Card Analysis: Double Time

The insert for Double Time, the final pack in the Spin Cycle, brings a close to the story.  It is framed as a display of a chat program, with several people (presumably runners) discussing the capture of Reina Roja.  Although -wingman- is almost certainly John Masanori and dinomyte could be Chaos Theory, there are not quite enough clues to figure out who dontmakeme and prowler_32 are.  They touch on the possibility that Reina allowed herself to be captured as part of a ploy to take out the kidnappers, but nothing is very certain.  For now, we shall move on from the story to the cards in this set.

Singularity

So perhaps the corporation has set up cards in a server, and you are not quite certain whether it is a trap or an agenda.  Well, with this card, you can make a run on a remote server, and if it is successful, you can trash all the cards installed in the server at no cost.  Of course, this does cost you 4 credits and 2 clicks, and you will likely have to spend credits to get into the server if there is ice in the way.  However, if the corporation is using multiple upgrades in one server, this could be a cheaper way to get rid of them all at once without the risk of hitting any traps.

Pair cards: Ken "Express" Tenma: Disappeared Clone, Planned Assault, Public Terminal

Queen's Gambit

With this card, you can spend 2 clicks to gain up to 6 credits, equivalent to playing 2 copies of Easy Mark.  However, in order to do so, you have to place up to 3 advancement counters on an unrezzed card in a remote server.  Ideally, you would want to place those advancement tokens on a card that is not an agenda, because the rest of the card says you are not allowed to access that card this turn.  Of course, using expose effects might tip your hand to the corporation that you are setting up for this.  Or they may just think you are trying to figure out where their agendas are, so they may not spend resource rezzing their cards to deny you some cash.  Either way, playing the Queen's Gambit could benefit you.

Trivia: The Queen's Gambit is one of the earliest known chess openings.  It covers three moves from the start of the game: White advances the queen's pawn 2 spaces, Black advances the queen's pawn 2 spaces, and White advances the queen's bishop's pawn 2 spaces.  From here, the game can progress into either Queen's Gambit Accepted, where Black takes the queen's bishop's pawn, or Queen's Gambit Declined, where Black does not take the pawn.

Pair cards: Infiltration, Starlight Crusade Funding, Power Nap

Dyson Fractal Generator

We now have the Anarch equivalent of Lockpick.  This card costs 1 to install and provides 1 recurring credit that can be spent on using fracters.  It is also a stealth source, so it works with icebreakers that specifically require credits from stealth sources.  The drawback is that the influence cost, as 3 copies of this will take up 9 influence outside of Anarch, typically leaving only 6 influence remaining.  But, if you need the stealth credits or think you will be spending a lot on fracters, it may not be a bad idea to take this card.

Pair cards: Replicator, BlacKat, Blackstone

Silencer

And now, the Criminal equivalent of Lockpick.  For 1 credit, you gain 1 recurring credit that can be spent on using killers.  This feels a bit more useful, as breaking sentries can cost a lot of credits.  But it is much more important with the killers that specifically require stealth credits.  As such, if you intend to use them, you may want to put 2 or 3 copies of this into your deck.

Trivia: Sort of a reprint.  From the Netrunner CCG, we have Corolla Speed Chip, which has the exact same cost and function as Silencer, but is not a stealth source.

Pair cards: Replicator, Dagger, Switchblade, Fawkes

Savoir-faire

Sort of the Criminal equivalent of Self-modifying Code.  When installed, by spending 2 credits, you can install a program from your hand, paying its install cost.  Primarily, you would use this ability during a run when you would otherwise be unable to install programs, or potentially during the corporation's turn.  So why use this over Self-Modifying Code?  Well, if you are already playing Criminal, it is in faction, so you can spend your influence on other cards.  Also, this program only takes up 1 memory, as opposed to the 2 required for Self-Modifying Code.  Finally, this installs from your hand as opposed to from the deck, so if your programs are in hand, then Self-Modifying Code does not help as much.  Of course, you can only use Savoir-Faire once each turn, which could be another benefit above Self-Modifying Code, as you can use it more than once.

Trivia: Savoir-faire is a French noun phrase that means being adaptable and adroit.  Also, Savoir-faire Linux is a French Canadian company specializing in open source software and digital electronics.

Pair cards: Special Order, Sahasrara, Golden, Peregrine, Saker

Fall Guy

This card primarily exists to protect your other resources.  While it is in play, you can trash it to prevent another installed resource from being trashed.  Of course, just one copy may not be enough to prevent the corporation from spending 2 more credits and another click to trash your resource again, so having multiple copies installed is a great idea.  Plus, if you ever need a quick boost of cash, you can trash one to gain 2 credits.  All around, a very solid card.

Trivia: I have mentioned before that the Netrunner CCG does have a card named Fall Guy, but it is an early version of Decoy.  This card comes closer to a combination of two hidden resources from the Proteus expansion: Swiss Bank Account which can be trashed to gain 2 credits for paying a cost or penalty, and Time to Collect, which can prevent one or more other resources from being trashed.

