#hyoubu

Why I Love Hyoubu Institute

So, last night the Métropole Grid streamed up some live play with new NISEI cards, playing the new Jinteki ID, Hyoubu Institute. I’m digging this ID a lot and for reasons I want to explore a little bit. Oddly enough, before this was spoiled, I was already considering making a similar “Here’s why I love this ID” post about... Azmari EdTech. Bear with me, as they seem quite similar in one specific way.

We’ve had other reveal-oriented IDs in the past (Chronos Protocol, Harishchandra Ent.), and they’ve never taken off. Why not? I suspect these effects have just never been powerful enough — while Chronos Protocol was fun to try a rigshooter deck in, Skorpios made the rigshooting actually stick, and that immediately eclipsed anything anyone would try in CP. Harischandra’s extra 2 influence couldn’t ever get past the simple fact that knowing what the cards are in the Runner’s grip was never going to be as useful as, well, basically every other form of tag punishment in the game.

So, why do I like Hyoubu? It’s revealing information about the Runner’s grip and, occasionally, their stack. One thing is very, very simple that makes this seem immediately playable — it gives you a credit when you do your first reveal. That’s tiny, but it seems obviously consequential. This new ID rewards gaining information — the gaining of information isn’t the goal of the ID, it’s a vehicle that can fuel other strategies.

Similarly, Azmari is great not just because it’s a 40/15 or because it gives you money, it’s great because it rewards predicting information. Playing an established Runner deck against an experienced Azmari player can be rough, if they’re able to predict what you will want to play on your next turn. And I love that this is a style of play that is currently rewarded in Netrunner; it’s a “game of information,” after all.

Both Hyoubu and Azmari are incentivizing IDs. They help you build interesting decks that incentivize you to study the board state, gain information, and leverage information in interesting ways. Using the most simple form of incentive the game has: Credits. I dig it.

Other small notes:

Slot Machine seems pretty good in this ID, doesn’t it?

While I love the idea, I’m not sold on Complete Image yet, as it seems like a pretty damn swingy card; it’s hard to pull off (you’ll need, typically, to nail a 20% chance on your first attempt for the kill). And when it goes off, I suspect some players will be pretty salty about being killed by it — aren’t there enough players in the game who dismiss anyone else’s skill by saying it was just luck?

Andrej made a comment in his reveal video about trying to do a horizontal Hyoubu, and I think that’s interesting — with Executive Boot Camp, Tech Startup, etc., it seems to be possible to lean into an asset-heavy deck. But also, with, like, Drudge Work also having “reveal” on it, and Localized Product Line having “reveal” on it, I’m immediately excited to try decks that try new kinds of decks that spam assets, hide agendas, and snag kill cards, making money all the while doing it.

Also, this art looks phenomenal, mainly because of the new ID template and that they got a professional, established artist (Emilio Rodriguez) to do it. Now, I’m partial to his art already — I have part of his Industrial Genomics art tattooed on my arm — but it’s hard to beat an artist who has been involved with making beautiful art for the game versus some of the other options we’ve seen so far. NISEI obviously can only afford to hire a Rodriguez or a Matt Zeilinger for a very limited number of cards, but it’s nice that they’re able to do so.

a randomly selected misaka clone

kihara dog because DOG!!!!

saten

brown uiharu 

brown uiharu’s friend with the headband

THE TIME HAS COME

( °口°)  

my kokoro can't take it