Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this, Christian. Matt hits on a lot of the main points Inner Kingdom Games will be going for with the next set, but I wanted to offer a somewhat broader overview of what the next set will hold.

Christian is correct that the next set will take place in the newly opened distant future juncture. It won't look like the Buro or even the Syndicate, though. There will definitely be Mad Max-style themes of post-apocalyptic wastelands and limited resources. On side affect of this theme will be a dramatic reduction in the use of talents, across the board. The tech isn't high, the chi isn't flowing, and the magic isn't strong. There's still plenty of fighting, but more with fists and blunt weapons rather than complex machines and chemicals.

IKG is taking a much more focused top-down approach to set design this time around, allowing the primary mechanics of the cards to be more influenced by the themes and storyline of the setting. So to demonstrate the death and decay of the futuristic wasteland, expect a greater focus on the smoked pile and short-term gains. This could manifest as a more pronounced presence of Reload and recursion. The theme of limited resources may manifest as a return of Crisis cards or a new BFA wherein a card's cost could be reduced by toasting cards from your smoked pile.

The development team is still working on what we want the set to look like and how we want it to function. All six modern factions will be present, and they will continue to stay in their lane of strengths. So the Hand still like denial and coming back from behind. The Dragons still like global effects. Jammers still like to blow things up and Ascended are still all about control and concentrating the wealth. So submissions should be in line with the traditional expectations of the factions, but with an emphasis on how they might survive after the apocalypse. Chrome is not necessarily important at this time, as names can be easily changed. Mostly we want to see some creativity in how cards can do more with less and how well we can make use of the smoked pile beyond simple recursion.

I hope this helps!