Official Rules Question Thread

Dumb question, but I’ve never done a power shutdown/accelerated diagnostics combo. When triggering 24/7 news cycle as part of the AD, do you have to forfeit an agenda? I feel like it’s no, but I want to be sure.

No, forfeiting the agenda is an additional cost, which AD ignores. Thus, the 24/7 Boom AD combo only requires that a single Breaking News be scored to fire.

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So there’s a few things, depending on which version of the card we’re looking at:

  1. Bioroid provides an ability to the runner; no icebreaker interaction, no need to worry about strength. By the initial wording, this is an icebreaker modification that provided you an ability to interact with ICE. Icebreakers need strength to interact with ICE. Questionable if strength was required. This is resolved in the latest wording; strength would be required, as the icebreaker is interacting with the ICE.
  2. The initial wording ambiguously said “break subroutines”. Not clear how many (or even how) you break. This was resolved in the latest wording; it’s 1 to 1.
  3. Abilities of the form “click: effect” are actions, and actions can not be used in a paid ability window (you are only able to use them when you could legally take an action). This is the problem introduced in the latest wording. Note that the bioroid/ABR wordings are not of the same form, and thus are not an actions (can be used mid-run no problem).

Hope that helps!

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I think your earlier wording (the “can be used during…”) is just fine and superior. But fwiw, if you wanted it to work as a “lose” (for some wacky reason), I think you could template it something like Qianju PT:

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Anyway, to sum it all up, I think the intention of the card is quite clear at this point, and it’s just a matter of them getting the wording right so that it functions as expected. Adjusted Matrix modifies an icebreaker to give it the ability to spend a click to break any ICE subroutine (requires strength). Can be used multiple times. It also gives the icebreaker the AI keyword.

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Thanks, that’s very helpful!

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Q:If a Magnet hosting a Parasite with 3 virus counters is derezzed, does the Magnet get trashed by the Parasite as soon as it is rezzed again?

A: The blanking of Parasite’s text box takes the higher precedence.

What in all the heck does that mean?

The question is attempting to clarify how the abilities on Parasite and Magnet function when Magnet is rezzed. It’s got some bloat to it because the situation described is fairly abnormal to achieve.

Long story short, Parasite’s ability is blanked and cannot trash Magnet (even as Magnet is rezzed).

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Yes, but why?

What is this ‘precedence’ thing? How do we determine that?

He just means that Magnet’s ability blanks Parasite’s ability before Parasite’s ability would trash Magnet. Magnet’s ability precedes Parasites.

Yes, why?

If the question is “how do we know it works that way and not the other way round?”, then the answer is: From that very FAQ. Some things in Netrunner are just ruled by FAQ, because there is no base rule to apply here.

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ANR equivalent of ‘Because I said so’

So this question does boil down to ‘Because FAQ said so’, and furthermore, the FAQ didn’t give any indication as to why, or how to extrapolate the ruling to other cases. It merely answers a question about a particular, unusual, interaction.

However, if backed into a corner and held at gunpoint, I’d postulate that the reasoning why has to do with Magnet affecting a fundamental thing about Parasite, while Parasite’s ‘trashing’ ability waits for a condition to be true. That is, Magnet is changing the Text Box of Parasite, while Parasite is waiting for Magnet to be Strength 0.

There is absolutely zero support in the rules for this opinion, however. This is merely how I choose to believe it works, to placate my rules-oriented mind.

(For the curious, I likely came to this conclusion because I know the most about MtG rules, and this looks really similar to how Layers in that game would work. But Netrunner doesn’t necessarily use, or have, Layers, so it could be 100%, totally wrong.)

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I genuinely don’t understand why there is so much strom and drang about this. Yes it’s because the lead designer said so, that’s what all faq’s, rules clarifications, and errata are. I’d go so far as to say that’s what GAMES are. Why does this bother so?

From a gameplay perspective, ‘because I said so’ is okay. The lead designer chooses how things in the game jive together; end of story.

From a design perspective for a constantly evolving game, it’s not ideal. You want to have a set of rules defined that lets players figure out, unambiguously, how to play your game. ‘Because I said so’ style rulings doesn’t help people evaluate potentially similar situations in the future.

Furthermore, this seems unintuitive, given that normally, when there are concurrent triggered effects, it’s resolved with the active player first. This isn’t exactly the same thing here, but it would lead you to think that (in most cases where ICE is rezzed), parasite would happen before magnet.

So, in short, there’s no issue if Damon wants the cards to work this way. But there’s also no issue with people wanting to have a coherent reason for the ruling. At least that’s my opinion.

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Just remember “cannot” always beats “can”.

Or in this case: blanking the Parasite is the “Cannot”. (I dunno, I’m just making this up as I go along :wink: )

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Also, constant abilities resolve before triggers. Magnet is a constant saying “the text box of ever program hosted on magnet is blank” is a constant ability"

Parasite is a triggered ability “host ICE […] is trashed if its strength is 0 or less.” The if in that clause makes means that it’s waiting for a trigger. It would also be waiting for a trigger if it said something like “when host ICE has 0 strength, trash it.”

The situation your talking about where it would depend on whose turn it was would have to make either Magnet a triggered ability “if a program is hosted on Magnet, it’s text box is blank” or parasite a constant ability “Trash Host ICE with 0 strength”

I hope this helps.

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So, first off, I already acknowledged that this is a bit of a black sheep to the normal “active player resolution” ordering.

However, I want to make sure we’re on the same page with respect to the cards; Parasite’s strength reducing ability, in Netrunner terms, is wholly constant (not triggered). See here:

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.

Parasite is under the above definition; it is not in the category of triggered abilities. As soon as a piece of ICE is rezzed, it is reduced to strength 0 and trashed at constant speed. By this token, it is in the same classification category as Magnet.

You could make the argument that constant abilities using if are slower than constant abilities that don’t; that might jive (I’d need to reflect on the card pool). But, regardless, I don’t think we have precedent for this.

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If you read the bonus weirdness in the article you posted, parasite falls under the second case,

“If the “if” part of an ability is in the effect clause (e.g. “When X, do Z if Y”), then it is a conditional ability that will always meet its trigger condition X, but Z will only occur if Y is true when the ability resolves.”

A conditional ability is a type of triggered ability, which is still “slower” then a constant ability.