Preemptive Action

Preemptive Action 0[credit]

Operation: Terminal
Influence: 0

After you resolve this operation, end your action phase.

Shuffle 3 cards from Archives into R&D. Remove Preemptive Action from the game instead of trashing it.

Illustrated by VIKO
Decklists with this card

Intervention (in)

#80 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Printings
Intervention
Rulings
  • Updated 2017-04-12

    UFAQ [Damon Stone]

    How does "After you resolve this operation, end your action phase." on terminal operations like Preemptive Action work?

    Immediately after the operation resolves and is trashed from playing it, "after you resolve this operation" triggers meet their trigger condition. Ending the action phase then advances the game to the discard phase. This skips the paid ability window that would normally follow the end of an action, ceases the resolution of any other pending abilities or effects, and invalidates any conditional abilities. If the operation was played as part of a card ability, any remaining effects from that card ability immediately stop resolving as well.

    If the Corp plays Preemptive Action as the first operation for Subcontract, what happens?

    The game advances to the discard phase following the resolution and trashing of Preemptive Action. The paid ability window that would normally follow the action of playing Subcontract is skipped, and no pending abilities or triggers are resolved - including the playing of a second operation with Subcontract. The played Subcontract is immediately trashed by the game because its resolution is ceased and considered complete.

    If the Corp plays Preemptive Action as one of the operations looked at by Accelerated Diagnostics, what happens?

    The game advances to the discard phase following the resolution and trashing of Preemptive Action. The paid ability window that would normally follow the action of playing Accelerated Diagnostics is skipped, and no pending abilities or triggers are resolved - including the playing or trashing of any remaining cards looked at by Accelerated Diagnostics. The played Accelerated Diagnostics is immediately trashed by the game because its resolution is ceased and considered complete.

Reviews

At the time of this writing, you'll notice there's a loooooot of corp cards coming out that essentially do what Jackson Howard does, but weaker. The reason being of course that our beloved Toy Boy, the Howard himself, will soon be gone, and corps need a way to survive without his infuriating strong (and painfully necessary) effect. This is one of those cards.

It does the job well enough. Find a way to overdraw, or trash agendas from HQ, and then this turn or the next play Preemptive Action, making them safe again. It may not have the ability to bait that an asset like Jackson may have, but this card can't be trashed (at least, not easily) and doesn't cost any influence either, so its got that going for it.

Which isn't to say it doesn't have its negatives. Remember how I said "this turn or the next" up there? Well, if you've really got no way to get the flood out of your hand besides overdrawing, then you have no choice--You have to let those agendas sit in archives for an entire runner's turn, a dangerous prospect. It gets even more dangerous if the runner runs on HQ after you do so and sees this card in your hand. They'll know exactly what to do next. Finally, if you do want to use it the same turn you trash those agendas, you not only need at least one more card to make the combo work, but that's gonna be most of your turn to boot. Not an attractive prospect.

Still, what can you do? I'll tell you what you can do. You can stick three of these and three Jacksons in your deck while he's still legal and have recursion strength that up until now was reserved for those scumbags, the runners. So slot these cards and a crapton of operations in your deck and GO WILD WHILE YOU CAN FOLKS.

(Intervention era)
197
This is a little like an operation version of Museum of History. OH GOD NO NOT THIS AGAIN! —