That just gets into some of the card interaction rules you always have to remember.
“Can’t” always wins. In a “can’t” vs. “must” situation, you’re prevented from doing the “must”.
When “must” meets an additional cost, you can decline the additional cost to avoid the “must”. You must steal an agenda you access, but if it’s NAPD you can decline to steal. If you’re playing Haarpsichord with Red Herrings, stick them on the agenda you least want the runner to steal, not the one you expect them to go for first. And Mumbad Virtual Tour is a lot less useful in Gagarin once the Runner knows where it is.
2.1) In a “must either… or” situation, if you decline one due to an additional cost, you still have to take the other. If you play Emergency Activation Orders on Archer, the corp can’t say “I’ll choose to rez but, oops, additional cost, I’ll decline that and nothing happens”. Bye bye, Archer.
Since ice upgrades that save ice are being discussed in another thread, I thought of one to add to here.
Autonomous Upgrades - 1
Weyland Operation: Condition
Place up to 2 advancement tokens on an installed piece of ice and attach Autonomous Upgrades on that ice as a hosted condition counter that reads “The strength of host ice cannot be lowered below the number of advancement tokens on that ice. If the Runner would trash host ice, the Corp may remove 2 advancement tokens from host ice to prevent it from being trashed.”
This card is amazingly flavorful and quite powerful as well. It even has counterplay, so that you can still use your Siphons and Keyholes abilities if you spend an additional click running somewhere. Also, dat hate on John Masanori. I bet he watches NBN TV all day.
International Education Initiative
Neutral Agenda: 5/2
Inf: 1
Art: Picture of Jackson Howard, Elizabeth Mills, Isabel McGuire, and Toshiyuki Sakai standing with a group of smiling children.
IEI is worth 1 additional point when in the Corps Score Area.
Blink
Traversing The Net
NBN ID- 45/15
Whenever a subroutine on a piece of ICE is left unbroken, gain 1. In the “Blink” of an eye
Whitecliffe Labrotories
A picture of the future
Jinteki ID
45/15
Whenever there is a successful run on a central server, all ICE gains “do 1 net damage” After all its other subroutines until the end of the turn. We do what we can, because we must
Olympus Technologies
The Sky’s The Limit
Weyland ID- 40/12
X Recurring Credits
X is equal to the number of Bad Publicity you have.
Use these for rezzing, Installing, or advancing cards. Building Up.
Mirror Enhancements
Augmentations for the Common Man
HB ID- 45/17
Whenever the runner spends or loses a click during a run, gain 2. How do you like it?
The Weyland one is really, really good. Basically one Hostile and you have something that is better economicly than ETF all game. Two and you’re even better. It’s kinda nuts, actually.
Still really good, but I think closer to balanced, believe it or not. The most busto thing, I think, was using those creds as sort of a Super PPVP for things like Restructure, Hedge, and Biotic.
Woodchipper
Program
Icebreaker - Killer
Strength: 1
Criminal
2 Cost
3 influence
Place a power counter on Woodchipper whenever a program is trashed.
Hosted power counter: Break up to 3 sentry subroutines
2c: +4 strength.
Something to play nice with all of crim’s self-trashing programs and volatile viruses.
NEXT Hydra
ICE: Code Gate - NEXT
HB - 2 rez, 1 str, 2 inf
Whenever NEXT Hydra is trashed while rezzed, install up to 2 NEXT Ice from Archives or HQ if able, paying all costs.
-> End the run
Infection
Apex - Event - Run
Cost 2, Inf 3
Make a run on a remote server. If successful, instead of accessing cards, install Infection on a rezzed asset in this server as a hosted condition counter with the text “When your turn ends, trash all cards in this server and install Infection on a rezzed asset.”
One for the runner to temporarily deal with oppressive servers…
Safe Mode Restart - 0
Criminal Event: Run - Sabotage
Make a run. Once during this run, when you break all subroutines on a piece of ice in a single encounter, you may host Safe Mode Restart on that ice as a hosted condition with the text “Host ice loses all subroutines and cannot gain subroutines. Trash Safe Mode Restart if host ice is derezzed or if the Runner steals an agenda in this server.”
And another poorly thought out take on strengthening ice at a cost (in this case, clicks, credits, and stealability)…
Vulnerability Probe
Neutral 2/0 Agenda: Research
When you score Vulnerability Probe, you may host it on a rezzed piece of non-trap ice as a condition counter with the text: “Host ice has +3 strength and cannot be bypassed, derezzed, or trashed. When the Runner steals an agenda, he or she may forfeit that agenda to add Vulnerability Probe to the Corp’s score area.”
While I like the idea, I think the ability to get around the counterplay of trashable operations with Stinson is a bit too strong. Mostly, I’m thinking of the fact that you could Midseasons/Boom!/Boom! even after the runner trashes your operations.