Water Monopoly

Water Monopoly 3/1

Agenda: Initiative

The install cost of each non-virtual resource is increased by 1.

AgInfusion doesn't just have patents on nearly every plant seed that is farmed on Mars—they own most of the rights to the water that the farms use.
Illustrated by Mark Molnar
Decklists with this card

Free Mars (fm)

#93 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
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Printings
Free Mars
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Reviews

I rate Water Monopoly a bit differently than Cpt_nice. The thing is, I don't see it getting scored early enough often enough for the effect to be great.

It's useful to consider the alternatives for a Jinteki deck with 3 advancement cost (* = will rotate out soon):

  • Ancestral Imager - Damage when the runner jacks out. Decent in kill decks, mediocre otherwise.
  • Braintrust* - When over-advanced cheapens rez of ice. A 3/2 with no downsides so great.
  • Chronos Project - Remove all cards in the runner's heap from the game. Devastating against some decks, nearly useless against others.
  • Dedicated Neural Net - Once scored gives you a 2/3 chance to make the runner not access agenda's from HQ. Decent to good.
  • Encrypted Portals - Gives credits for code gates, boosts code gate strength. Decent.
  • False Lead* - Can be forfeited to make the runner close a click. Useful in the right kill deck, though usually that will be HB.
  • Genetic Resequencing - Put an agenda counter on a scored agenda. Meh.
  • Gila Hands Arcology - Click for 1.5. Mediocre.
  • House of Knives - Deal damage during a run, three times. Decent in general, great in the right deck.
  • Merger - 3/2, but 3/3 for the runner and costs 1 influence. Not terribly great but good for fast advance.
  • Philotic Entanglement - Deals damage and is a 3/2. Little reason not to include it, though only one copy per deck allowed.
  • Profiteering* - Lets you take bad pub for credits. Not great.
  • The Future is Now - Tutor for a single card. Always useful.
  • Unorthodox Predictions - Effectively block the runner from accessing reasonably protected servers for a turn. Mediocre.
  • Veterans Program* - Remove bad pub. Good if you expect bad pub.

At the very least Braintrust, Philotic Entanglement and The Future is Now are better. Chronos Project and House of Knives are probably better as well.

Given the competition and the not great chance of Water Monopoly firing early enough to make a large impact on the game I expect it to find a permanent home in the binder.

(Free Mars era)
398
I disagree with most your assessment. TFIN is honestly a good card, but if tutoring . Corps already have easily ways to tutor for assets and agendas, and aside for asset spam decks in the case of former. those rarely see play. Ice tutoring is even more rare. So as a concept, while a free card is obviously good, tutoring is not as important to the corp as it is to the runner. I won't argue with House of Knives, in pretty much any Jinteki deck (aside from pure glacier like some Aginfusion and Palana builds), it will be better. But, what do you know, those decks often run Scarcity as well...and you made the point yourself that Braintrust is cycling very soon, and PE is only a one of agenda. So especially after rotation, I think this deck will find its way in some Jinteki decks. Definitely not all, but some. —

A powerful early game agenda for Jinteki Fast Advance decks, this is essentially a weaker Scarcity of Resources which the runner can't get rid off. In an ideal scenario, you would score this as early as turn 2 or 3, possibly with a Shipment from Tennin and then watch the runner groan as most of their resources are instantly more expensive and their set up process grinds to a halt. Score two or even three for maximum frustration.

Of course, this does nothing against decks which focus on events over resources. And late game, once the runner has their set up, this is basically just a blank 3-1. But all in all, definitely not a bad agenda.

(Free Mars era)
1948