Thoughts? Personally I think it is an awesome ability and goes to reinforce the commonly accepted theory that each identity would provide some sort of benefit or power that makes it distinct from the others.

I am wondering what that 45/15 means at the lower left corner. I am guessing maximum deck size/minimum agenda points.

I'd guess minimum deck size myself. No idea about the 15, but agenda point is as good a guess as anything.

Another guess is that a deck must include at least 45 Jinteki cards and at most 15 cards (or "points" worth of cards) from other megacorps.

The logic is that we don't know how mixing factions will go and that 45 sounds a bit small for a minimum deck size but is in the right ballpark.

Really hard to judge as I have no flippin' clue how this game is played, and not about to research it now and have to unlearn a bunch of stuff when the new version's rulebook goes up.

I like bonsais though, so that's cool I guess! And the flavor is cool: I hope that each megacorp has its own slogan in the flavor text.

45 cards I believe was the minimum size from the original game (or effectively the minimum size).

The 15 could be the out of faction cards or points worth of out of faction cards (based on the pips everyone was talking about).

I'm hoping that that's the way of it, as it would mean one needn't purchase two packs of sleeves to cover one deck, as is lamentably the case with A Game of Thrones , and too many non-FFG-published games to count.

Penfold said:

This makes the most sense to me, design wise. Minimum number of cards (consistent with the original game) and maximum number pips from other factions.

hatori1181 said:

But that isn't consistent. Only the runner had a deck minimum. The corp actually had a max deck size that was based on the number of agenda points.

mkultra said:

No, the Corp had a minimum of 45 as well as the maximum imposed by the agenda points.

I think the "pips" having something to do with the number on this card is likely. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what I am talking about, I mean to say the dots which can be seen on some of the cards released. These dots are seen on the side of the card.

I am not sure how deck size would (at all?) modify this number if I am correct in my initial assumption. Assuming using up your pool of pips is a good thing, it would lose its gusto the larger a deck became.

Assuming that the "pips" do not have to do with a mechanic to put the card into play, which can not be the case, as ice requires covert play…. that leaves me to believe that the "pips" have some cost to include in the deck itself.

AussieKSU said:

That's not a new thought. I initially disagreed(*), but looking at the newest cards, I see:

The logo is connected to the dots, except in the case Sure Gamble, where the number of dots is zero. This looks like a zero-dot neutral card.

Agendas don't seem to have them, nor does Crypsis (which looks like an older layout, given the lack of the set icon before the card number). I think it is likely that Crypsis was a neutral card with another layout than Sure Gamble (no grid for dots in Crypsis, versus no dots lit in Sure Gamble). That is, I'm predicting that both are neutrals, but Sure Gamble has an updated layout. (Remember that in a work in progress, the layout can change, as seen by the appearance of the set icon on cards.)

If the dots are connected to the faction symbol, except for neutrals, which have zero dots, it seems like this is a dot cost mechanism. If agendas don't have dots, perhaps agendas define a megacorp and can't be mixed into other factions' decks -- makes sense, thematically. (Crypsis was confusing the issue for me, but Sure Gamble has convinced me -- these are neutral cards and cost zero dots.)

(*) Logically, there's no reason why covert play would preclude a cost addition. You could just pay the extra when you would pay normally. Pay 12 for Hadrian's Wall instead of 9 -- (which is the problem, 12 is too high compared to the other numbers to be realistic, but it is *logically* possible). There's also the possibility that it's another resource of some sort. Not convincing, but logically possible.

karat said:

I retract my statement. I should not have said can not, rather that I find it unlikely that pips would either:

1) Change the resource cost on cards.

2) Include an additional resource - ie, a brand new resource exists during gameplay.

I have no factual evidence to backup these claims, other than I find it unlikely FFG would introduce another resource for players to keep track of. Assumption 1) seems the more believable of the two - allowing mixing of faction cards to be a bit more intuitive (increased resource cost on non-faction cards). This however would leave the numbers on the faction card in the OP left to be explained yet again .

We could speculate for ever about what these new numbers and signs mean and it can be fun, but we will have to see when FFG releases more info and hopefully the rules. All I know is that the original did have a small range of 'Agenda' points that the Corp player had to have in its deck for for each deck size. This assured a good supply of Agendas coming through and enough for both players. If I remember correctly it made the odds of finding one in the R&D (Deck) about 1 in 5. The same as having 1 Agenda in HQ (Hand) and the Runner successfully breaking through there. I am sure that a similar restriction will be in place. It seemed right and balenced, which is important in unsymetrical games. Cheers!

45 = minimum deck size

15 = starting bits ?

Ellyrik said:

I doubt that. 15 starting bits is way too powerful and trows off the whole sub-theme of wondering what your opponent has and wondering if they have a hidden source of bits to pay for nasty surprises.

AussieKSU said:

Blue moon (the cardgame not the bordgame) has a similar system. You can add up to 10 "moons" of other factions in your deck. Cards have between 1 to 5 "moons".

Yeah, I'm 99% sure this game is sticking with the standard 5 cards/5 credits setup

The article on corporation strategy confirms that the corp player begins play with 5 credits.