Playing the Opening

Really good question, I think it’s a situational call. Against NBN I take NAPD, the reason being that once they get going they can be incredibly fast, so I want to force the Corp to have to find one more agenda in order to win. I also prefer to trash SanSan once the Corp has already paid for it if at all possible. Plus, in this situation, if I trash SanSan the Corp still scores NAPD next turn; whereas if I steal the agenda there’s no guarantee the Corp can make use of SanSan in the scoring window, so I buy myself time more often than not - which I really need vs. NBN. I’m also more likely to be able to get back into that server more cheaply in the future to trash SanSan as compared to an HB Corp who will have a lot more taxing ICE in general (Eli is a pain in the ass). If stealing the agenda allows them to hit a big Midseasons then so be it - that’s still not game in a lot of situations and most of my decks are tag-me anyway.

Vs. HB I trash SanSan, knowing they probably only have one other, which means they’ll need to use their recursion on SanSan rather than their operations. I’m slightly less worried about HB running away from me like NBN can, so I don’t mind conceding the NAPD agenda.

Vs. Weyland I probably trash SanSan but look confused doing so. I can’t think of a good Weyland build that really needs SanSan so I would assume the agenda was some kind of bait. Also Weyland have tonnes of cash so waiting for them to rez SanSan before trashing it is less of a tax than for other Corps. Either way, I probably win this game whatever I choose to do because SanSan in Weyland seems not to be playing to its strengths so my opponent is probably weak and has a bad deck.

Vs. Jinteki it doesn’t matter, you win with any line of play you choose - including ignoring both options entirely. This may change with H&P when it might become a legitimate decision vs. Harmony Medtech, in which case it feels like stealing the agenda is probably right given the fact that the race is to 6. Jinteki have notoriously poor economy so rezzing a SanSan is quite taxing for them later in the game, I’m happy for them to need to spend cash to force through their expensive agendas later on (it basically cancels out what you just paid yourself to steal NAPD). I know people will say that Celeb gift has cured Jinteki’s money woes but it really hasn’t. They have some new options coming in but I don’t know how many of them are applicable to the Harmony ID.

Agreed. Runners still have to be aggressive—especially against anything that might be a rush/FA build—but it has to be a disciplined aggression. The corp can be competitive in the money game, which means there are more threats and you have to accept that they’re going to establish some board position now. You can’t afford to loiter on no money and no easy access anymore :).