Slow advance Nebula

"The first time each turn a tag is removed, you may reveal and install 1 card from HQ, ignoring all costs."

"install 1 card from HQ, ignoring all costs"

"ignoring all costs"

Synapse is NOT asset spam, Synapse is an old school Glacier id

Play style

1. get rich (Petty Cash + Hedge Fund = lol 6 hedge fund)
2. tag the runner (Funhouse, Oppo Research, Behold!)
3. install big ice (Ivik, Boto, N-Pot)
4. slowly manually advance agendas
5. win

I love this card, thematically. Using one scheme to restore a "dead" Agenda and bring it to fruition. I feel like all sorts of cloning or Frankenstein-y metaphors could have been used, but I love the choice to go full Jurassic Park! De-extinction is such a fun big swing. And it's simultaneously a reminder that InGen [and John Hammond] IS a giant megacorp doing questionable science. Not a traditional go-to reference for the genre, and I just think that's neat. : )

"Welcome... to Holocene Park!"

Scrounge pairs an immediate Program-recursion (install from heap) with an “eventual” recursion (bottom from heap), under a non-interactive condition (spending an extra [click] is kinda like making a “non-taxing, auto-succeeding run”).

Design

Doesn't force a shuffle (which saves time). You can still trigger a shuffle if you want to draw it sooner (like by Boomerang), or even tutor for it immediately (like with Mutual Favor or Muse).

Doesn't require a run (unlike NSG's Katorga Breakout, versus FFG's Déjà Vu); but it is a Double, cannot recur Events, and so on.

While “undertucking” (IE. Add 1 _ from your heap to the bottom of your stack.) is frequently irrelevant, it is more relevant in Netrunner than most card games. Which (in a Core set like Elevation), can clue in newer players about how your deck-count changes during gameplay: the rate of card flow, the importance/presence of recursion, and so on. That is:

• In Dominion–likes (where you redraw a five-card hand every turn, while drawing from smaller decks too), you will reshuffle your discard-pile into your draw-pile every few turns.
• In Magic: the Gathering–likes (where you draw one card at the start your turn like the Corp, but lack any basic-action to draw more, and won't be playing more than a single card a turn from hand anyways), you almost never “bottom out”, with Ashen Epilogue–style recursion being unplayable outside of a minority of archetypes/formats.

Notes

• Can (quasi-)reverse Stavka’s double-destruction.
• Can mitigate a Saisentan.
• At just 1inf/5, it's very splashable into: Criminal (for not getting locked out, if your singleton icebreaker gets Destroyer's/AP'd); and Shaper (for… all your programs, if necessary).
• BTW, if you install a Muse and tuck a Coalescence, does it let you Muse for that same Coalescence ?

The Plaza is like PAD Campaign with a “tag shield”.

Design

Design-wise, for rashing installed/rezzed assets/upgrades, I like adding intrinsic non-credit costs (like Daniela Jorge Inácio) or non-cost punishment (like Nanoetching Matrix/Calvin B4L3Y). These provide a different texture to horizontal interaction (CF. how against PE, the bottleneck becomes cards-in-grip more than credits-in-pool).

For example, post–Threat 2, if the Runner immediately basic-detags after basic-running and trashing it, then (even if spammed/uniced), they've spent [click], 4[$] (exactly one click more than PAD, modulo the card itself).

Templating-wise, the trashes this (when rezzed) reminder-text is necessary in a core set like Elevation, and would be appreciated in any set. (IIRC, at first, I had to Google whether Marilyn Campaign still got shuffled back if it were installed but not rezzed yet.)

Custom

We could also print assets whose “pseudo-trash-costs” are helping the Corp, rather than hurting the Runner; and which trigger if installed, whether rezzed or unrezzed (IE. When the Runner trashes this asset while installed even unrezzed, …), or that get a bonus For having rezzed it (IE. If this asset was rezzed, instead …). Thus, pseudo-defending themselves while still driving the game forwards. For example (the rez cost being 2[$] and the printed trash cost being 1[$].):

[$2] ASSET [-$1]: Academic [🟥 2/5]

When your turn begins, gain 1[$] or draw 1 card.

When the Runner trashes this asset while installed even unrezzed, you may install 1 card from HQ into the root of another server.

[$2] ASSET [-$2]: Academic [🟩 2/5]

When your turn begins, gain 1[$] or draw 1 card.

When the Runner trashes this asset while installed even unrezzed, you may install 1 piece of ice from HQ, ignoring all costs. If this asset was rezzed, you may rez that ice, paying 2[$] less.

[$2] ASSET [-$1]: Academic [🟨 2/5]

When your turn begins, gain 1[$] or draw 1 card.

When the Runner trashes this asset while installed even unrezzed, you may place a total of 2 advancement counters on installed cards you can advance.

[$2] ASSET [-$0]: Academic [🟪 2/5]

When your turn begins, gain 1[$] or draw 1 card.

When the Runner trashes this asset while installed even unrezzed, you may add 1 non-asset card from Archives to the top of R&D. If this asset was rezzed, you may add that card to HQ instead.

Lamplighter is, by many metrics, a pretty efficient ice:

• 2 to rez, and generally 2 to break, although later on Echelon breaks it for 1 if the runner is not tagged. Particularly efficient against Carmen and Revolver which are very popular killers.
• Fairly bad on a face-check, either giving a tag and ending the run, or forcing the runner to pay 3 (and not ending the run).

The trashing text seems like a big drawback, but can be worked around by only using it to protect assets. For example in AU Co.: The Gold Standard in Clones this could be used to protect Bladderwort, Cohort Guidance Program, Phật Gioan Baotixita, and then that text will never come into effect. Similarly it could be used in Poétrï Luxury Brands: All the Rage decks that use Scatter Field to protect remotes.

Compared to Whitespace, it feels similar in that it ends the run if the runner is too poor, but not otherwise, and a rich enough runner doesn't need a breaker to get past it. However, the cutoff for whitespace is 10 credits to run through it, while for lamplighter it's only 3. Another difference is that the runner can use Overclock and Cezve credits to pay the tax, due to the difference in mechanics.

Obviously, it's more attractive in corps that have other ways of tagging the runner, particularly, if they don't clear tags after Oppo Research then they have to break both subs of Lamplighter.

The biggest downside that I see to this ice is, similar to Palisade, it really would rather not be on a central server, although for different reasons. However, this can lead to much worse Turn 1's for the corp, if the only ice in your opening hand is Lamplighter. So, perhaps it's most interesting for corps that really are installing so many threatening assets that it isn't essential to ice HQ on turn 1.