I don't think there's much to say actually. I think this card wants be run as a 1 or 2-of in a decent number of non-bad publicity focused decks, and that means it's a pretty good card. Lots of money y'all. If you want more opinions on bad publicity, please read Veronica's piece on this card and Editorial Division.

Before I talk about Let Them Dream, I need to talk about 5/3s. The job of the 5/3 agenda is to win you the game in 3 agendas, and decks that run 5/3s usually want to score out with any combination of two 2-pointers and one 3-pointer. But the 5/3 has one major vice: they kinda suck. They're so much harder to score out than 4/2s (or 3/2s!), and their payoff usually isn't even worth the work! This is especially true because corps vastly prefer to score out 5/3s as the game-winning agenda, so any "on score" text is irrelevant. If the corp got to choose, they would dedicate the entire power budget of a 5/3 towards hurting the Runner, and none of it on helping the corp. This is incredibly obvious when you see what 5/3s corps run, and why they run them. For example, Send a Message and Next Big Thing give the corp tempo for having an agenda scored or stolen, while SDS Drone Deployment and Méliès City Luxury Line hurt the runner's tempo in the worst case and can deny a steal in the best case, but the best thing a 5/3 could do is to guarantee the runner needs to steal more agendas than you need to score. This is what Global Food Initiative did. It did so well at this job that it was used in 99% of competitive decks when it was put on the restricted list 2 years after its release.

Let Them Dream may have the same incredibly powerful effect as Global Food Initiative but, as a 4/2 that costs one neutral influence, it’s having to compete for deck slots with 3/2s that are easier to score and strong 4/2s that have a bigger impact on the board. Does this mean it’s bad actually? Hell no! Being worth only 1 point on steal is still too powerful. I can see it being used in maybe some slower glacier decks, and definitely in some decks that only run 1 and 2 point agendas (Thule), but I don’t see Let Them Dream being anywhere near as dominant as its predecessor.

Scoring PD is still back baybee! Ikawah Project has been a staple card in scoring PD for about as long as I can find decks of it. (Here's examples from 2021, 2023, and 2024. I have no idea what was going on in 2022.) The only card that's as much of a staple in these decks as Ikawah Project is Global Food Initiative (which might be relevant to my next card review). This might be bringing back enough old tools for scoring PD to make it a top deck in the Vantage Point meta. I know that I'm certainly gonna be playing it.

While this can be an interesting breaker that requires support to function, I’m moreso eyeing it as a way to enable ice destruction. Barriers are the most high value targets for Arruaceiras Crew, and Corsair can destroy a Pharos using 3 stealth credits and the tag + 2 credits ability on Crew. Logjam can be even cheaper. All of this depends on the set printing enough stealth support to make that package worth it, since I don’t think just Trickster Taka will be good enough to make you run this breaker. I’m not worrying about this. Stealth as a keyword is a tightly coupled bundle of setups and payoffs. Like similar synergy packages, you choose a suboptimal way of building your deck and building your rig for the payoff of getting to use good stealth cards. Obviously, Corsair is total garbage if Vantage Point stealth decks will only get to use the Ashes stealth cards, and I think the review would be uninteresting if I said, “I don’t see any stealth support from the first card spoiled for the set. 0 stars.”

On the other hand… Imagine the future where Corsair gets no support and Shaper tries to treat it like a classic Shaper HyperMantle-esque 1 breaker suite with importing Taka and using Chromatophores and Pelangi to try to make everything a Barrier. It’d be so funny.

With all the FFG cards going out, there was one in particular that I desperately wanted to see get a great reprint. We're saying goodbye to the goat, the OG, a piece of cardboard that my heart can't live without. Aesop’s Pawnshop is, in this girl's eyes, just the best. A real and true mf. Everything from mechanics and viability, to character, vibes and soul—this 1 credit Shaper staple is cut above everything. My absolute favorite card in the entire game.

On paper it lets you trash any card at the start of your turn to receive 3 credits. What it did actually, is it let you put in all kind of jank, off-color and niche trash, junk and (one could say) knick-knacks inside your deck at a promise that if you don't need it—you can always trade it away. And just that fact opened so many doors.