Pair cards: Hostage, Calling in Favors, Off-Campus Apartment, Armand "Geist" Walker: Tech Lord, Tech Trader

Power Nap

If you are already playing a lot of double events, here is one you should consider adding.  You gain 2 credits when you play this, which is not great, considering it is the equivalent of spending a click for a credit twice.  However, you gain an additional credit for each double even in your discard pile, which can start adding up if you have played several double events already.  Note that because events are not added to your discard pile until they resolve, you can not count the copy of Power Nap currently being played as one in your heap, so make sure there are some double events already there before you use this.

Pair cards: double events, Starlight Crusade Funding, Comet

Paintbrush

An interesting program.  With this installed, you can give a rezzed piece of ice the sentry, code gate, or barrier keyword until the end of the next run or the turn, whichever comes first.  That way, you could break a piece of ice with the breaker you already have installed instead of having to dig through your deck for the one that matches its type.  Or you could use a slightly more efficient icebreaker, making it cheaper to break a specific piece of ice.  The drawback is that, unlike Tinkering, the ice must already be rezzed, so you may have to face check some ice, which could be very dangerous.  Also, this program takes up 2 memory, so you may need some memory chips or a console to get the rest of your rig out.

Pair cards: Forged Activation Orders, Blackguard

Lucky Find

Sort of a bigger version of Sure Gamble.  With this card, you only need to spend 3 credits to go up to 9 credits, netting you a gain of 6 credits.  Of course, it does take an extra click to play, so you will have less time for other actions.  Also, this is a neutral card with an influence cost, so putting this into your deck will mean having to take fewer cards from other factions.  But, it could be worth it for the sheer boost of credits.

Trivia: This card is a reprint.  From the Classic expansion to the Netrunner CCG, we have Networking, which has the exact same play cost and effect as Lucky Find, and is also a double event.

Pair cards: Prepaid VoicePAD, Starlight Crusade Funding, Power Nap, Comet

Gyri Labyrinth

This card is interesting.  It is a code gate that does not stop the runner, but if the runner can not break it, then their maximum hand size will be reduced until the beginning of the corporation's next turn.  Because of this, if they hit one of these, they may have to discard two cards at the end of the turn, potentially setting them up for an easy kill.  The downside is that unless the runner is very aggressive, you may not get to trigger this effect more than once, and may not get to use it at all.  Although, if you could force them to run into several at a time when they could do nothing about it, you could potentially reduce their maximum hand size below zero, which would make them lose at the end of their next turn.

Pair cards: Chairman Hiro, An Offer You Can't Refuse, Bio-Ethics Association

Reclamation Order

Another card that has enabled massive combo decks.  With this card, you can spend 2 clicks and 1 credit to name a card that is not Reclamation Order.  Then, you can reveal any number of copies of that card that are in your discard pile and add them back to your hand.  This allows you to get back the operations you have already used so you can set them up again for another combo, or just to play them over and over again.

Pair cards: Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers, Accelerated Diagnostics, Hasty Relocation

Broadcast Square

Sort of a preventative measure against bad publicity.  This asset costs 2 to rez and 5 to trash, but while rezzed, whenever you would take at least 1 bad publicity, you start a trace with a base strength of 3.  If the trace is successful, you avoid taking the bad publicity.  So if your deck has multiple illicit cards in it, then you could gain the benefits of those cards without the penalty of bad publicity.  Of course, you will probably have to invest some resources into the trace, and if the runner has gone with high link strength, then there is little that you can do.  Just do not use this with Profiteering, as if you avoid the bad publicity from that card, you do not gain any money.

Trivia: Broadcast Square is a location in the Android board game.  While there, an investigator can spend 1 time unit and 1 favor of any type to place one of the conspiracy puzzle pieces onto the conspiracy board.  Normally, to place a conspiracy piece, you would have to investigate a piece of evidence and choose to unravel the conspiracy, which would allow you to place a piece from the stack your token is next to.  But this ability allows you to place a puzzle piece from any of the stacks available.

Pair cards: illicit cards, NBN: Making News, Primary Transmission Dish

Corporate Shuffle

So perhaps your hand is filled with agenda cards.  Normally, you would have to hope that the runner does not run on your hand.  But with this card, you can shuffle all the cards in your hand back into your deck.  Then, you draw 5 new cards.  This could put you in a much better position.  Of course, the possibility exists that your new hand is also full of agenda cards, but that is always a risk in drawing cards.  Or if you have no other cards in hand, you could use this to shuffle your deck and draw 5 new cards.  It does take 2 clicks to do so, but getting a new hand of cards could drastically improve your options.

Trivia: Another reprint here.  From the Classic expansion to the Netrunner CCG, we have Corporate Shuffle, which lets you draw 5 cards, then shuffle a card in your hand back into your deck.

Pair cards: anything

Caprice Nisei

Ah Caprice.  Potentially amazing for the corporation and frustrating for the runner.  While Caprice is rezzed, once the runner passes all of the ice on the server, you then each secretly spend 0, 1, or 2 credits.  If you spent a different amount of credits, then the run immediately ends.  As such, Caprice makes for a great extra line of defense on any server, as long as you can keep your credits up.  Also, Caprice must be rezzed before the runner passes the last piece of ice, so you will want to rez her when the runner is approaching that last piece of ice, or possibly before.  Still, there are a number of ways the runner can deal with her, and her low trash cost means that the runner will almost certainly trash her if they access her.  So it would be a good idea to give her a layer of protection as well.

