Sandstone

Sandstone 3[credit]

Ice: Barrier
Strength: 6
Influence: 2

When the Runner encounters this ice, place 1 virus counter on it.

This ice gets −1 strength for each hosted virus counter.

[subroutine] End the run.

Effective, Cheap, Durable. Pick two.
Illustrated by Krembler
Decklists with this card

Downfall (df)

#59 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Printings
Downfall
Rulings
  • Updated 2019-04-27

    NISEI Downfall Release Notes [NISEI Rules Team]

    Can the Runner spend virus counters from Sandstone for Yusuf, Freedom, etc.?

    No. Players can only pay costs with items they control, and the Corp controls the virus counters on Sandstone as per rule 1.13.2f.

Reviews

Huge barrier out of the faction with the best of 'em for a cheap as dirt price! It's a weird reverse Fire Wall, starting at essentially 5 strength, then going down and down until you get to "very expensive Vanilla" territory. But for like 3 runs, it's not bad!

To keep it strong, it's probably best in a server that won't get run often, like Archives or a scoring remote, and definitely best as the innermost ice so the runner can't just bounce off it three times and make it a 2 Corroder challenge in one turn. The less they run, the better this remains, so cards like Enhanced Login Protocol or MCA Austerity Policy, while out of faction, are great. In faction, Weyland has plenty of implicit threat with IDs like Argus: Shootboys Inc. and The Outfit: Chicago Stereotypes, and sometimes that's all the threat you need to force careful runs only.

Obviously Cyberdex Virus Suite is seriously good with this card! Also, Reverse Infection doesn't just work on Runner cards with virus tokens, so if you've got your deck stacked with Stones it might be a fun splash to do some pseudo-damage (if you're jonesing for some low-quality jank). Keep it far away from Chisel, as it'll die at double speed!

I'd say the best decks to use this with are kill decks that prey on a single taxing must-run turn and massive glacier decks that can take the tempo hit of a purge turn with relative ease. Fast Advance still has Border Control to completely stop a run or Gatekeeper for 3 of limited time power with draw. An interesting new ice to be sure!

(Downfall era)
313

This review only cosiders the Startup format.

This card by itself does not overwhelm. As others suggested, put it on a remote server, that does not get run every turn for maximum profit. But then you could use a Palisade which might be better.

But this card shines with combos. If you can use it's early stopping power to score a Cyberdex Sandbox and put a Mavirus in it's root, then you do have a pretty solid card and you can use it on centrals as well. Actually, once you have Mavirus in Archives, that gets triggered whenever Archives are run, then a Sandstone on Archives is a well working tax collector.

(Midnight Sun era)