End of the Line

End of the Line 3[credit]

Operation: Black Ops
Influence: 4

As an additional cost to play this operation, remove 1 tag.

Do 4 meat damage.

Under northern skies Sundog had lived all his life, and under them he would die.
Illustrated by Olie Boldador
Decklists with this card

Parhelion (ph)

#125 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Printings
Rulings
Reviews

End of the Line is a rerelease of Scorched Earth, with the condition changing slightly to removing the tag instead of them just needing a tag. Therefore, firing a double EotL is harder than landing a double Scorched Earth. You may want to combo it with other tag damage, like Hypoxia, or damage you can fire at any time, like Angelique Garza Correa. Really just anything you have to drop them to 3 cards without spending the tag. To get the tag, you may want traps like Behold! or Snare!, or aggressive sentry ice like Seraph, or even Pharos If they lack a fracter or are poor. Operations like Public Trail or Oppo Research can get them tags, though both rely on you having an econ advantage, with public trail giving the runner the option to pay 8 to avoid it and Oppo Research needing them to be unable to clear 2 or 4 tags in a single turn to get back to you being able to kill them. So End of the Line requires support, and for you to be either in a winning board state, or a particular losing one.

However, on a personal note, I feel End of the Line is one of the best ways to end a game. Flatlines feel more personal than scoring out to me. I was going to renovate Oaktown whether or not a cyberterrorist decided to cross me, but I, CEO Braganza, took time out of my busy day to coordinate my kill teams to find and eliminate the criminal. End of the Line ends the game with a flourish. You say End of the Line, letting them know their story has come to its conclusion, then pull the trigger. And it's always exhilarating to pull victory from the jaws of defeat, turning their risky run to steal an agenda for an advantage into their final mistake.

(Rebellion Without Rehearsal era)

A lot of runner will die to tag and bag, with the help of this card. The power is enough to be worth splashed out of faction, even at 4 influences.

First, I really like the mechanic that tag punishment remove the tag use to dish the punishment, I think it is a good balancing mechanism, especially to powerful cards. This also means that you cannot use two copy of this card to do 8 damages to a runner with a single tag. If you were to plan to do more than 4 damages, when there is 2 tags and more, you should use BOOM!.

To use this card is all about timing, since you need the runner to have 3 cards in hand or less AND a way to put a tag on the runner. The funny part is that in faction, you will have to rely on putting a tag on the runner on their turn, using Forced Connection, Overseer Matrix, Colossus, Mausolus, Pharos, Surveyor or Veritas.

Most probably, you'll rely on either Public Trail or Drago Ivanov. The latter, if left unattended on the board, can put a tag with 2 before using End of the Line on the last click.

There are tricks you can do with Ob Superheavy Logistics: Extract. Export. Excel. to get Drago Ivanov quickly on the board, as soon as you see the runner have 3 or less cards in hand.

If this is popular in the meta, it will encourage the runner to slow down their gameplay to make sure to have 4+ cards in hand.

If you rely on putting multiple tags, with tools like Mutually Assured Destruction and Hard-Hitting News, then I think it would be better to use BOOM!.

The art and quote explain well the effect of the card and its name. For my part, I like art that look like comics and mangas. Great card!

(Parhelion era)
4248

This card has changed the way I build and play runner decks. It's so difficult to run your strat without worrying about this card that my decks have become almost irrelevant if I dont's have a counter planned. Basically, I'm running with 3 clicks instead of 4 so I can clear tags before the end of my turn. It's brutal.

(Parhelion era)

Some of us from the old guard see this less as a change, and more as the return. We remember Scorched Earth+SEA Source, and we will never forget.

It's good to see kill back in Startup, and while this isn't massively present currently it's nice to know we'll have something to succeed BOOM! in Standard come rotation.