Andromeda, The Professor, Valencia Estevez

Those three will use this card, as any other Runner already has an ongoing effect.

This is the most dangerous card they've released in a while.

It's a game-changer. It cannot have been thoroughly tested. The good side of that is we'll see some really interesting things. The bad side is that we're about to see a whole lot of perfectly good Andromeda/Valencia builds get a lot better with very little effort. Criminal is right back in contention with Andromeda/Logos.

You'll see MaxX using it too: go fast, then throttle down. Reina is not a bad choice either: once the ICE is rezzed, Whizzard is a useful switch.

We should see some off-axis things too: Express leading an Iain deck to get 17 influence, but that probably won't do compared to Andromeda > anything.

But, you don't have to decide ahead of the game you're in. Change identities according to the game state.

I don't like this card; not for its effect, but rather for its flavour. Now before you all start gossiping around "oh god, not this dude again" hear me out on this one:

Rebirth fits perfectly into this indian themed Cycle, but to actually see a Runner being reborn seems odd to me.

I would be totally cool with this, if it was just some kind of masquerade (You thought it was [...], but it was me, Dio! ), but an actual Rebirth in a Cyberpunk-setting... i don't know.

Maybe that's the reason why I'm still hesitating with playing Shadowrun (mixing Cyberpunk with Fantasy is another No-go for me)

I don't like this card; not for its effect, but rather for its flavour. Now before you all start gossiping around "oh god, not this dude again" hear me out on this one:

Rebirth fits perfectly into this indian themed Cycle, but to actually see a Runner being reborn seems odd to me.

I would be totally cool with this, if it was just some kind of masquerade (You thought it was [...], but it was me, Dio! ), but an actual Rebirth in a Cyberpunk-setting... i don't know.

Maybe that's the reason why I'm still hesitating with playing Shadowrun (mixing Cyberpunk with Fantasy is another No-go for me)

I, too, would have preferred "Imposter" or some such thing. "Rebirth" is a bit over the top.

Obviously an old professor can be reborn into a teenage girl over the course of three hours (that's about what I'd say a click is).

shakes head

Yeah imposter would have been much better themewise.

I think it's not meant to be a literal rebirth in some sort of supernatural sense. But, like... uploading your brain interconnectivity and your memories into a cloud and downloading them into an empty brain of a brand new clone body.

My take is a bit different - in a world where genetic remodelling is something of a standard, it might simply be a total genetic resequencing, leading to personality and cognitive changes. Turning a yound woman into a retired crook might be just a side effect of the process...

Also it might be a figure of speech the Corp expected to be dealing with someone and then a whole new person steps in, marking all the traces of the old one. Literal interpretation leads to some disturbing conclusions indeed.

I think it's not meant to be a literal rebirth in some sort of supernatural sense. But, like... uploading your brain interconnectivity and your memories into a cloud and downloading them into an empty brain of a brand new clone body.

I've really been losing interest in Netrunner as the questionable design decisions pile up under the current leadership. Which is sad because historically speaking, out of the very many games I've played over the years Netrunner is my favorite non-RPG game. 

The gonzo nature of this card's effect and its nonsensical flavor are par for the course lately.

It could have been made to be cool with just a little more design effort and better flavor. Runners operate at least partially in a virtual environment; obviously that could have been leveraged to make this card "make sense" thematically. The 'rebirth' shtick is just half-baked. Seems to me someone had an idea for a potentially interesting mechanic and just shoehorned it into the game without thinking it all the way thru.

Putting flavor / makes sense aside, mechanically this card subverts the design of several runners and is thus sort of innately unbalancing. As others have noted the runners with effects that impact deck design and start of game parameters are immediately relevant. 

But the really interesting bit about this is that you don't have to pick the runner you will switch to until you play the card. From a deck design standpoint, not all decks will work with all runners so having a specific plan in mind upfront will obviously be more reliable, but the option to opportunistically switch to a runner with a general purpose ability to exploit the board position is a wild card.

The combo i'm thinking could work, and that I've not seen mentioned, is Valencia to start and then switch to either Wizzard or  Edward Kim. Asset heavy deck? Wizzard all the way. Operation economy? Kim for the Win.  As Killershrike says, you dont need to choose which runner you will become.

I've really been losing interest in Netrunner as the questionable design decisions pile up under the current leadership. Which is sad because historically speaking, out of the very many games I've played over the years Netrunner is my favorite non-RPG game. 
 
The gonzo nature of this card's effect and its nonsensical flavor are par for the course lately.
 
It could have been made to be cool with just a little more design effort and better flavor. Runners operate at least partially in a virtual environment; obviously that could have been leveraged to make this card "make sense" thematically. The 'rebirth' shtick is just half-baked. Seems to me someone had an idea for a potentially interesting mechanic and just shoehorned it into the game without thinking it all the way thru.
 
Putting flavor / makes sense aside, mechanically this card subverts the design of several runners and is thus sort of innately unbalancing. As others have noted the runners with effects that impact deck design and start of game parameters are immediately relevant. 
 
But the really interesting bit about this is that you don't have to pick the runner you will switch to until you play the card. From a deck design standpoint, not all decks will work with all runners so having a specific plan in mind upfront will obviously be more reliable, but the option to opportunistically switch to a runner with a general purpose ability to exploit the board position is a wild card.

I think it's dying competitively due to the meta as well. They need to reboot the game or make some major changes. Astro needs to be removed from the game, or changed to a 3/1 or 4/2 or something. Global food needs to be removed from the game, it makes all other 5/3s pretty much unplayable. I've been playing with a small group lately, no astros, no GFI, no faust. It's been the best netrunner I've played in over a year. Everyone else I play runs the same 4 decks just to win, even though they don't have fun playing them. This is why the game is dying. The decks that you need to play to win aren't fun to play with or play against. IG, are you kidding me? Last tournament I played 3 and after the first took 48 minutes I told the next two guys I played that I forfeit. I'd rather shop around the store for a fun game than play another IG.

It's not astro thats the problem. Astro being on MWL is the problem. It should come off, as should Sansan. It is NEH that is the problem. Having sansan and astro on means that other NBN strats like tagstorm are impossible to use. If you nuked NEH, NBN would be a lot more diverse.

And IG is just horrible.

Agree about NEH completely. GFI is a big problem too, though. I don't think I've played a tournament or game night kit where I've seen a 5/3 besides GFI (or future perfect in the case of awesome IG decks) in over 6 months. It's a great card and you have to play it if you want to win but it isn't fun. I wanted to run Voting Machine in my HB deck and I do against my small group, and it's fun because I get to use the effect and enjoy the card. Then I go to a tournament and either lose or have to switch to GFI to have a better shot at winning, but less fun. The game has become trading fun for winning. All fast advance, or a huge server with batties and caprice. Even when you're the corp those cards aren't fun.

GFI being good is not the problem. The problem is that GFI (and Future Perfect to some extent) is the only 3-pointer that's playable and not a burden most of the time. All the other 3-pointers are garbage.

That said, this discussion does not belong on Rebirth's card page. Maybe a mod should move all of this to a new, dedicated forum thread?

GFI being good is not the problem. The problem is that GFI (and Future Perfect to some extent) is the only 3-pointer that's playable and not a burden most of the time. All the other 3-pointers are garbage.

 

That said, this discussion does not belong on Rebirth's card page. Maybe a mod should move all of this to a new, dedicated forum thread?

I used to think GFI was a problem, but not anymore.