Card Analysis - Core Criminal

Last time, we examined the Anarch cards out of the core set, and found that there's a great deal of potential.  This time, we delve into the Criminal faction cards.

Gabriel Santiago: Consummate Professional

Out of the core box, Gabriel offers a fairly good idea into what the Criminal faction excels at: hitting HQ and making money.  The first time each turn you make a successful run on HQ, you gain 2 credits.  Note that you gain those credits as soon as the run is successful, so they are added to your credit pool before you access any cards, which can help in trashing an asset or upgrade, or paying a cost for certain agendas.  Because of this effect, you'll want to have synergy with cards that help you get into HQ or reward you for getting into HQ.  However, since you're playing Criminal, the corporation will know you are likely to try and take advantage of this situation, and will likely protect HQ and Archives first.  Still, your advantage is in being able to attack early and force the Corporation to spend money.  If you can win the economy game, then you should be able to control the flow of the game.

Trivia: Gabriel Santiago is one of the playable characters in the board game Android: Infiltration.  But unless you are playing the Specialists variant, there's nothing to mechanically distinguish him from the other characters.

Pair cards: Account Siphon, Inside Job, Desperado, Sneakdoor Beta, HQ Interface, Legwork

 Account Siphon

Continuing to exemplify the criminal idea.  This event makes you run on HQ, and if it is successful, you can force the corporation to lose up to 5 credits, then you gain 2 credits for each credit the corporation lost, giving a potential gain of 10 credits.  But if you exercise this option, you have to take 2 tags.  The big thing about this is that if the corporation is low on credits, making them lose all of them can open up other possibilities of attack, since they now can't afford to rez most ice.  Just be aware that the corporation does have an opportunity before the run is successful to spend their credits to rez assets and upgrades.  As such, you are free to choose not to use this ability.

Trivia: Not exactly a reprint of any Netrunner CCG card, but there is a close match in Edited Shipping Manifests, which has the same effect, only you force the corporation to lose 1 credit and gain 10 credit, then take one tag.

Pair cards: Desperado, Networking, Same Old Thing, Lawyer Up, Maya

Easy Mark

This card used to be very staple economy for Criminals, or anyone who wants to spend the influence to add it.  While the credit gain isn't nearly as great as other economy options, the main thing about this one is that it costs nothing to play, so if you've burned through all your credits installing cards or you had to spend it all on a run, this one will bring you back up to 3.

Trivia: We've got another reprint from Netrunner CCG here.  In this case, the old card was called Livewire's Contacts.

Pair cards: Anything really.  This one kind of stands on its own.

Forged Activation Orders

An amazing operation that forces the corporation to make a tough decision: do they rez a piece of ice, which may cost them credits that they need, or do they trash it, making it potentially easier for you to assault that server?  Usually, either option will benefit you, unless you blindly pick a cheap piece of ice.  As such, you should probably consider cards with expose effects so you can find something that you want out of the way.

Trivia: A direct reprint from Netrunner CCG this time, right down to the name and cost.  Here's a link to the classic Forged Activation Orders.

Pair cards: Infiltration, Lemuria Codecracker, Satellite Uplink, Emergency Shutdown

Inside Job

Is the corporation trying to defend their agenda with just one piece of ice?  Punish them for that idea with this card.  Bypassing a piece means that you don't have to interact with it, which is good for getting around large ice that would otherwise be expensive to deal with.  This can save you a great deal of money on a run.

Trivia: Another direct reprint from Netrunner CCG.  Here's the classic Inside Job.

Pair cards: Same Old Thing, Public Terminal, Planned Assault


Special Order

Another tutor card.  This one lets you take any icebreaker of your choice out of your deck and put it into your hand.  This can be very helpful if the corporation is defending their servers with one type of ice, or you just need that one last icebreaker to complete your rig.

Trivia: We have a fairly close card here to a classic Netrunner CCG card.  Temple Microcode Outlet lets you search your deck for any program, though.  Perhaps the developers thought that was a little too powerful an effect for that cost.

Pair cards: Icebreakers, Prepaid VoicePAD

Lemuria Codecracker

This card is frequently overlooked, mostly because of the requirement built into its effect.  If you have made a successful run on HQ on the same turn, you can spend a click and a credit to expose any one card.  I suppose the big problem with this is the time cost, since Infiltration accomplishes the same effect for free without needing a successful run on HQ first.  Still, the advantage this has over Infiltration is that it's highly reusable.

Trivia: Not quite a reprint, but the classic Netrunner CCG card SeeYa has the same effect, only without requiring a successful run on HQ.  And it's a program instead of hardware.

