When you think of Weyland 5/3’s, they’re often very specialized and require building around:
High-Risk Investment barely sees play outside of Titan and Hollywood Renovation the same treatment outside of SSO. City Works Project generally does not require being built around and synergizes well with common green cards Punitive Counterstrike and Dedication Ceremony but it does have the Public subtype downside and is blank in centrals.
So for a Weyland 5/3 to see play alongside GFI and SSL, what will it need?
• On-score/on-steal ability like SSL? Check.
• No influence or unicorn unlike GFI? Check.
• Throwback to now-rotated flavourful Weyland card? Check.
SDS Drone Deployment is nasty and is the program-trashing Weyland card that might keep runners honest again. Sure Clone Chip is back in full force and yes, the conspiracy breakers are everywhere but icebreakers are bigger and more expensive than ever these days.
Unfortunately, SDS has one big weakness and that is on-steal, it allows the Runner to choose which program to trash. Whether that be a Rezeki, a Datasucker, or maybe even a Bankroll, the flexibility is huge and I wish this had specified “icebreaker” instead.
Overall, I don’t see this agenda seeing too much play over SSL or GFI. It’s just as weak to Film Critic or Whistleblower, provides flexibility to the Runner, and it has additional hate in popular cards Clone Chip, Dummy Box (on-score), or the conspiracy breakers. It’s disappointing that this is the case though as this card screams Weyland.
Forgive me if this is a hopelessly "newbie" question -- but if the Runner accesses this agenda, say, from a run on R&D, and doesn't have any programs installed, can it still be stolen?
— TelcontarNo, trashing program is a cost to steal SDS so if the Runner doesn´t have any programs installed they can´t pay the cost and therefore they can´t steal the agenda
— m.p