Trivia: Caprice Nisei is one of the five playable detectives in the Android board game.  Her psychic abilities and her access to the resources of Jinteki give her a unique way of handling the murder investigation.  However, her powers may be mentally unbalancing to her, and she will have to be careful to maintain her grip on reality, or else the Nisei project may be shut down, resulting in the "retirement" of her and her sisters.

Caprice is also a minor character in the novel Strange Flesh, by Matthew Farrer, and the novella Exodus, by Lisa Farrel.  In Strange Flesh, she is conducting the interview with Tallie Perrault, examining her memories of the events.  In Exodus, she is simultaneous investigating the murder of a known runner for the NAPD while working on hunting down the rogue clone Ken Tenma in order to retrieve the clone he has stolen.

Pair cards: Ash 2X3ZB9CY, Nisei Division: The Next Generation, Marcus Batty, Hyoubu Research Facility

Shinobi

And finally, a piece of illicit ice for Jinteki.  With 3 subroutines, this sentry could be expensive for the runner to break, but they may be more likely to let the subroutines fire.  Each subroutine starts a trace with a base strength of 1, 2, or 3.  If the trace is successful, then you do net damage to the runner equal to the base strength of the trace, and in the case of the third subroutine, end the run.  So the runner may spend credits to break the last subroutine, since it is the only one that can actually stop them, and may soak up the damage or try to dodge the trace.  Also, the bad publicity could be used in future runs against this ice.  As such, you will likely want to remove that bad publicity to make effective use of this ice.

Trivia: Shinobi is a Japanese word for a covert agent, and may be synonymous with ninja.

Pair cards: Clone Retirement, Primary Transmission Dish, Improved Tracers

Marker

A card that could have potential, depending on how your opponent has set up their rig.  This code gate is free to rez, but does not stop the runner.  Instead, its one subroutine grants the next piece of ice encountered an additional "end the run" subroutine after all of its other subroutines.  If the runner is using an icebreaker that costs several credits to break up to a certain number of subroutines, that extra subroutine could make the next piece of ice very expensive.  So, it may come down to a choice of whether it is cheaper to break this, or to let this go off.  Of course, this only works if this is installed ahead of another piece of ice, so you want this to be in the right position.

Pair cards: Sunset, Tenma Line

Hive

An excellent piece of ice in the early and mid game, Hive is a barrier that starts with 5 "end the run" subroutines.  However, there is a catch.  For each agenda point in your score area, Hive loses one "end the run" subroutine.  So once you have scored 5 points worth of agendas, this becomes worthless.  So, you want to get as much use as you can out of this early on, either taxing the runner heavily or stopping them from getting into your servers, and then ideally getting rid of it for a benefit in the late game.  Or you want to kill the runner before this becomes irrelevant, making this a decent piece of ice for a tag and bag deck.

Pair cards: Security Subcontract, Blue Sun: Powering the Future, Sub Boost

Witness Tampering

If you are playing a Weyland deck, you may have piled up a significant amount of bad publicity.  And while you do have Elizabeth Mills in faction, she can only remove 1 point at a time.  With this card, by spending 4 credits and 2 clicks, you can clear up to 2 bad publicity.  This is as much as you could do with a Veterans Program, without the risk of the runner stealing it before you score it.  Of course, to get the most effect out of this, you need to have at least 2 bad publicity.

Pair cards: illicit cards, Hostile Takeover, Geothermal Fracking, GRNDL: Power Unleashed

NAPD Contract

For a while, this was probably the most common 4 advancement requirement agenda worth 2 points being played.  And the reason for that is in its ability.  As an additional cost to steal this card, the runner must pay 4 credits, which can be a problem if they did not budget their credits properly.  As a slight drawback, if you have any bad publicity, the advancement requirement of this card is increased by 1 for each point of bad publicity you have, so you should probably not run this along cards that give you bad publicity without a way of removing it.  Still, this card was so commonly played and powerful that it is now on the NAPD Most Wanted List, so putting a copy of this in your deck will lower your maximum influence by 1.  As such, it is not seen so much now, and has been supplanted by Global Food Initiative.

Pair cards: anything

Quandary

This cheap code gate is great in the early game, as it can keep out the runner until they have their decoder in play.  After that point, it becomes a small tax on the runner.  Also, it is pretty much always vulnerable to Parasite, since its strength is 0.  Still, if you need a cheap piece of ice for your deck, this is not a bad choice.

Trivia: Well, the Netrunner CCG does have a code gate named Quandary, but that card has a rez cost of 2 and a strength of 2.  In a way, this is closer to a reprint of Data Wall, which has a rez cost of 1 and a strength of 0.

Pair cards: Mutate, Encrypted Portals

And that is all for the Spin Cycle.  Next time, we delve deeper into Jinteki corporation with the deluxe expansion Honor and Profit.