Congratulations!

Congratulations! 1[credit]

Ice: Code Gate - Advertisement
Strength: 3
Influence: 2

When the Runner passes this ice, gain 1[credit].

[subroutine] Gain 2[credit]. The Runner gains 1[credit].

You are the ONE BILLIONTH visitor!
Illustrated by NtscapeNavigator
Decklists with this card

Downfall (df)

#50 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Printings
Downfall
Rulings

No rulings yet for this card.

Reviews

The obvious comparison for this is Pop-up Window.

The differences are:
• Nets you 3c instead of 1c (if the runner doesn’t beak it)
• The runner also nets 1c is they let the sub fire
• Doesn’t tax the runner if they’re willing to let you gain creds
• 3str instead of 0
• 1c to rez instead of 0
• 2 inf instead of 1
• No conditional ETR

They’re both cheap, mildly annoying NBN Code Gates. Being Advertisements, they both gain extra value out of Spark. So which to include?

So far I’ve yet to see it take over Pop-up as the de facto cheap/annoying NBN ICE. I think they’re pretty evenly matched power-wise but I think the fact that it gifts the runner creds and doesn’t tax if they let it fire are keeping it from seeing play. Out of Spark, it might be worth including a couple of both, but otherwise I think Pop-up still wins out.

Regardless, it’s a well designed Nisei card that boosts a fairly fringe ID. It‘s great to see them releasing cards that have the potential to make underused IDs more viable.

(Downfall era)
88
While it makes sense to compare this to Pop-up Window being cheap ad NBN ice, I think the more appropriate comparison is to Slot Machine. Despite Slot Machine costing slightly extra to rez, its swing is almost always better than Congratulations. You're only going to be playing this ice for its subtype in Spark. —
That’s fair, though I’m not sure the two ICE would be necessarily competing for the same slot. SM is taxing while this generates income. I’ve seen people suggest that it might work out a deck like PE that doesn’t care too much about the runner having money, though I’m not sure it’d be worth the 2 inf a pop. —
Overall I agree. If you're not using it for its subtype, it's still just a net 2 credit swing (+3 for you +1 for the Runner compared to Popup: +1 for you -1 for the Runner) with the difference being that Popup takes away from the Runner whereas Congratulations! doesn't. I've heard it said before, that in a world of infinite money, the runner always wins because your ICE and assets then don't really exist. You probably don't want to stack this in a heavily ICEd very high either, considering its monitory gain would be offset by the increased ICE cost. That being said--perhaps Congratulations! Perhaps this is more of an early asset protection card? Maybe a, "Sure, you might trash my Marilyn campaign, but you just paid me 3 credits to shuffle it back into R&D" kind of thing. —
It seems likely that there will be an ad-based NBN ID in the next Nisei pack. I think that despite the subtype this is a huge nombo in Spark. Spark wants the runner broke and miserable. It doesn't want to be playing anything that says 'give the runner money'. —