It’s not even an event. It’s a hardware with a trash ability to add a 2c additional cost.
Yeah but if you put it down turns in advance of using it, forgoing the surprise, then the corp gets to choose which effect they prefer between “the corp loses 2c” and “this ice can’t rez for one turn”.
Running interference is what this effect would look like if it wanted to be remotely playable.
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Okay, scenario for clarity. The basic point is that whenever you would play cortez chip, you could play its corresponding event and have a strictly better effect. This applies even if you would play Cortez Chip on a previous turn in order to save up clicks. Corp has Tollbooth over R&D and 11 credits. You have Medium installed, a doppelgänger, and it’s the start of your turn.
If you have CC:
-Play two cortez chips, get three medium runs in, getting lots of points. Next turn, corp purges. If you have a trick (like femme fatale) to get in for two accesses, you get to access 2 or 3 cards.
If you have event!CC:
-Play two cortez chips, get three medium runs in, getting lots of points. Next turn, corp can either purge or click for credits. If they purge, you just run through it again. If they click for credits, if you have a trick to get in for two accesses, you get to access 5-9 cards.
Places where the hardware is better include (and I’m hoping this is a comprehensive list):
-Paper Wall.
-Aesop’s Pawnshop
-Donut Taganes.
-Poor Corp
-Account Siphon
-SanSan Criminal
-Hayley
-The Vault
-Replicator
-The corp has counters on Docklands Crackdown + Personal Workshop.
Places where the event is better include:
-There are two unrezzed Ice over R&D.
-The corp won’t be able to rez the ice you would target (which is the point of the card anyway)
-You want to stop the corp from having enough money to play an operation.
-You want to stop the corp from having enough money to score out an agenda.
-You want to stop the corp from being able to rez an upgrade or asset.
-Special case of the above, HB is at 7 credits or NBN is at 8 with an unrezzed SSCG.
-You want to stop the corp from being able to trigger a trap (if you’re medium digging Jinteki, Snare)
-Comet
-Same Old Thing
-Docklands Crackdown
-Housekeeping
I would argue that the latter list is much more relevant to real games, even (especially) in a lamprey or medium dig deck.
Does this event exist? I was just arguing about what Cortez chip actually does, vs this hypothesis that all it is is -2cr to the corp for a click and 0 credits. I agree an event would probably be better in almost all cases.
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It doesn’t - looks like I thought there was more disagreement than there actually was.
Relevant to the thread, I think Cortez chip might actually be pretty good in that Criminal ID, since giving a card turns it into something similar to Easy Mark.
Didn’t mean to derail the thread. We can start a Cortez Chip thread if ya’ll want ;d
I think Superior Synapses is overpriced at 3c. Personally I don’t know if it will be worthwhile, even though it creates some interesting synergies.
Cortex Lock most exciting card for me in this pack, before actually playing with any of them
I’m waiting for chaos theory to dirty laundry, then check RnD click 2. /GG
I think I am going to try a PE Shutdown Rush. I’m not too familiar with @Gozik 's legendary version, but my idea is to run a lot of sentries and rush out Agendas behind flatline threat. Killer usually comes down first against Jinteki, so ideally you keep them off their Killer and make them pay net through the nose for accesses, maybe you don’t even run much ETR ICE, although Mother Goddess on RND seems good. Shutdown also keeps their MU down to maximize value on Cortex Lock. maybe a crap idea, but definitely good enough to try at the LGS
Don’t forget your Will-o-the-Wisps!
And grim/Archer. Mimic is the most common breaker against pe. Those ice will put sentries under pressure.
braintrust + medical breakthrough, nebula instead of grim, trick of light, give yourself a fast advance option! Wait what thread is this?
I’m super excited about Little Engine. I kinda wrote it off upon first seeing it, but I think it’s an incredibly strong piece of ICE. I am going to enjoy testing it in my NBN Glacier. The fact that it becomes weaker late-game isn’t really relevant to NBN, since by then you should be on match-point with a way to win from hand (barring Clot of course).
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I’m don’t feel like Little Engine is very good, but willing to be proved wrong by practice. David is super popular atm and farms it for 5 creds, and even normal codegate breakers don’t have to pay alot to get through it (Gordian 2, Zulu 3). Its cheaper to rez than Tollbooth, but I don’t see the appeal of the card.
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Wasn’t Little Engine a 5/7 Code gate?
Yeah it only sucks a lot
Even knight beats it for a net gain of 1 credit =(
It is an expensive and bad gear check. Probably designed for draft play. At least I hope it was
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D4V1D takes two counters, Knight eats that Knight’s placement.
Zu, Yog, even Gordian Blade all have a lot more trouble.
It’s a Beef Gate, really. You must be This Rich to Pass. If you are, it’s not super taxing – but it takes 7-8 credits for many popular breakers to get through it in the first place. Once you do, yeah, you make most of it back, but 7 Strength and 2 relevant subs is still a big ask for most decoders – and it’s an awkward thing to Femme blind or otherwise Bypass.
I’d say it compares decently with most other common 5-cost Ice. (Ichi 1.0, Viktor 2.0, Hive, Lotus Field, Fire Wall, Grim, Taurus, etc) It won’t replace any of them outright, but it fills a niche that NBN has been missing for a long time (one that will hopefully lead to more Glaciery builds but which will also do very well in FA decks) and some interesting design space, besides.
This is especially true in NBN, where Reversed Accounts and mass quantities of traces, plus the need to trash SanSan, can often leave the runner broke. They also just have a lack of good high-strength Ice in-faction, this and Gutenberg will provide a relevant increase in NBN building choices, I think, especially in the wake of Clot and Traffic Jam, and with Drive By coming up.
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D4v1d can blow my Little Engine anyday. =)
Caveat: I misremembered the last subroutine; in my mind it was only 2c. Even so, I am excited to test it out.
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I think people are looking at Little Engine the wrong way. Of course, there is the “It only taxes 2 credits, but requires 7 credits upfront to get past with Gordian Blade”, but that is not what is good about it. Really, you need to evaluate ICE in terms of breakers (particularly the “non-standard” ones).
Yog.0+Suckers is even worse than Bioroids. D4v1d requires 2 power counter to get past, so even a 2-Little Engine server would require 4 D4v1d tokens to bypass. Although it would gain them 10 credits, it can be potentially insurmountable if the deck cut corners and doesn’t have a more standard way of getting through. It is very resistant against Parasites (not to mention there are often more problematic ICE [Tollbooth, Eli] the Runner would rather use them on). Femme isn’t even that bad, since it doesn’t actually gain them credits, and Femming a 5 cost, 3 subroutine ICE is as good a deal as you can really hope for there. Knight makes the ICE profitable for the runner, but at that point you can just trash the ICE (5 cost doesn’t make you too sad, especially since the runner had to invest clicks into the Knight). Atman is a very inefficient solution, both because it is quite expensive to install a 7 strength Atman, and also because a 7 strength Atman is really only useful against this one specific ICE (unlike, say, Lotus Fields 4 Strength).
Granted, I don’t think it will be splashed out of faction (I don’t see this ever being better than Tollbooth), but, like Lotus Field, it is an ICE that is decent against standard breakers (2 credit tax against Blade, 0 against Torch), but is a useful card to include in the off chance that it throws a wrench into the runners strategy. People splash Lotus Field as Parasite+D4v1d hate tech, and Engine is quite good against those cards, while also being non-trivial against standard breakers (in terms of the initial hurdle). At the end of the day it is a mid-end non-porous ICE that is quite taxing for non-standard suites in exchange for being a pittance for standard suites that have enough credits to break it.
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