Ice Carver is definitely constant. No question about that. But almost every constant ability in Netrunner still reacts to a discrete event, and if that event is missed, it has no effect.
Ice Carver is a bit of a special cookie though because the event it cares about is not necessarily a single step; it’s a flow, or series of steps. I was assuming it worked as if Ice Carver reacted upon the encounter beginning, but it could equally be that constant effects just check the board state upon entry (in addition to when they occur after entry).
For reference, the ANCUR entry on the subject also seems to lean towards the interpretation that ICE carver would lower the strength:
Constant Abilities
Constant abilities just are. They don’t adhere to a condition>trigger>resolve structure, they simply occur if and when they apply. Constant abilities generally describe states of being, but they can also stipulate specific “conditions” (not to be confused with trigger conditions) under which they apply, such as “while the Runner is tagged.” Assume any ability that is not in the form “cost: effect” is a constant ability unless it falls under a specific timing structure of some kind (more on that below). Constant abilities include ones that use if, while, and until.
Only real question from this point is does “is encountered” infer present-tense on entering the encounter (reacting to entering the encounter, as previously mentioned). Most likely not, but Ice Carver could’ve been more intuitively worded otherwise:
Encountered ICE has its strength lowered by 1.
For reference, a good example of where this scenario would actually be applicable is if you are Null with a Yog and a carver under a peddler on the board, and you end up accessing a ln Archangel from HQ/R&D (so the pre-encounter window that you’d normally use isn’t available; you’re put into a surprise encounter).
I believe so. It was ruled that Corporate Shuffle would kill an IQ with a Parasite on it. This is a very similar situation. Plus, it makes sense right? You shuffle your hand and grip into your deck, resulting in 0 MU, resulting in your programs getting trashed. All of this happens as part of the first effect of LARLA before you get to draw your 5 cards.
Ice Carver is simple. If ever you are encountering an ICE, its strength is lowered by 1.
You perform this effect whenever Ice Carver is Active. (Which usually means Installed, but Dr. Lovegood made me have to be more specific…) There’s nothing in Ice Carver that says ‘When you encounter ICE, lower its strength by 1.’ so it isn’t looking for a discrete event to trigger on, and that could be missed…
It’s looking for a game state, and modifying that game state with its constant ability. So it doesn’t matter if you install the Carver mid-encounter, it’ll still work.
But like, maybe your MU limit goes to 44 when you mosh your everything together and temporarily store it in the grip area. Then you draw your first card right as you set your grip down to become your stack. So you keep 1 MU of program.
Haha! Nope, I’m sure this was conclusively ruled a long time ago.
“…shuffle them into your stack. Draw 5 cards”. It’s the gap between those two things: they are in your stack (all of them!) - at which point you lose all your memory - THEN you draw. There’s not even a cheeky ‘and’ to keep things ambiguous here.
Whenever the Runner takes at least 1 net damage, trash the top card of the stack.
and I trash I’ve Had Worse through net damage
Whenever I’ve Had Worse is trashed by taking net or meat damage, draw 3 cards.
Are these simultaneous triggered abilities (resolve active player effect first) or are they distinct triggering events that are ordered? In what order do we trash the top card and the runner draws 3 cards?
However, no conclusion was reached. Basically boils down to if “taking” is separate from “trashing”. I feel personally, that taking the damage and then suffering it by choosing a card must be before the actual trashing (thus, PU fires before IHW), but based on previous rulings and precedent, I don’t think there’s enough to rule in either direction 100% confidently. Probably needs a Damon ruling.
I’ll point out that I’ve Had Worse states ‘… is trashed by taking net or meat damage, …’
This to me implies that Taking damage is ‘before’ the Trashed. But it’s a weak implication.
Honestly I kinda feel that they’re probably a simultaneous trigger; Taking damage = Trashing a card, and that you’d go by the Simultaneous Trigger rules (So if it’s Runner turn, Draw 3 then trash top… If it’s Corp’s turn, Trash top then Draw 3.)
