friends into Netrunner in 2025, check out this quick-start guide on the game. And while you’re here, read our first impressions on two NBN cards for Elevation.
