Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers

Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers

Identity: Division
Deck size: 45 • Influence: 15

Your maximum hand size is equal to the number of credits in your credit pool.

The densest information cluster in the galaxy.
Illustrated by Emilio Rodríguez
Decklists with this card

Creation and Control (cac)

#1 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Rulings

No rulings yet for this card.

Reviews

In his otherwise extensive review, chris_walker says he's not surprise that this card didn't get a review for so long. I strongly disagree, and I'm surprise it didn't get any, since from the 3 HB identities from Creation & Control, Cerebral Imaging is the only one that have seen some success at a time.

(Also, I wrote this review a few days ago and let it sleep in a text file, expecting it to be the first CI review. Chris stole my thunder, and some commenters already made the points I will do in this. But no worries, of course.)

It is first notable to be arguably the weirdest Corp identity of the game. And when it was released, nobody gave a serious look at this one. But then after, a few cards helped it, namely Green and Blue Level Clearance. For CI, getting both draw and money is a good deal. Out of faction, Celebrity Gift has been a good help too. Also Restructure as neutral.

And soon, a CI archetype emerged that has known quite a good success with the following plan :

Then a second flavor of this appears :

  • add 2x SEA Source and 2x Scorched Earth in your deck,
  • flatline the Runner with a simple SEA Source/Scorched/Scorched if you can,
  • flatline the Runner with a SEA Source/Scorched/Scorched/Efficiency counters/Recamation Order/Scorched(/Scorched) if you must.

Heck, there's stories of Runner dying while sporting 2 Plascrete Carapaces and a full hand. That’s simple, for a short time, before NEH was released, the main meat-kill archetype was this.

In case you wonder why CI is more efficient than other identities for such a plan, it’s because keeping your hand growing without bothering for remote server really helps to assemble the pieces of otherwise quite clanky combos.

That is, CI is great for combo deck. Some Power Shutdown + Accelerated Beta Test deck have seen come various success.

Then it has fallen out of flavor but in a faction that suffers to be trusted by one freaking good identity with others desperately running after, CI, not despite but thanks to its weirdness, has shown some success. I hope it will again.

(Data and Destiny era)
No problem. I've changed my perspective since my first impression of this card but with the addition of your review, I figure there's no point in updating my review any further. —

Lots of Risk, Little Reward... Unless you play it right

Functionally similar to the Runner resource Theophilius Bagbiter, this ID will bestow serious bragging rights to any player who is able to use it successfully. See Scorched Imaging decklist by PeekaySK as a masterful example of recursion & Scorch that was used to successfully overcome the obstacles that Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers puts up.

Combos

IQ is a nice for for this ID, get it installed early when HQ hand size is small/empty then they can become very touch to get through later in the game.

Ashigaru another ice that could be quite wicket with this ID since it's based on hand size.

Panic Button could provide the corp with lots of options for getting more cards or keeping the runner out of a server if perhaps used in combo with Ashigaru & IQ

A good economy. - You are going to need ways of constantly generating income efficiently

Astounding financial discipline - A player that Dave Ramsey would be proud of.

Research Station & Cybernetics Court could go a long way towards mitigating the negative aspects of this ID

Blue Level Clearance both provides economy & card which addresses both the strength & weaknesses of Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers

Jackson Howard or Archived Memories could be used not so much an offensive but a defensive backup plan in case the corp runs out of money and ends up trashing cards that need to get out of archives

Hide at bottom strategy: With Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers ID & Daily Business Show installed and a slow draw strategy along with a protected R&D it may be possible to reserve a number of agendas keeping them out of HQ. With fewer or possibly no agendas in HQ, this ID is isn't as risky and HQ size could be allowed to grow a bit more allowing more options. Finally Shannon Claire could be used to undo the madness when the corp is ready to score.

Scorched Earth & SEA Source etc could combo with this ID to tag & bag the runner since the corp will inevitably always have a lot of in reserve that could be used in one big push to flat-line the runner.

Pros

You'll always tend to have a pile of money, which can be used for 1 big game-ending push

It may be possible that you could have like 35+ cards in your HQ, making it bigger than your R&D. Think of the power! Start practicing your evil villain laugh

If you have an agenda or two in your 35 card HQ, they are probably pretty safe, you may even be begging the runner to run on HQ, anything to draw attention away from the dwindling cards in your R&D.

If through some miracle you are able to pull off a win in a competitive tourney with this ID people will high-five you in the comments below this review!

As you spend turn after turn collecting income and not playing cards from your HQ, your opponent will rue the day he/she sat down to play with you.

Cons

As you spend turn after turn collecting income and not playing cards from your HQ, your opponent will rue the day he/she sat down to play with you.

Any slip up and agendas or other important cards will be picked up out of Archives by the runner

Judicious use of financial attack cards such as Account Siphon or Vamp etc could be devastating if the runner is able to time things well.

With your economy constantly being locked up, You risk being paralyzed from executing your strategy by facing sub-optimal choices in relation to the other cards in your HQ.

Summary

There is good reason why this ID hasn't been reviewed on this site up to this point. Most popular player ID's provide a unique bonus to the player, with little to no side effects. This ID is the antithesis of most in that it provides a severe negative with little to no benefit. This ID really cannot stand on it's own, it really needs combo cards that work with hand size etc, otherwise corp players rarely benefit from larger hand sizes in the way that the runners do so bottom line: Play with critical combos otherwise this ID shines best when viewed as a handicap, where an experience corp player can use this ID to help even the playing-field when playing against a novice player.

--It just saddens me when I see cards with no reviews. If you appreciated this review, please give a heart and I'll be encouraged to write more.

(Data and Destiny era)
I think, you are looking at this ID wrong. You evaluate it as if you are supposed to play this ID traditionally, with scoring servers and all. But that's not how you are supposed to play this ID. It's a combo ID. Why? Ask yourself, what do you need to launch a combo? —
I hate that you can't edit comments and that Shift+Enter posts it. —
Goddamit, is there any way to start a new line in this? Anyway. To launch a combo, you usually need: 1) all the card that are part of the combo; 2) money, to pay for playing those cards; 3) clicks, to actually play all these cards. Well, you connect 1 and 2 directly just with your ID text: you can have all the cards in the world in your HQ, as long as you have a ton of money. As for third part, well, it's an HB ID, which means you have all the tools to add clicks to your turn in your faction. You have Biotic Labor, Efficiency Commitee, Mandatory Upgrades and Director Haas(you probably won't use the last two here, but they exist and they are in faction). So here you go! You can cook up some wild combo and draw for it like there's no tomorrow, because you don't have to discard anything ever and you don't need to worry if currently unusable combo pieces clog your hand. —
I have actually ran and won with with this ID before. The combo is your money. When the runner looks at your Ashigaru with 30 end the runs subroutines or your strength 30 IQ with an underway behind it can be daunting to overcome. Corporate Warfare becomes an amazing card here to advance your points and your hand. Panic Button fills your hand and Ash and Off the Grid to keep the runner out. Yes, this ID has a significant disadvantage to Siphon and Vamp which are both popular cards and why i don't think this ID has gone mainstream in addition to the fact it is hard to manage. —
This review feels very like the early impressions we got of CI, just after C&C came out. Those impressions were correct, at that time, but cards like Celebrity Gift, Shipment from SanSan, BLC, Restructure, Power Shutdown, and Accelerated Diagnostics helped make it much, much, better. CI was actually a Tier 1 deck in late 2013, early 2014, but really fell out of popularity with the printing of Legwork and to a lesser extent, the resurgence of Noise. —
Thanks xymel85, I've updated the review to include the combos you've mentioned, my respect for this ID has definitely grown! —