Upya

Upya 0[credit]

Program
Memory: 1 • Strength: -
Influence: 3

Whenever you make a successful run on R&D, you may place 1 power counter on Upya.

[click], 3 hosted power counters: Gain [click][click]. Use this ability only once per turn.

New life through new understanding.
Illustrated by Galen Dara
Decklists with this card

Sovereign Sight (ss)

#7 • English
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Sovereign Sight
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Reviews

With Medium out of the picture, Shapers are once again the kings and queens of R&D pressure, post rotation. The Maker's Eye and Indexing, Equivocation, and more obscure ones like Maya and Mirror are all cards which give them the tools they need to dig deep for those agendas. And now they have ANOTHER card to reward them for it.

At 0 credits to install, Upya gives you incredible value as you get rewarded for just accomplishing your game plan. It can essentially pay for itself within two turns of running and it forces a response from the corp unless they dont care about your extra clicks. It being only 1 MU is nice too. And because the counter gain effect isn't once per turn, you can start building up clicks at a consistent rate.

It is definitely a "win more" card, not needed in most decks, and probably best in (gimmicky) combo decks. But if I saw a runner install this as a the corp, you better bet I would sweat a bit. And install another ice in front of R&D...

(Sovereign Sight era)
1948
"It can essentially pay for itself within two turns of running" —
Accidentally posted too soon. I was quoting that to ask you how you are calculating its cost and what assumptions you're making. If you spend a click to draw this card and then a click to install it, you need to make 6 runs to earn those two clicks back. Also, you can only cash in once per turn and only if you have a click available. So if you install it and run 3 times, you can't cash out until the next turn. Even if you run 3 more times on the second turn, the program won't "pay for itself" until turn 3 at the earliest. —

Lets suppose you are a big rig shaper aiming for R&D lock with click compression, because that is the type of deck you would play Upya in.

Sure Gamble is a popular economic card, in that it provides a profit of 4 credits with a credit requirement most runners have or can comfortably click to. It provides its credits in a burst, providing you with more credits immediately.

Upya is essentially a run economy card, (save for the rare combo turn usage), that is only usable with click compression, (such as Magnum Opus or Professional Contacts).

If you run every 2 turns to compensate for multi-access runs, economic limits, and corp securing of R&D, you will gain 3 power counters in 6 turns. That means you gain 1 click every 2 turns, and with click compression making every click worth ~2 credits, amounts to about ~1 credit every turn, which is... actually an okay power level. In 6 turns it will even with Hedge Fund.

However, for this card to provide that benefit, you would need to have a click compression card and your breaker suite already installed, in addition to its memory requirement. You may also have difficulty in running on R&D.

Another comparison would be to Data Folding, which needs 2 free MU but does occupy them, and evens with Sure Gamble after 7 turns.

(NAPD Multiplayer era)
32
What you say is correct for that archetype. But Upya is built for hammering R&D more often than once every two turns! There is Equivocation, Mirror, TTW and so much other stuff around for runners that run R&D much more frequently in the mid game. —
The problem isn't fresh accesses, its being able to afford running on R&D. Once your opponent realizes your goal, they are going to stack R&D deeply, so running on R&D will become very taxing. I am taking into consideration multiaccess tools to circumvent the effectiveness of your opponents counter by minimizing the number of runs required while still maintaining or staying close to R&D lock. —
A deck can only extend its economic strength so far, especially since rotation took off a large portion of those economic options. If the corp player makes R&D 3 ice deep, each taxing 4 credits, then it will cost 12 credits to access card in R&D. A full turn of Magnum Opus will only raise 8 credits, and even if Professional Contacts can raise more, I simply do not see how you can possibly afford to run on R&D (every) turn. —
*cards, (third line). —