If something cost less than 3 and had a weak effect—it was worth looking at. Anything that doesn't self-heap at the end of its life becomes interesting just because of this simple interaction. It allowed for tech cards to be included in your list without feeling like you've made a bad decision. It even presented and enabled an alternate way to look at econ in green, turning you into a community-centric, mutual-aid runner roleplayer, if you were willing to hallucinate a little.

Plus dawg, that art. Just look how slick he is. The face of a guy who does not play games. No prejudice behind these eyes, no judgement, no questions. Won't ever let you down. He's gonna be there every morning, waiting for ya. He isn't interested in the actual value of what you bring, he's just happy to see you and chat, and the rest? We'll figure it out. The guy wants stuff, and for the stuff (your stuff), he has the coin. A piece of bloatware, your old toaster, ownership of your dying livestream account, even your own second-to-best friend - doesn't matter. Three credits. Take it or leave it and come back tomorrow. Glad to be doing business.

So obviously the replacement has big shoes to fill and in my eyes—it just doesn't. It barely even tries, actually. “Knickknack” O’Brian (if that really is his real nickname) lets you at the beginning of your first run to sell any card for the amount of money equal to its cost. And draw a card, I guess. Essentially, you get a refund. An effect both much less powerful (which was the point) and interesting (which I can't imagine was) compared to what the previous Junk Guy offered. No more is there a guarantee that my failed tricks will at least have some value. And while yes, there are some cards that you can install for a discount, they are nowhere near as numerous as straight up cheap ones. Its main use is to get your money back after you used up your expendable cards, which is not a lot. And Imp is dead. The Casts aren't daily, either! It's all gone! Naturally this makes it much more difficult to earn money through him, but even if it did, it forces me to run. I don't want to run, I want to build a weird engine first. It's not a free, clickless offering anymore and ends up feeling just like many other cards in the offering. I could (and many did) build a whole deck around Aesop's and even if I agree that it was too powerful - this effect is not a suitable replacement. It's just a completely different beast, rather than a simple nerf. Even the flavor doesn't tickle me, we're not even in a Location! And what a missed opportunity to call back to the peak ONR piece, first in a honorable line of pawnshops... I'm really having all the issues with this guy... I don't even want to look at his noodles, to be honest.

And the worst of all, he's lying to you! As the narrator protests in the YuGiOhian flavor text, “Bring him what he values the most: your story.”

His ass does not care about your story! The pricetag attached is the first thing he peeks at. Is your Gamedragon Pro worth 2 credits? Well I have a deal for you: 2 credits. And draw a card! Your Devadatta Drones when you're done playing? You paid 1 for it and you best believe you'll get 1 back and... draw a card!!

And true, yes, he'll pay any Timmy a nice round 10 clams (and a card!!!) for an Orca and it will feel great, but does his presence actually help me to get to that Orca? Probably not.

He is a trickster. A scamlord. Less of a gunk collector and more of a return-policy rep. He's here to make rich richer and I don't care for it! He's gonna trade you things of equal value, tease you with his soup and slip his business card in your pocket goodbye. “Get back to me when you make it big kid, heh heh.” No! I won't! I don't want to chill with him.

He's probably not even a mf either...

2/5 I wish Aesop's reopened.

I love this ID. I love installing cards and I love the incentive to overdraw. A very Shaper ID through and through.

We got it y'all. The platonic shaper ID: "Oops! All Kickflips!" And just like all Shaper kickflip engines, it’ll probably be meh to bad and everyone will continue playing Lat I guess.

MuslihaT is most comparable to Prognostic Q-Loop, since the value is seeing the top card of your stack every turn, and occasionally getting some value from it. I think that’s actually quite good! Occasional free draw is great, and I have high hopes that MuslihaT will be looked upon as the “balanced” version of Hoshiko (They’re both start of turn card draw).

Bad but a niche kind of bad that means it might seen as a one-of sometimes. What did Imp do to deserve this?

Overall I think this is a fine and functional killer for Anarchs. While it's not a whole lot to write home about, being able to use GameDragon to get a base 3 strength killer will get you through a bunch of things like Drafter. Unfortunately, it also can guarantee that you eat a brutal sentry with a nicely timed Mavirus, which makes it hard to recommend on its own. Flyswatter and Mavirus being in the Standard format make it hard to recommend over its more reliable fire snake. Cookbook and Hantu would be a nice combo, but I think you'd almost always just rather prefer Audrey V2 as your breaker at that point.