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.

A near-print of Immolation Script. The main difference is that it can hit assets and upgrades as well as ice.

Influence is also reduced to 2, but I wouldn't expect to see it much outside of anarch, since it's likely strongest in a deck using sabotage to put more cards in archives, or as a way to recover Audrey v2 counters after a purge.

Oftentimes, the corp is unprepared for this card, so sometimes it can have high impact when it lands. Taking out key defensive upgrades (Anoetic Void, ZATO City Grid) unexpectedly can help the runner crack into a remote.

Additionally, it can be more effective against corps like AU Co.: The Gold Standard in Clones and Nuvem SA: Law of the Land that tend to mill themselves, since more possible targets for Charm Offensive appear in archives faster.

The biggest drawback is likely that, early in the game, it may be a dead card, and it's ultimately highly situational what its impact is.

However, in many important matchups it seems likely to be able to do something useful, like snipe copies of Mercia B4LL4RD or Phật Gioan Baotixita.

Might be fun to splash in Tāo Salonga: Telepresence Magician, since corps often don’t ice archives against him.

This might sound weird but I wanted to write an obituary. Asa Group was and still is one of my favourite identities of all time and and it's rotation felt all too soon.

It had a rather unique style of play, never truly going tall, like glacial decks, and not as wide as full asset spam, it lived somewhere inbetween, creating multiple remote server and yet icing them all up. It was one of those rare Corp statergies that both felt fun to play and fun to play against, you never felt quite locked out against Asa Group, nor overwhelmed by credit denial or swamped in tags or hand-pressure. It was made up, almost exclusively by scoring decks, primarily ones that tried to score behind ice, in remote servers and yet it wasn't your conventional mid-range deck. Yes it used tempo tools to rapidly score out behind gear check ice but there was also a kind of added intrigue and nuance, you almost felt like you were building a Rube Goldberg machine in real time, assembling a fascinating assembly line to score out agenda after agenda. When it worked it was a kind of organic, velvety smooth process, the likes of which I hadn't found before and haven't found again since it's rotation.

I want to use this space to leave a memory of Asa Group behind, something to explain how it worked and why it worked towards the end of it's lifetime in standard and I figured there was no better place to put it than here.

Liberation

Asa Groups ascension to greatness undoutably began with the release of the Liberation Cycle, make no mistake, many of it's strong cards originate in prior sets Fully Operational most notably but also just staples like Ikawah Project, Project Vitruvius, Rashida Jaheem, Tranquility Home Grid, Drafter or Gatekeeper come from earlier sets. But Liberation brought with it half a dozen or so very strong asset cards which Asa Group was well positioned to make use of.

Wage Workers and The Powers That Be

Two "nearprints" of much older asset tools, Jeeves Model Bioroids and Team Sponsorship respectively that any asset deck was happy to have, but which slotted particularly well into Asa Group as they allowed you to rapidly set up, easily score and then rapidly rebuild and tempo forward after scoring.

Ablative Barrier and Tatu-Bola

Two pieces of gearcheck ice that fit exceptionally with Asa Group's gameplan, allowing you to protect your existing assets with affordable gear checks while potential setting up future plays. Asa's "once per turn" effect was especially useful here as it allowed you to install two cards from Ablative Barrier instead of one, reinstalling an important asset from Archives while protecting it with a piece of ice from HQ at the same time. Meanwhile Tatu-Bola allowed you to change the contents of a server mid-run, rapidly adapting to changing boardstates and outplaying the Runner in the process.

Cohort Guidance Program and The Holo Man

These cards didn't show up in every variant of Asa Group, but were important in the ones they did, Cohort gave Asa some draw filtering while making you money and then could pivot on a dime into a surprising neveradvance tool to rapidly score out 4/2s or score out a 3/2 and have a click left behind to still get an Asa double install on the turn you score. Meanwhile The Holo Man was a powerful, re-usable fast-advance tool that doubled as never-advance and it's mobile capabilities fit perfectly into the semi-horizontal style of play Asa employed.

The Meta Game

Part of what allowed Asa Group to really thrive in the 2024 Worlds Championship was the spread of top-performing runners. While Anarchs could bulldoze Asa, homogenizing and invalidating their single iced-server gearchecks with Bankhar, Shapers (the dominant faction of the tournament) actually needed to present unique breakers to deal with every type of ice, making a mixture of cheap yet powerful gearchecks the perfect compliment to an otherwise fragile asset statergy.

In fact, many asset decks pivoted to include a surpirsing amount of ice at top tables during worlds with both the winning R+ list and the runner-up Personal Evolution list including 8+ ice, a surprsingly large number for decks otherwise largely focused on assets. These inclusions gave the asset lists depth by forcing out breakers, augmeting the functional trash costs of their most important assets and providing utility through forced tags, damage and tempo (like from the aforementioned Ablative Barrier and Tatu-Bola).

Despite not making the finals, the most represented identity in the top cut was in fact Asa Group, with mutliple different variants, brought by multiple different testing teams and many players performing well across the two days leading up to the cut. These decks ability to pressure Shapers from multiple angles simultaneously while scoring out quickly before the Shapers could reach their inevitable end game gave Asa Group a fighting chance. Some went even further, including click taxing cards like MCA Austerity Policy, Pulse and Active Policing as ways to specifically target the click-intensive Deep Dive statergies. giving Asa Group even better odds against what was otherwise generally agreed to be a Runner favoured meta game.

It's Flaws

I won't pretend Asa Group was perfect, that would be disingenous, it had it's flaws, especially surrounding consistancy. Despite being a tempo scoring deck it often played like a combo one, complete with all of the draw backs of needing to assemble a perfect hand. You needed a constant supply of cards, in the right proportion of assets to ice to agendas if you wanted to succeed and the difficulty of getting a valuable double install as consistantly as say EtF was able to get a single install meant that while Asa had a very high ceiling, it also had a very low floor. When you draw your cards all in the wrong order, or your Fully Ops kept getting trashed by Freedom Khumalo or Imp and you just can't find enough ice to protect all of your assets or can't find enough assets and end up with a whole bunch of useless and empty iced servers and... well, you get the idea.

But when it did come together, when the right proportions in deck building lined up with the right draws and the right pilot, it could be a thing of beauty, unmatched in it's silky smoothness.

Legacy

I've tried a number of times to recreate an Asa like deck in another ID post rotation, as I'm sure many other players have, due to the fact that Fully Op still exists in standard, but I've yet to quite recapture the magic.

Poétrï Luxury Brands: All the Rage is much lest consistant at triggering it's clickless installs and no other HB identity gives you clickless installs to begin with. The agenda suite is in shambles with the loss of Ikawah and Project Ingatan is a poor replacement for Project Vitruvius while the rotation of Rashida has left almost all Corps far too slow to deal with most Runners.

But I have hope, that, some day in the future, something more akin to Asa will arise, after all, it's playstyle, while rare, is not unreproducable. There are many ways to reword Asa's ID ability into something different, yet akin and I look forward to the day we shall see Asa's progeny rise to take it's mantle.

For now, rest well Asa Group, you need no longer stay vigilant.