it appears on green cards
There are thematic differences, I think: net damage can come from, well, the net, so it doesnât matter where you are. The corp canât send people to kneecap you or blow up your apartment building if they donât know where you are, though, so being tagged (and receiving those tags through e.g. traces) as a prerequisite for meat damage seems more appropriate. Meat damage also seems to come in larger chunks (BOOM!, Scorched Earth, Punitive Counterstrike, etc. etc.) and is therefore harder to deal with, which makes sense thematically as well.
Whether these thematic differences can actually feel different in actual gameplay is yet to be seen.
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youâre right in terms of theme - I think BoN is still weakest in terms of the theme requiring it to be meat damage, but all the others make some sense. However I think gameplay and theme canât be separated so should always be discussed together, and the gameplay of meat damage in these cards doesnât really feel much different than net damage, so the theme doesnât come across as strongly as it could i.e if you kept the mechanics of the cards the same but changed the name, art, and flavour text, theyâd still work in jinteki
at first it seems meat damage is still normally in larger amounts, but when you check there are so many exceptions to that rule (obokata, BoN, door to door, mr stone, traffic accident, cortex lock in certain situations) that I donât think itâs going to be something strong enough to hinge too much of the difference off of
Just having different cards that prevent it is a good enough reason for having two different types of damage
3 Likes
I believe the core rule book makes a point to say that net and meat damage are the same. The only they have different cards that prevent each.
Why should they be different?
I donât think the distinction needs to be absolute. Meat damage tends to come in large bursts from something you can see comingâwhether thatâs tags or public agendas or assets that count downâand net damage tends to come in smaller cuts from traps or ice.
But itâs not going to cause me too much mechano-thematic distress if encountering a Flare causes mild burns, or if Ronin feels suspiciously like a Contract Killer who lives on the network, or if Weyland can make their facilities or even entire neighborhoods dangerous places to be (despite not knowing exactly which window to send a missile through).
BoN and Breached Dome are both a little weird, mind you, but I donât see this as part of some pernicious trend.
1 Like
Because if theyâre the same, thereâs not much reason to have a distinction.
4 Likes
I am more attached to net and meat damage being distinct thematically than I am them being mechanically distinct.
Interestingly, a few really bad mechanical offenders are also really bad thematic offenders. Iâm thinking specifically here of Builder of Nations (what, is the Weyland corporation coming to my house and punching me mid-run?) and Breached Dome (I run archives and I⌠am now on Mars?)
Flare mechanically should probably be net damage but Flare doing meat damage is one of the most thematically beautiful instances of typing in the game. In fact, the ice tells a really beautiful story, and the mechanical disconnect helps. Because when you first look at it you think âoh, thatâs weird, shouldnât this do net damage?â Then you realize your computer exploded and you are on fire.
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Adding on to what others have said, I feel like one of the biggest differences should be net damage primarily occurring during a run, while meat damage primarily occurs outside a run. Most of the thematic offenders violate that rule.
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I mean⌠yes? Thatâs why weâre paying those fellows. Reports say that theyâve got the highest morale out of all divisions, if just because they love their work.
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Yes, because without this distinction a card telling âx cr: prevent 1 damageâ would destroy so many things !
Well, there is First Responders, but stillâŚ
âŚwhich is notable when the computer in question happens to be in your brain 
Yeah, in the days of running 3x Plascrete, jinteki decks would have had no chance if it could prevent net damage as well
Najja is cool
Wake Up Call means the end of Maw and the start of a new horizontal age.
-edit- mmm. This is the corp that trashes an HQ card with Maw. Things may not be this easy.
is this one of those black + gold/ blue + white dress things where Cyberdelia looks green but really its blue?
2 Likes
Cyberdelia seems alright in slimmer stealth decks with Net Mercur.
But you do miss out on the extra mu. I have found myself liking that more and more.
Edit: not a console you say? Go onâŚ
1 Like
Cyberdelia isnât really a good card⌠Takes console slot, making you pay 1c for the last sub you already paid for, once a turn, and worth 3 inf 3c. Youâre better splashing Daredevil as itâs superior in any ways : just draw a gamble once, and itâs 4 turns of thisâŚ
An hardware giving you 1c recursive like Cyberfeeders, which is a so-so card, is better because you can play 2 or 3
-edit- oh.
Itâs a chip.
Well, itâs cyberfeeder tier.
Is there some reason weâre not talking about By Any Means? By Any Means, you guys!
And I donât know whether those new icebreakers are any good, but I do know that theyâre delightful
3 Likes