Cloud Eater

♦ Cloud Eater 10[credit]

Ice: Sentry - AP - Destroyer - Observer
Strength: 6
Influence: 3

Whenever an encounter with this ice ends, if it was rezzed this turn, trash 1 installed Runner card unless the Runner takes 2 tags or suffers 3 net damage.

[subroutine] Trash 1 installed Runner card.

[subroutine] Give the Runner 2 tags.

[subroutine] Do 3 net damage.

Don’t let it catch your scent.
Illustrated by Elwin "Jakuza" Rumplmair
Decklists with this card

Rebellion Without Rehearsal (rwr)

#110 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Rulings
  • Updated 2024-05-27

    When the Runner is forced to encounter Cloud Eater with Ganked! or Sisyphus Protocol, does the end of encounter conditional ability meet its trigger condition?

    Yes, as long as Cloud Eater was rezzed this turn.

  • Updated 2024-05-27

    When resolving Cloud Eater’s effect upon the end of encounter, does the Corp choose what card they intend to trash before the Runner chooses if they will take 2 tags or 3 net damage?

    No, the Runner must first decide if they want to pay the nested cost. If they choose not to, then the Corp chooses a card to trash.

Reviews

Wake up everyone. New big-ass ICE just dropped. Big in cost, big in strength, big in impact, big shits in your pants if you get hit by it. Any unique piece of ICE had better be like that, given that you can only have one rezzed.

Interesting mechanics surrounding its encounter status, too. We all know the "when encountered" ability, having paid for more Tollbooths than a lot of us would have liked to (on both sides of the game!), but how many ICE have "when the encounter ENDS" abilities? Not like Kakugo where the net damage hits after you pass the ICE, because an encounter with a piece of ICE ends whether you break the subroutines or not. Touch this snake in any way and you will get bit.

And what a bite! You as the corp trash one of the Runner's cards unless they take two tags or three net damage? Brutal. Those are the subroutines you'd have to break anyway! No wonder this thing costs 10. That still might be cheap considering how much tempo this will cost the runner. Maybe even if this was illicit and gave the corp bad puclicity if they rezzed it. That's how hard this thing hits.

One question I have is how bypass abilities work in relation to the encounter ending. My assumption is that bypassing essentially acts like the encounter didn't happen, so you would pass through without dealing with this monster.

Bottom line, find ways to avoid encountering this most dangerous noodle.

(Rebellion Without Rehearsal era)

Depends on the card. If the text says "on the encounter blahblah, then bypass" there has been an encounter so Cloud Eater fires. Inside job bypasses before encountering for example then Cloud Eater doesn't happen.

No, Cloud Eater’s ability fires even after bypassed by Inside Job. It’s the same effect as Anansi. Short of trashing/derezzing it before the encounter ends there’s no way to stop it from happening.

Sadly, Flip Switch does actually stop the ability from firing, because of the paid ability window on approach (before encounter). :/ I had this happen to me and even though I was very rich, the tempo hit from outright rezzing this for the full price and then nothing happening cost me dearly.

This is an auto include in glacier decks, and probably other decks where you want to fuck the runner. Something tells me this is OP, because you cannot deal with it either way. The corp will rez it when it hurts from a program trash, which means the runner will get burned from a significant tempo hit on losing a key breaker, or they'll be slammed by losing three cards AND (not OR) taking two tags. Yes it's unique, which seems necessary, but really, are you rezzing multiple 10 cost ice? A program trash, or two tag hit works of any faction, so expect to see this get splashed. This feels like power creep.