So you can draw a card, Sec Test (if you’re lucky), load Kati, and…draw another card?
Again, I don’t see how 6 credits and 2 cards is worth spending 3 credits and a card, plus the run cost on HQ (rarely not inconsiderable when playing Criminal).
Weirdly it’s better in something like Anarch right now, where an extra turn of Wyldside and Aesop’s and virus growth can matter a lot.
We shall see, won’t we 
I like it. Worst case scenario, the corp loses five cards. What’s not to like? It is situational, but we have not yet even grasped the number of situations that it is strong in. Of course, it is also good in Prepaid Ken. Once it starts getting some plays in, I think it could be a 1x staple in every crim deck.
Sort of a change of topic, but do we know what “CBI” stands for (either in-game or in terms of its inspiration)? Central Bureau of Investigation? Charles Babbage Institute?
Confederation of British Industries is all I read it as. (Maybe that’s why I’m so down on it!)
tl;dr: it’s India’s FBI
I would have liked this more as a “play this only if you made a succesful run on HQ this turn”. That way, the cost of three credits isn’t that bad, and the card would be much closer to Architect levels of playableness.
Any synergy here you guys see with Utopia Shard?
If you’ve got it rezzed before the CBI, how does that impact your decision of what order you put things back on your R&D?
If, as a runner, you’ve got the credits to hard-install Utopia Shard on your next turn, do you pop this as soon as you can (assuming the corp put their most critical cards on top of R&D)?
Since Utopia’s discards are at random, and the corp is generally only holding 4 or 5 cards, I’m not seeing a whole lot of “extra” value in making this CBI run first.
Anarch just seems to be able to leverage this card so much better than Crim. They already have Wanton, and now with Keyhole, Imps, Scrubbers, or (probably most importantly) Noise mills, they can be playing 6 events through the game that put the corps hand into the bin (eventually).
Emergency Shutdown is the same type of card though, and it’s a bit tricky to play. Granted its niche is different but the run-to-trigger approach is awkward.
We’ll take the spruce moose. Hop in.
…
I said. Hop in.
UtopiaDejaVutopiaDejaVutopiaDejaVutopia all day long.
Favorite move of mine these (Maxx Cake) days.
I’m not sure I agree. Corps best laid plans can only be based on what’s in HQ. Doing a CBI resets the plan pretty much. (Keyhole necessary obv.)
It’s awkward, but I think front-loaded Criminal events are just bound to fail, especially if they cost 3c. Imagine Emergency Shutdown read “Make a run on HQ. If succesful, instead of accessing cards, derez target ICE”, who in their right mind would play that? CBI Raid would fall into the niche of cards that you could play when the corp does not want to rez HQ ICE to hold off Siphon for longer, same as PolOp. Instead, it’s falls into the not niche of “cards that are too expensive for what they do”.
I don’t know that it’s worth presuming that this is generally equivalent to a timewalk – that seems at odds with the way it is likely to play out in practice. If you’re running a 3 credit event into HQ and it’s not some kind of hail-mary glory run (in which case, this is almost definitely a bad card), odds are you can get back into HQ next turn and/or the turn after. That means that:
a) The corp has some tough decisions about what to do with any agendas or trashable cards. Placing them on top of the deck means they’re vulnerable to an R&D run this turn; placing them lower means you can’t practically play them (doubly so if they are pieces of a combo) next turn, so they remain vulnerable (whether in R&D or HQ) next turn.
b) The corp is presently vulnerable to Siphon. This amplifies those tough decisions and adds another set as they consider the possibility of facing attacks on multiple resources (card advantage/credits) simultaneously. Do you order things so you can shore up against/recover from an Account Siphon, or do you order them so you can get back on [whatever your actual gameplan is].
The criminal synergies here aren’t with shuffling R&D*, but with other tempo assaults. Things that force the corp to slow down or re-establish board state (Siphon threat, Shutdown, Sneakdoor (a turn before or after – it’s obviously pretty useless on the same turn)) are strong contenders here. Using it with FIS, for example, is probably not an optimal move to plan for, because if you’re including FIS, you should be planning on using it to uncomfortably accelerate the game. Although it does let you play FIS at points in the game where it would otherwise be ill-advised (e.g. you want the draw, but the corp only has 2 cards in hand, etc.), so there is a certain kind of synergy there even if I don’t know exactly what deck that synergy would fit in.
Don’t take any of this as a suggestion that I think this card is the bee’s knees – I’m not generally a fan of cards that give the most critical choices about outcome to your opponent. In addition, this card requires careful timing and, in most cases, a high-level read on your opponents’ position to land it at a critical juncture. Finally, who know what the meta will look like by the time this card is printed, but in the current environment my sense is that many of the dominant corp archetypes (Gagarin, IG, Foodcoats, the asset-spammy varieties of NBN) are generally more than happy to have the tempo slow down a bit.
*I’m not actually convinced that playing CBI and then forcing a shuffle is a good move to plan or go out of your way for. It is probably an excellent move right after something like a Jackson hand cleanup, but the odds that it’s a net negative for the corp diminish every turn removed from that event.
Surely not that different by “Thursday, March 10th”?
Fair point (although things change relatively quickly in this game!) – feel free to amend to “who knows how the meta will evolve over the life-cycle of this card.” =)
If you’re still paying credits to run HQ you’re doing it wrong right now.
As long as Faust is legal, play Faust.
This card costing 3 highlights how amazing siphon is at cost 0. I do really like this CBI’s design though!
I think medium is the card cbi wants to play with. You run cbi. The Corp has to put all their cards on r&d. You run r&d, firmly locking what was in hand, then you see all the cards that were coming after it in r&d. This isn’t really an hq attack card, as much as a card to set up an r&d assault. The turning wheel is also a synergistic card, r&d interface would be great, so Andy wants it.
First turn Andy, medium, dirty laundry Faust, cbi.
Then next turn you get to see what the corps starting hand was, and then lock them earlier, with an advantage to your tempo. Also, you could bring imp in for a controlled demolition of the corps most valuable assets. It’s interesting thinking about how this card can be used. It might just be the card criminal needs to turn this around some games. Siphon gets less useful the further the game goes on, and if the Corp has a lot of money, but cbi raid can be a setback almost anytime.
Does this bring Laramy closer to playability? Maybe??