• Sure Gamble requires 5 credits.
• Runners start the game with 5 credits.

With it's unmatched click efficiency and it's prerequisite satisfied by the runner's opening hand, Sure Gamble is the best economic card for early pressure.

Early game credits are more important than late-game credits.

Thus: Sure Gamble is a very strong card.

Everything wrong in netrunner at its core dwell in this card.

Runners are, very obviously, criminals breaking that law of peace and order that is set in that uncertain future setting of netrunner. There are various hints in the game that shows how peaceful and free that utopic future is. Isn't it "essential to liberate a populace from tyranny before that tyranny takes root"?

That's the role of the benevolent Haas-Bioroid, Jinteki, NBN, and last but not least Weyland.

It seems right that they enter the game by commiting their first of a long series of crimes. Gamblers : that's what the self-proclamated saviours from the evil corporations are. Do you really support juvenile delinquency ?

Look at how capitalistic this card is in essence : the rich gets richer while the poor must backbreakingly click for mere credits. Would you really want to play a game that promotes oppression of the working class ? Where the runners, the opponents of the "capitalistic powers" are using far more immoral ways than the people they are fighting? ( Must i remind that the really naughty corporations feed the world ?)

Here we clearly see how the logic of running is flawed : righteous people will stay away from this game, or at least, from this card.

Pros

• Can give economic advantage to the runner due to burst credit nature
• With planning this card can sustain a deck after the expensive runs

Cons

• It requires a pool of 5 credits be kept free to allow play. This doesn’t happen in games against really taxing Corp decks
• There are cheaper burst credit cards out there now (e.g. Lucky Find)

Combos

• works really well in most decks
• works well with other burst economy cards, e.g. Easy Mark, Lucky Find
• works well as the single burst economy card with drip feed cards, e.g. Daily Casts

Final Thoughts

• Sure Gamble used to be an auto-include in every runner deck. These days, though, there are so many economic models out there that it no longer holds that glorified spot of “auto-include”.
• Sure Gamble is a fantastic card and provide extremely strong economic turn-around for the runner if it is played at the right time. This card can turn the tide of a game.

Comparison to other Economy Events

Stimhack - One brain damage and the credits, while a 9 credit gain, are only good for one click.

Easy Mark - 0 Investment, but only 3 credits

Infiltration - 0 Investment, but only 2 credits

Freelance Coding Contract - A possible 10 credit profit for 0 investment, but requires five programs in hand to make that much use out of it. And ways to recur those programs from the Heap

Dirty Laundry 2 credit investment, 3 credit profit, requiring a successful run. Not to hard, but not always a guarantee and by far the least profit gaining, unless combined with the likes of Datasucker, Desperado, Security Testing to maximize the effect of that run

Queen's Gambit - Risky, but possibly a 5 credit gain (second click of the double costs 1 credit) - but could be very risky. - Same profit as Sure gamble but less flexible.

Power Nap - Can generate absurd amounts of credits (I've seen it generate 17+) but requires a very specific deck.

Lucky Find - 3 credit investment, 5 credit gain (the extra click costs 1 credit) - so better profit for less investment, which is what makes Lucky Find so popular. But the influence costs can be troublesome.

Calling in Favors - 0 investment and potentially a large profit, but requires a certain deck.

Inject - 1 Cost investment, potentially 3 credit gain. Better to be used as a draw card than economy.

Day Job - 2 credit, 3 click investment (5 credts?) for a 8 credit (5 credit?) profit. Can be useful for bursting upwards in a safe moment and closing scoring windows.

5 out of 5

3-of in just about every Runner deck, meaning you should have a good reason you aren't running it, makes this one of the best cards out there. Provides one of the best and most reliable economic bursts which makes it essential for getting though expensive Ice.

Literally the Runner economy card by which all others are measured. This core set staple is good in all stages of the game netting 4 for the low low cost of having 5 at your disposal. Bonus synergy when turning a nasty trap like Shi.Kyū or News Team into a free 9 using The Shadow Net.

While useful at all stages of the game Sure Gamble excels on the first turn allowing you to set up your rig that much faster to threaten servers that much faster. In fact this is such a generally useful neutral card at 0 influence that it is an auto-include in almost all runner decks ( 91% of runner decks as of 4/7/18 according to knowthemeta.com). One would need to have a good reason to NOT include 3 copies of this card in your deck!

Long may our elite hackers make a profit by defrauding casinos and online gambling halls to acquire the funds to steal sensitive corporate secrets!

7 Apr 2018

(Written During the Devil and the Dragon Era)

(P.S. it saddens me to see cards without reviews! Do your part to give these orphaned cards some love!)

You will be hard pressed to find a runner withou 3x Sure Gamble in it. It is the stable of burst econ. Giving a net of 4 credits.

Notable interaction with Mystic Maemi and Patchwork.

Mystic Maemi will allow you to play Sure Gamble and use the creds on Mystic Maemi. Basically, it will give the runner all the creds on Mystic Maemi, giving a net gain of 5 to 7 creds.

With Patchwork, trashing card will let you gain an extra 2 creds when using Sure Gamble, for a net 6 creds.

The only other burst econ card that compare in ease of use is Easy Mark, which gain you a net of 3 creds. Any other burst econ card have extra conditions attached (successful run, run on an ice, give token, take a tag, etc.).

Since Sure Gamble is neutral, you will always see it in a runner deck. Burst econ goes a long way, and 4 creds is good burst econ. While you can make a deck without it, for example, if you make a ressource heavy deck using Oracle May, it will be slightly slower than other deck because of the lack of burst econ.

Finally, let's face it, Sure Gamble could be the face of the runner side of Netrunner. The quote, the lore, the flavor, the art, the cards... This is Netrunner.

Sure Gamble is a card that I highly recommend for your deck. it fits just about all the time in a deck. it's especially powerful when you get it in your starting hand, because it costs 5 credits and you start with 5. if you play this for your first click, you'll have 9 credits to play that expensive card in your hand!

I dislike it :-)

It's still pretty essential of course and yet its theme only suits alimited set of the ID's mostly at the criminal end of the spectrum. I wish there was a card that did exactly the same thing, but had a theme better suited to a shaper mindset.

But I guess they do have Magnum Opus and can tutor for it these days. Maybe I just need to figure out better economic models for.

It is hard to find a deck without this iconic card. The art and quote might change, the card stay. This is the basic of economy for a runner, just like its corp mirror Hedge Fund. It teach a simple thing to new players : it takes money to make money.

You can get even better return if you use Mystic Maemi or Prepaid VoicePAD. Also, for most deck, this is one of the best card to have in your starting hand.

Love the quote, nice art, for the most commonly used card in netrunner (is that an issue?).