“Knickknack” O’Brian is the “new Aesop’s Pawnshop”.

For example, Knickknack gets Gain 2[$]. Draw 1 card. for sacrificing an empty Coalescence, while Aesop got Gain 3[$].. However:

• Knickknack “reimburses” you: if you buy for $1, you sell for $1, as well as the 1 card itself (like Geist).
• Aesop just “swindled” for you: if you buy for $1, you still sell for the full $3, having had a much higher floor than Knickknack.
• Its The first time each turn a run begins, … is a (slightly) more interactive Whenever your turn begins, …; and can even be (slightly) more frequent, since you can run immediately after installing the resource.
• Both enable if you trashed your … gates (of Simulchip or Boi-tatá).

Synergies:

• Multi-Cards: While Netrunner lacks “card tokens”, one Muse–Coalescence provides two, $2-cost sacrificeables (from a single click/card, over the next two turns).

• Cost-Redux: If more self-cost reductions get printed (like Carmen, which costs $3 to install but reads with a printed install cost of $5) in Shaper, then Knickknack can actually profit off the sacrifice (like Aesop did). As well as cost reductions in general (like DZMZ Optimizer and Simulchip).

• “Spendables”: With virus counters, like Pelangi (or Cordyceps?). And a few with power counters, IE. those without When this _ is empty, trash it., like Coalescence (or the new Devadatta Drone?); as well as the disposable breakers like Revolver (wasting only one “bullet”, to gain two credits and a card), or even Propeller.

• “Front-loaded’s” cards: With high-value When-Installed triggers (like 5inf The Class Act?).

• Compression: If you can compress installs (like the new Illumination, which also cheapens those installs), then Knickknack’s econ can “fully-reimburse” the sacrificed installations (credit, card, and click). Likewise within an Ari or Magdalene deck.

Thus Pawnshop, with its the higher floor and its non-interactivity, seems more powerful, but the design of O’Brian feels more exciting (IMO): you have to care about printed install costs, you get a “card flow” (like Geist), you have to make a run, and so on.

PS. My hope is a Shaper card with large self-cost-reductions, like:

• a gated [$5]; This resource costs 3[$] less to install if you've trashed one of your cards this turn., which works with the Pawnshop archetype (and Simulchip in any archetype).
• or even a scaling [$6]; This program costs 1[$] less to install for each power counter among active Runner cards., which is unbounded.

NB. While it can sac a 4[$] Principia that only cost you 2[$] to install (for Gain 4[$]. Draw 1 card.), you don't want to be sac'ing Fracters. Like how Aesop sac'd a just-used/off-matchup Paricia (for Gain 3[$].).

Biawak (🦎) is the “new Archer”!

The facecheck is similar (though not identical): 4[$], 6 strength → Trash 1 installed program. Trash 1 installed resource. End the run.. Thus, the Corp can still destroy two installations, even including two “icemelters” in general (like Bankhar and a Botulus), but not two icebreakers in particular (like the Fracter and Decoder that were breaking ↳ End the run.’s elsewhere).

Its rez-cost is either 4[$], forfeit 1 agenda (like Archer (with a Data Dealer-ish exchange-rate), or 14[$] (post–Government Subsidy?). As with Valentão, you (almost always) want to forfeit the agenda or take the badpub; but you can (sometimes) just pay the extra credits or remove the tag. I like including “secondary” costs alongside “primary” alt-costs.

Its first two subroutines (↳ Trash 1 installed _ or end the run.) are choices (like Ballista), but encountering Biawak can both EtR and trash programs/resources (like Tithonium). Thus, even if the Runner had no (relevant) non-hardware installed, the Corp can still tax with three “must-break” EtR-subs: un-Boomerang-able/un-Botulus-able (if they want to “just pass through”).

Flavor-wise, the art is a Komodo dragon (the largest lizard), and "biawak" means "monitor lizard" in Malay/Indonesian.

• Komodo dragon (Wikipedia)
• biawak (Wiktionary)

Principia (🍎) completes the Unity–Echelon cycle of “Breakers-matter Breakers” (from System Gateway).

For example, if you already have the Decoder and Killer installed, then the Fracter costs 2[$] (like Gauss); or even less, if you have an empty Propeller around too. Otherwise, it can still cost 4[$] (like Pressure Spike).

BTW, I like the (Programs trashed as part of installing this program don’t count.) reminder text, especially for a core set.

Flavor-wise, “On the shoulders of giants.” refers to This program costs 1[$] less to install for each other installed icebreaker.: the more Galileo’s and Ibn al-Haytham’s who came before, the easier “Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica” was for Newton to come up with (apocryphally, after getting bonked on the head with an apple, as in the artwork).

