Prey

Prey 0[credit]

Event: Run
Influence: 2

Make a run. Once during this run, when you pass a piece of ice, you may trash a number of your installed cards equal to the strength of that ice. If you do, trash that ice.

Illustrated by Ethan Patrick Harris
Decklists with this card

Data and Destiny (dad)

#31 • English
Startup Card Pool
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Rulings

No rulings yet for this card.

Reviews

Şifr might be worth combining with this card. If my understanding of the rules is correct, if you reduce ice strength to 0 while playing Prey, you may trash 0 of your installed cards to trash the 0 strength ice. If this is correct, Şifr would make this a 0, Forked, Knifed and Spooned all in one card. And, unlike the cutlery events, you are not limited to the first piece of ice you break subroutines on, you get to choose which of the ice you want to trash.

(Daedalus Complex era)
73
Thankfully, the text reads 'when you pass a piece of ice', which means the encounter has finished and the ice has returned to it's normal strength. —
^ this. —
Yeah you are right. Prey is crap. —
Actually, it's not that crappy. It specifically trashes stuff that doesn't hard stop you, which is great for Apex, who can't easily be stopped thanks to Endless Hunger. And it gets easily rid of low strength ICE (even taxing ones like Komainu). And what you said in your review still holds, for the most part: it's a 0 cost ICE trashing event that can target any ICE (not just the first), regardless of type. Of course, for being that flexible and powerful it needs to have a steep price to not be plain imba and that price is trashing your own stuff. —
If I use DDos to bypass a piece of ice can I use Prey? —

You couldn´t use ddos to bypass it. As for Logic Bomb which you maybe meant, you can

Really handy for muching small pieces of ice. Probably not likely to see a whole lot of play outside of Apex, but still a useful option to keep in mind for ice removal.

It shines best for blowing up 0 or 1 strength ice. Pop-up Window is usually a good use for it. Quandary is good, if you can get through. It's a good way to avoid having to pay the tax for Errand Boy or Komainu too often. And if you can sink a Tour Guide with it before it gets too expensive, then you're in good shape.

One important part about this card: Unlike the Anarch silverware suite, (Spooned, Knifed, Forked) Prey does not require you to actually break the ice - you just need to somehow get past it. So ice that doesn't end the run is fairly vulnerable to it, and if you get desperate, things like Inside Job can be used to trigger it as well.

(Data and Destiny era)
742
But inside job is another run event. But you can bypass it with Femme Fatale or with security nexus. —
Whoops, you're exactly right. When I wrote it, I was thinking "it even works if you bypass with Security Nexus or Femme!" and then thought "why stop there, let's just go with the easiest bypass effect - inside job!" and forgot that it doesn't actually work when paired with other events. This is why I shouldn't write card reviews at 2am. —
Datasucker is Prey's BFF!!! —
No it's not, you dumbass... —

Prey has an incredibly useful effect and is far more general than Forked, Knifed Spooned and Run Amok which all have restrictions and conditions regarding which Ice you can target. Unfortunately Prey asks you to trash installed cards, which is typically undesirable outside of Apex: Invasive Predator or maybe Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire decks. It is already clear that Datasucker or Ice Carver will not help you lower the strength of Ice for Prey and using Scrubbed could be considered a little excessive. So how do we lower the strength of Ice outside of an encounter?

Bishop is the only option apart from Parasite to lower strength outside of runs.

Wyrm: One of the most derided and disliked AI breakers has finally found a purpose. It is time for this ugly duckling to find a place in the sun. Since Apex will already have e3 Feedback Implants as well it might even potentially be used as a backup breaker, although Wyrm is still hideously expensive for that purpose. Maybe a backup breaker for the backup breaker? You will need an extra 1 for that however.

(Business First era)
492
As far as I know, Wyrm can only be used during the encounter. And it has to be the same strange as that ICE, so you need to pump it up. —
When passed ice occurs at the same time as the end of the encounter, so the ice may retain its low strength for prey? —
I looked up the rules and you are right. I'll fix the review thanks. —
Null: Whistleblower and Scrubbed both lower the strength of ice for the remainder of the run - so they will work in conjunction with Prey. —

When you play Apex: Invasive Predator, there are two ways to build the deck : either with Apocalypse or with Prey. The former makes you build all around the fact that you'll trash your own board. The later (this card) is more a regular runner. It feels more like a different Hippo.

Outside of Apex, this card is more suite to trash low strenght ice, because it require you to trash something from your board. A long time ago, there was Tour Guide that was nice to trash with this, now there is Endless EULA, Whitespace and Echo which can be trashed easily with this. At only two influence, it could be imported if your deck worries about those ices (especially Endless EULA). Otherwise, only Apex can really leverage this card to trash high strength ices.

The art is colorful, but a bit oversaturated, making it difficult to understand that those are tentacles from Apex: Invasive Predator. Still, quite thematic for the faction. Like always, I would have prefered if there was a quote or small bit of lore with the card. The name of the card really work with the concept of it. All in all, a good job.

(Parhelion era)
3836