The problem with that is that they’ve tended to try and make things consistent for whether it’s the Corp’s turn or the Runner’s turn. (At risk of spiraling thread, see the Slums/CtM ruling, which works regardless of whose turn it is. (Yeah, yeah, you’re probably never hitting it IRL, as it requires AOYCR and trashing an installed upgrade in that Central…))
I don’t think there’s any problem with the above being the correct answer, I was just fishing for precedent to confirm or deny it. Simultaneous triggers all behave like how you described: active player resolves theirs, then inactive player resolves theirs.
Also at the risk of spiraling: there’s plenty of interactions where both players have cards triggering simultaneously. Handling them differently based on active turn is straight forward once you know the process. When you throw in constant abilities having timing priority over triggered abilities, triggers that require “firsts”, or triggers that sound simultaneous on first glance… then it starts to get trickier to parse an interaction (or lack thereof).
So, the way I see it, there’s four steps to damage: taking/doing, suffering, selecting damage, and trashing. The big question here is if the game differentiates between any of those steps timing-wise; if so, then PU would always go first.
I think, at the very least, there’s cause to believe there’s separation between taking and suffering. If the runner was to take net damage from House of Knives, but then prevents it with Net Shield, Chronos Protocol will not be considered to have been activated for the first time, (as it didn’t reach the “suffering” step).
Normally, preventative and replacement effects do cause the “first” instance to still be considered fired (Net Shield can’t Net Shield again after the first time, and Tori can’t be used after Net Shield for the same run), so I think this is cause to believe there’s timing separation between taking/suffering, which can be extended to there being separation between taking/trashing, which would mean PU would fire before IHW.
Extracting the ‘important’ part (there may be more relevant, but this is what stood out):
“Doing” damage results in the Runner “suffering” damage, but “suffering” damage does not mean the damage was dealt. So however the Runner gets the brain damage for Sentinel Defense Program it will result in 1 net damage, but as you note The Cleaners will not give extra damage to Tri-Maf Contact. “Taking” is synonymous with suffering, but is not used frequently and should probably not exist as a term.
The (emphasized) text here is clearly deprecated, knowing the interactions between Net Shield vs. CP and Net Shield vs. Tori. Taking and suffering are treated differently (rather, taking causes suffering). Maybe they weren’t then (guessing this is pre-CP), but they are now, if these interactions are correct.
On further inspection though, I can’t find anything other than Reddit/NRDB/BGG sources that say CP + Net Shield works the way I listed (also don’t see official sources to the contrary though). If Net Shield turns off CP like it does Tori, then the turn-priority stance might hold weight.
Though, regardless, CP modifying the selection process does still lead me to believe that suffering is before trashing (which would mean taking is before trashing). It just seems like there’s no way this chain of events could be treated as a single, atomic step. But possible I’m wrong.
Don’t believe so. The TM effect is conditional (“whenever”), whereas the current effect is constant (“until”). The card text for reference (my notes in italics):
This card is not trashed until another current is played or an agenda is stolen (current effect).
Name a card. Gain 10 whenever the Runner plays or installs a copy of that card (TM effect).
So what this means is the execution order would be as follows:
Runner plays Rumor Mill; both the current effect and the TM effect reach step 1 (trigger condition met).
As it is constant, the current effect is forced to be evaluated first, and it proceeds through steps 2 (trigger) and 3 (resolve), trashing Targeted Marketing.
Next the TM effect reaches step 2 (trigger), but, as Targeted Marketing itself is no longer active, it fizzles.
On the other hand, playing devil’s advocate, I’m looking at old 2014 Reddit/BGG posts (including one from @jakodrako himself) that says the opposite of what I’m saying. I’m fairly certain the flow I laid out is sound, so I’m guessing the anatomy of constant/conditional abilities just wasn’t really around back then (specifically, what defined them; obviously the ability types themselves are in the rule book).
Opponent has House of Knives scored I encounter and derez using a golden, which occurs at 3.1. Does:
The timing window end early, resulting in me being able to reinstall golden before the next paid ability window (which occurs before the next approach)
Or
3.1 timing window is still open for corp abilities, and the corp had the ability to use house of knives to possibly trash the Golden I returned to my hand.