Why is this card so bad? I feel like it could have been 10 payoff and it would have been fine as a grudgingly-included last economy card. At the moment I think it can sometimes that, but including it feels horrible.

It is however an opportunity to showcase the objectively correct way to evaluate economy cards™. This involves numbers in the format 'x/ for y clicks. This should be calculated using the simplifying assumption that a card requires 1 to draw and 1 to play. A Sure Gamble, for instance, makes a profit of 4 spread over the 2 it takes to draw and play. This means its payoff is is 2/ for 2 clicks. Sometimes you migh situationally want to count or not-count a click in this evaluation. If you're making a Clean Getaway, for instance, you might choose to count the associated run as an end in itself and accordingly discount the cost to play it. This makes its payoff an efficient burst of 3/ for 1 click. If you're just running archives for no other benefit, though, it makes sense to count the click in your evaluation, making it a much less attractive 1.5/ for 2 clicks.

In addition to the pure numbers, of course, you should also count in the faff and delay associated with said economy. Many resources are more efficient than Operations in terms of the calculation above, but annoying in other ways. Examples include Environmental Testing (3/ for 2 clicks!) and Smartware Distributor, which asymptotically approaches 3/ for ∞ clicks but only manages 1/ for 3 clicks over 3 turns, 1.5/ for 4 clicks over 6 turns, 1.8/ for 5 clicks over 9 turns, etc. Faff and delay is often far more situational to evaluate than the pure numbers, but you can often put numbers on it using sensible rules of thumb, for instance counting the card drawn by Side Hustle as a saved. You can also use this framework to evaluate, for instance, the efficiency of clicking for a so that you can afford to play a Sure Gamble (1.667/ for 3 clicks).

So using this framework, let's evaluate Rent Rioters. It's ability requires extra s to be spent, so overall it pays us 1.4 / for 5 clicks, a total profit of 7. That's pretty uninspiring - it's less efficient per than the Clean Getaway on archives we evaluated, which is a pretty horrible indictment. Its only advantage is that it allows us to get that horribly low-efficiency economy over more s invested. Added to this, it is significantly faffy to use. Spending all together is unwieldy enough that it usually stops the runner running for the turn, taking significant pressure off the corp. And until you've done that, this card puts you 2 down.

So that's why it's bad. It has bad numbers, and it's a pain to use.

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.