(Cleaver is banned.)

Rising Tide (🌊) becomes a 1[$] Corroder, having base strength 2 once you've trashed your 2nd copy.

Synergies:

• Temporary Fracters: Like Propeller. Especially self-trashing ones (like a new Spike or Demara would be). Since they end up in the heap anyways.

• “Auxiliary” Fracters: Like Banner. Since it can be your 3rd Fracter, by complementing a pair of Rising Tides.

• Multi-type Fracters: Like Penrose or Lobisomem. Both are Decoder - Fracter’s, that primarily break codegates (thus filling the “decoder deckslot”), and only secondarily break barriers.

• Anarch self-mill/self-burn/sacrifice: Like Lago Paranoá Shelter and Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga.

• Any novel “Utility” Icebreakers: Like Interface → Whenever a barrier subroutine resolves, gain 1[$]..

See s:fracter z:standard .

Within Elevation (as a core set), Tide:

• nudges newer players towards multiple copies of icebreakers. Which lets them get past Barriers sooner, keeps them from getting locked out by a Destroyer, and so on.
• has an explicit deckbuilding incentive. The 101 is just "sleeve up more fracters", and the 102 is "or cards that get those fracters into the heap".

NB. You can “expend” a second copy by over-installing the first (even if you have unused memory). CF. [click], 1[$], Trash this program from your grip: Place a “+1 strength” counter on an installed “Rising Tide” program.

When installing a program, the Runner may first trash any number of programs already installed. They must do so if installing the new program would exceed their memory limit.

— Rule 8.5.6.c. (thanks @zhansonic)

Shred (🎸) “melts” any single EtR-effect,

Notes

such as:

• a defensive Upgrade trigger: Manegarm Skunkworks, Anoetic Void, ¿or Hyoubu Precog Manifold?.
• an off-server usage: like LEO Construction or B-1001.
• an non-subroutine ICE ability: like M.I.C. (saving a click), or Funhouse (saving a tag).
• and a Barrier/ICE subroutine (esp. gearchecks): Tatu-Bola, Ablative Barrier, Ping, Descent, Flyswatter), etc, as well as an ∞ strength Tree Line; but not a Kessleroid).

In particular, it converts a single ↳ End the run. subroutine into ↳ End the run unless the Corp reveals and trashes 1 card from HQ at random. (at the worst-ish). CF. Lucky Charm.

For example, Shred can:

• “melt past” a singular gearcheck;
• unless the Corp suffers “1 HQ damage”;
• while still triggering Phoenix (since the EtR-sub was not broken, yet the ICE was passed);
• thus forcing the Corp to suffer “1 HQ sabotage” anyways; CF. The Corp trashes (1 card at random or) 1 card of their choice from HQ.

Like Light the Fire!, Shred “attacks” (requires) larger server-roots (X is the number of cards in the root of the attacked server.), which makes it implicitly (but not necessarily) a Run a remote server. event.

For example:

• If the Corp is defending an agenda alongside Skunk–Void, they must Trash 3 cards from HQ at random..
• If the Runner has two clicks or five credits to spare (for the Skunk), the Corp must (have and) trash 5 cards from hand. Even a six-card PD couldn't retrigger Void (IIUC).

Flavor

Besides obviously “shredding” headquarters into archives, the flavor-text puns on “The Medium is the Message” . Some punk music can literally be about (IE. “the message”) volume/venue (IE. “the medium”).

Custom

PS.:

1) Why is the EtR-prevention preventable? I'd made a cycle of “Effect-quashing Run-events”, where the Criminal one gave you one hard EtR (CF. Lucky Charm), like:

[$1] Sneak
Event: Run
[criminal 2/5]
Run any server.
The first time a Corp card ability would end that run, prevent the run from ending.

It's an Inside Job variant, where the bypass gets “smeared”: not limited to the outermost ice, but limited to a single subroutine/effect. (I don't think it makes reaching servers too easy, but there's probably something I'm not thinking of.)

2) What if Shred had a Fracter subtype for Rising Tide? Because it can “frac through” any single-sub Barrier (even a high-strength Tree Line), like a “red Inside Job”.

Once Rising Tide was spoiled, I'd made the above into a cycle of custom Run - Fracter|Killer|Decoder cards, like:

[$0] Shred!
Event: Run - Fracter
[anarch 2/5]
Run any server.
If a barrier ability would end that run, instead prevent that run from ending.
(Subroutines are abilities.)

However (since Events are self-trashing), the problem is that you could just spam Shreds to “place 3 strength counters” on a Rising Tide. Some solutions would be: a one-per-namesake limi; a binary (non-scaling) check for non-icebreaker fracters; an option (for the Corp) to RFG the event; or so on.