The issue is when you “start the game” and actually choose your directives. If I haven’t even decided if I’m using FTT and put it on the board, how could it force me to reveal my draw?
The official rule manual states that drawing starting hand is part of setup, and, as @Dragar pointed out, the official tournament rules also explicitly state that setup (which includes starting hands), is before the game starts.
Andy isn’t really a counter example. Her intention is clear; she replaces your 5 card starting hand with 9. When the “game starts” (and, hence, when you decide your directives) is a little less well-defined.
On one hand I do feel that, when going by the core rules and tournament rules, it is clear that setup is before start of game. But on the other hand, why not just follow the convention used of “before [the corps] first turn begins”? Because, from what I can tell, they’re equivalent.
Andromeda can be excused by the golden rule if her text is active. How is text active if we’re not even playing the game yet? When you’re building your deck at home, you don’t pick up Diesel and say “Whoops, better draw three cards” do you?
That might sound silly, but it’s kind of crucial if we’re looking for consistency. If you are using Andromeda’s wording to draw nine, we must be already operating under the game rules (playing the game, I would call that) at the setup phase.
Really though, Adam’s wording is not specific enough to determine the timing. You could have, as @dragar suggests, some kind of official “Start of the game” trigger as we have a start of the turn trigger (which actually comes after the turn has started!). But if that were the case Adam doesn’t “trigger” for start of the game (which would be " When the game starts, install…") it just mentions that by the time you start the game, they’re somehow installed.
For constant abilities regarding the start of turn analogue, look at ETF (“The first time you install a card each turn, gain 1 credit”.). If you install a card in step 1.1, this would be during your turn, but before the turn starts (as silly as it sounds). Similarly, with Adam’s ability looking very “constant-y” to me, you would be looking for it to be operative at the start of the period defined as “the game”, no matter when the official moment “game starts now” occurs.
(Don’t blame me, I didn’t decide turns can start before they start… )
It will be a lot more fun if you can choose 3 of any of the directives based upon the opponents ID (which along with their deck size is open information before the game starts). I hope it gets ruled that way because that’s how we would all like it to work.
I’m not saying cards are inactive in the setup phase. Andromeda could be active after you choose IDs, and she modifies your opening hand; that’s all kosher.
But constant abilities can trigger off of conditions occurring; just because Adam isn’t worded as a conditional ability doesn’t mean that he isn’t a constant ability that triggers off of the event. There’s several examples of this in netrunner:
Sneakdoor Beta’s constant ability triggers when a run is successful.
Slums’ constant ability (sorry) triggers when an accessed card is being trashed.
Adam’s ability could easily be interpreted as a constant ability that fires when the game begins. It doesn’t need to have when / if. We can certainly agree that the wording on Adam is quirky, but those directives have to be chosen and enter play at some point (start of the game), and all signs I see point to the “game beginning” after setup.
Just because the “game starts” at a certain time, doesn’t mean cards are inherently inactive during the setup of the game. I know that sounds weird too, but you could look at the game as a sub component of a round of netrunner. Just because the game itself starts and ends at particular points doesn’t inherently mean that that is the only phase in which the rules hold. It sounds odd to think of cards having effects outside of the “game”, but the documents seem to lean in this direction.
I’m not sold that what I told my local player was right (if I was I wouldn’t have posted). While I’m definitely leaning in one direction, I don’t think your direction is misguided either. I see both as plausible.
Yeah (assuming first damage, of course). Damage is before the credit loss (but even if it was same time, you get the chance to prevent before it resolves). As a bonus, you won’t lose your remaining 1c.
I’m assuming you’re talking something like Toshi vs. Rumor Mill?
The interaction from my perspective would be that Rumor Mill blanks Toshi (or any unique asset/non-grid upgrade that attempted to fire an ability on access). It is, after all, a unique asset, and while it is being accessed, information about its type is available.
EDIT: should clarify I’m not 100% on this, but that would be my best guess.
If his text box is blank, then I can rez him for 2c. If his text box is not blank, I need to forfeit an agenda and pay 2c to rez, as the additional cost is only contained in his text box.
It is a different situation (type information is definitely known on access; unsure about pre-rez when you are looking to rez). If it is known that it’s a unique asset by the game state, then its text box is blanked. If it’s just known that it’s a card in a server (IE agenda, asset, or upgrade), then it wouldn’t be blank (and you’d pay).
I’d guess that you don’t have to forfeit the agenda, because the alternative interpretation is a little wonky from my perspective (needing to be able to read his textbox but not “see” any information that would allow Rumor Mill to blank it). Not certain again though.
Toshi is one interaction, yes. I was thinking of Ibrahim Salem, but there’re other cards that would matter, such as the executives. I think it’s quite fair to say that a rezzed, active Director Haas will not go to the runner’s score area if Rumor Mill is in play, but what about an installed, unrezzed Haas? What about if Haas is accessed and trashed from R&D?
edit: And for the record, my intuition is the same as ironcache’s, but apparently Damon has stated that you still need to sac the agenda when rezzing Ibrahim with Rumor Mill active:
More good examples. I guess I can understand the rationale of inactive vs. active in the linked comment. If you were to extend that train of thought, an unrezzed Haas would still be worth 2 points on trash, and Toshi would fire (if unrezzed, which would likely be the case).
It does seem peculiar to me though. I mean, directly from the FAQ (page 6):
Inactive Cards
An inactive card retains its printed characteristics (name, card, type, faction, cost, subtypes, influence, etc). Note “Facedown Runner Cards” on page 7 are an exception.
So we know everything about Ibrahim; that he is a unique asset. Rumor mill only affecting him while active seems odd, as we know runner cards can interact with non-active corp cards (Hacktivist, Kim, Imp, Drive By, etc.). Perhaps you can make the argument that Hacktivist is interacting with the action of rezzing, and not the card itself. The majority of other interactions are Access/Expose related, so maybe that can be considered a special case where runner cards do have an effect on the inactive cards. Don’t think there’s any contradiction if that was considered to be the line in the sand.
In my mind it comes down to timing and whether Rumor Mill can affect only active cards. The blanking ability of Rumor Mill is constant, so it’s as fast of a ability as it can be.
We know from the Hernando Cortez ruling in 23 Seconds UFAQ that costs are paid before a card is rezzed (referenced in the Reddit thread). So that means that by the golden rule that at least the additional cost text of Ibrahim’s must be active before it’s rezzed. So, does that mean that Rumor Mill blanks that active part of the text or does it mean that it somehow gets dodged?
Unfortunately, Damon only answered on Twitter the questions if Corporate Town was blanked, he said just “no”:
But, was that because Corporate Town is not unique or does it apply to unique forfeit assets like Ibrahim? He didn’t answer to follow up. Hoping @jakodrako clarifies it with him, since it doesn’t seem to be an easy answer otherwise he would post it instead of this:
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