Cores define lines, not covers. A Road line ball won't ever be anywhere else but the Thunder line. The Hyroad Nano had a cover that until then had only been in the Premier and Master lines, but was a Thunder line ball because of the core and the line.
No information has been sent out yet on any new releases, and staffers are usually some of the last to know anyway. I usually find out what's coming out from leaks here several days or several weeks before I get any official information from the company, which is usually preceded by the ball being advertised online or the information being generally available to the public.
We're due for another Thunder line ball, but we need something with surface or at least a stronger cover to bridge the gap between the Thunder line and Master line, because there's a BIG jump from the weakest ball in the Master line to the strongest ball in the Thunder line, so if this one IS stateside, it'd need to be R3S or another Nano cover or something, highly doubt they'd drop SPEC down to the Thunder line yet and I'm not so sure it'd look good on that core anyway. We're due for a hybrid there and the photo definitely looks like a hybrid . . but there would have to be some twist.
IQ Black feels like it's a LITTLE quick on the heels of the Emerald to be stateside, BUT the Emerald was kind of color designated in the name and if the IQ Black was a re-release of the Fusion . . that's logical and makes a ton of sense given what's in the line right now. There's a massive massive gap between the Super Son!Q and the Hyroad . . so a new shiny IQ Hybrid in the Master line would be the perfect fit.
Once again, all speculation until we get any official details, but I don't know. Both of these make sense to be stateside, but if they're overseas, could easily buy that too. Of the two though, if the IQ Black is basically the Fusion, that's what I'm most interested in. I've been after Chad to make an R3S IQ for a while now because I'd really like to see that, but I think R2S fits that core the best. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.
my guess: the Hy-Road core and the SPEC cover
Won't be in the Thunder line then I assume.