The Virus program is an excellent addition for players aiming to maximize their efficiency in accessing cards during runs. With its ability to accumulate virus counters and provide additional accesses, it can turn the tide in a game when used strategically. What are some effective cards to pair with the Virus program? slope game asks.
So really Eye for an Eye tries to be a Sebastian card that tries to be interesting in reg anarch and currently (rwr :3 meta) just falls flat. So realistically you have to approach this card from two angles:
Reg anarch: It just costs too much for the effect. A double 3c cost for disruption is many pennies considering that you have other options for the disruption. Maw and imp just contest the space too much. Also having to trash cards out of your hand is cute when you consider cards like steelskin and strike fund. But that space is also contested by B bankhar and moshing. Twinning plays into it nicely witch is cool but you don't need a clunky card that can sit in your hand kinda dead.
Sebastian: It gives you a tag so it does do something neat in seb. Problem with that is Sebastian just has not done anything within the lifecycle yet. And all the current seb decks are kinda too engine focused to be able to discard cards to the effect. Maybe if sebastian is good and really lacks disruption in the future.
All in all the card just has been bit of a letdown. Solid fun include but has to fight too much with more consistent options.
Another amusing agenda, which is niche like Salvo Testing. In theory, if you run a mix of very expensive ices with some very cheap ices, you could get those expensives ices rezzed for free.
For example : On a server, you have Rime, Archer, Bloop and a rezzed Ablative Barrier, you could rez Rime, then use Lightning Laboratory to rez Archer and Bloop (at no cost!), the runner can jackout of course, but after the run, you would derez Ablative Barrier and Rime while keeping the two other ices rezzed. In this example, you would save 7, one agenda and you would not have derezzed an harmonic ice.
And those economy can be even greater, if you use expensives ices like Tollbooth or Anansi, giving a saving more than a dozen credits.
This require quite a bit of setup. Also, you need to setup your ices, then score this agenda, and after all that, the runner must run the server where the setup is in place. Fairly difficult.
Of course, there are cards that will help for this, such as Jinja City Grid, which would help you setup. Or Vovô Ozetti, which would let you derez more expensives ices (like Drafter or Sorocaban Blade) while not breaking the bank to rez them back after. And Working Prototype will get more counters from those rezzing actions.
Despite all this, this agenda is competing against better 2-4 agendas, such as Architect Deployment Test and Offworld Office.
If Lightning Laboratory could have more than one activation token, it could compete better. After all, it would allow the corp to put super expensives ices that would be rezzed only with Lightning Laboratory for more than one run. But with only one token (there are no ways, currently, to have more token on the agenda), being able to protect against ONE run is a tall order. In this sense, maybe it would be more just to compare this agenda with Nisei MK II. Both aim to save the corp from one crucial run. With Lightning Laboratory exchanging the certainty of an End the Run for possible extra benefits.
Someday, someone will create a list where this agenda is busted. This agenda has the potential for it! But for now, it hasn't happened yet.
Art is okay, we can understand that it is a research facility and the quote can be a marketing sales pitch for the lab (I like the cheesy quote). Still, it feels kind of uninspired. I blame the wall of text of the agenda from allowing the devs to put more lore on the card.
The near-grinder type agenda of HB. This agenda define an entire archetype in HB, done around rez-derez. It is also the reason why Formicary became banned.
Once scored, this will make runs on any server much more expensive for the runner, if they use any breakers (Botulus, Physarum Entangler, Boomerang and bypasses will not be affected).
Some ices are really good with this, here is a few :
But also, some other cards get enabled :
Scoring a 1-3 agenda is not too demanding and can be done early in the game. The main issue is that you need to be able to rez back ices. For this, you have Vovô Ozetti, which will help rez back ice for cheaper.
This is a very good agenda, unique in style to Haas-Bioroid, and it enable good player expression within the game. Only draw back is that deck with this agenda tend to be slower. I love how it enable a very different archetype around a basic mechanic like rez and derez. Great design.
Nice art, good quote, all in line with the name of the card. All of which seems to have no relation with the effect of the card, which is a missed opportunity.
@Krams, those are fair points. I was focusing more on the derez effect. Doing multiple rez-derez will increase the number of subs on Echo. It could be added that against bigger ice, and especially in a glacier, this will dramatically increase the cost of breaking ices for the runner, just like you say.
— Diogene
A year has passed, here are some new points relevant to this agenda.
First, the analysis done in 2023 is mainly correct. This is not a defensive agenda. But it is a combo agenda.
What does it combo well with?
With Snare! and End of the Line. Core damage means the hand size is lowered. Giving a lower defense against traps and kills combo. In ID like Thule Subsea: Safety Below, you are very likely to have done a second core damage, pushing the hand size down to 3. At which point, Distributed Tracing or Public Trail can give the tag that will enable End of the Line. Some deck rely on this strategy, even without the uses of Salvo Testing.
Ontological Dependence, of course. This is the main combo piece. One core damage and it is a 2-3 agenda. 2 core and it becomes a 2-2 agenda. A combo heavy deck can then use things like SanSan City Grid and/or Arella Salvatore to quickly score out.
Djupstad Grid and Cerebral Overwriter, to finish the runner by core damages. While this is an unlikely thing to happen (you need to do 6 core damages), multiple core damage reduce the options available to the runner. Once the runner has 4 core damages (unless they have Marrow), they will need to draw up their hand to protect themselves to make a run, thus taxing the runner. Generally, this strategy is too slow to work out.
So, is this agenda worth using. I'm in the opinion that it can be successfully used in a combo deck, if you need card slots, but it is kind of weak. Usually, using Hypoxia and Djupstad Grid will be a more reliable way to do core damage. When a plan is to "step one, score a 3-5 agenda", it is rather unreliable. This is a "janky" agenda that makes deck building really fun.
The art is well done and in line with the name of the agenda, which is kind of related to nuclear testing (even if it not said specifically). We can even imagine it is a sci-fi weapon testing, like a proton torpedo. But to me, this would have been a Weyland agenda (for the name and lore). Haas-Bioroid doing hi tech weapon is possible, but I'm unsure about why they would make city busting weapons. Good art, nice agenda, uncertain lore.
Could you explain, why you're saying that Echo, a 0 strength barrier, is particularly good with reducing icebreaker strength? Your list is mostly comprised of low strength ice that can still be broken cheaply even if you reduce a fixed strength breaker suite down from 3 to 1. Wouldn't actually big ice benefit more from building on that strength gap? Brân 1.0 is already good versus a turbined cleaver, but with 2 extra strength to gap it get's 4c more expensive to break, which is quite a tax.
— Krams