Pair cards: Sneakdoor Beta, Feint, Blackguard

Desperado

I'm fairly certain this is supposed to be Gabriel's console, given the name.  But anyway, this is the console to which all other Criminal consoles are compared.  It gives you 1 extra memory, but the main effect is gaining 1 credit whenever you make a successful run.  Pairing this up with other effects that trigger on successful runs can net you a great economic advantage.  But this economic advantage is what ultimately led to this card being placed onto the NAPD Most Wanted List.

Pair cards: Datasucker, Dirty Laundry, John Masanori

Aurora

We come to the first of the Criminal icebreakers.  The big problem with Aurora over Corroder is in the cost to break subroutines: 2 credits instead of 1.  The only real advantage this has over Corroder is the slight efficiency of gaining 3 strength for 2 credits, but that can be a downside, since Corroder can start breaking strength 2 barriers without having to pumps, whereas this has to spend 2 credits before it can interact with those strength 2 barriers.  I suppose the only real reason to take this is if you will be making large enough piles of cash to utilize it and you don't have the influence for Corroder.

Pair cards: E3 Feedback Implants

Femme Fatale

This lady is highly useful.  While she can be used to break sentries, anything that requires pumping her strength extensively will become very expensive fast.  Her true potential lies in her ability to select a piece of ice when she is installed.  Whenever you encounter that piece of ice, you can bypass it by paying 1 credit for each subroutine on that piece of ice.  The can let you get past an expensive piece of ice cheaply.  Of course, the corporation may choose to trash that piece of ice, so the ability can be lost.

Trivia: We don't have an exact reprint here, but the Netrunner CCG card Black Widow comes fairly close.  The statistics on this card are the same as Femme Fatale, but instead of being able to bypass a piece of ice, Black Window gains 5 strength during encounters with the selected piece of ice.  Of course, if the piece of ice isn't a sentry, that doesn't help you much.

Pair cards: Test Run, Scavenge

Ninja

Between Femme Fatale and Ninja, it becomes apparent that the Criminal faction is designed to deal with sentries.  Ninja is very efficient, gaining 5 strength for only 3 credits.  Plus, it breaks subroutines for only 1 credit.  The downside to this is that many sentries will end up costing you 4 or 5 credits due to this.

Pair cards: Datasucker, Ice Carver, The Personal Touch, Dinosaurus

Sneakdoor Beta

This can really catch your opponents off guard.  Installing this program forces your opponent to defend Archives, since now you can turn successful runs on Archives into successful runs on HQ.  The only downside is that this program takes up 2 memory, so you'll want your console or some memory chips installed.

Trivia: It turns out this is a reprint.  From the Netrunner CCG, we have Shredder Uplink Protocol, which has the same install cost, memory requirement, and effect.

Pair with: HQ Interface, Emergency Shutdown

Bank Job

If the corporations you are playing against are leaving their assets unprotected, you can make a lot of money off of them.  At the cost of 1 credit, you could gain 8 credits on a successful run against a remote server.  Of course, nothing is forcing you to take all of those credits off of this card.

Pair cards: Aesop's Pawnshop

Crash Space

This is actually fairly useful.  If you know you are going to be taking tags, the having 2 recurring credits to pay for removing them is highly useful.  Plus, this can be trashed to prevent 3 meat damage, which means that if the corporation is trying to kill you that way, the may be force to deal with this card first.

Trivia: In the Netrunner CCG, Crash Space is also a resource, but it has a much different effect.  It gives you a credit at the start of each turn, but all trace attempts by the corporation automatically succeed and give you a tag in addition to other effects.  Plus, if the classic Crash Space leaves play, you lose 2 credits.

Pair cards: Account Siphon, Vamp, Code Siphon

Data Dealer

At first glance, the idea of giving up an agenda seems like a bad idea.  Still, this is one of the largest burst economy effects in the game, and the most efficient per click.  Plus, it lets you get rid of the negative effects of Shi.Kyū and News Team while making a massive profit.

Trivia: We have an almost reprint here.  The classic Netrunner CCG card Databroker is almost identical to this one, except that you forfeit an agenda point to gain 10 credits.  I guess it was just too much hassle to force players to track agenda points separately from agendas scored or stolen.

Pair cards: Notoriety, Fan Site

Decoy

 This is pretty explanatory.  For 1 credit, you get a card that allows you to avoid 1 tag once.  You may be wondering, "Why not just remove the tag afterwards?"  Well, there are cards that trigger off of you receiving a tag (Rachel Beckman), or having a tag at a specific time (Dedicated Response Team), which can cause problems.  As such, avoiding the tag altogether may be a better option in those cases.

Pair cards: Calling in Favors, Armand "Geist" Walker: Tech Lord

Well, that does it for the Criminal Core Set cards.  Next time, we'll look over the Shaper Core Set cards.