Before you get all hyped about this card, you need to realize that it does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER until the runner would have 7 points if it wasn't there. That's right, this is a 2-point liability that offers zero economy, zero pressure, zero benefit to the corp whatsoever (but a large benefit to the runner if they're that one guy who still plays Iain Sterling). As an active liability with zero benefit, it's a serious contender for worst card in the entire game. If you see this as a runner, calmly ignore it entirely unless the corp leaves it exposed with no upgrade, or if you snipe it from a central and can afford the trash cost. You don't care about it at all until you're on seven points, and if you go for it early the corp will have an easier time scoring.

When the runner hits 5 points before the Board modifier, now trashing it wins them the game. The corp needs to scramble to protect this at all costs, or blow it up with Self-destruct... again, before it's actually benefited them in any way whatsoever. All of this is no doubt making it incredibly hard to score, so the corp needs to work out some kind of miracle flatline victory in the meantime. The Board does have a hefty trash cost of 7, and that's its one saving grace, but that won't actually come into play if you're forced to blow it up to save it. Forcing a runner to go through a server after this has its benefits, but those benefits are much more cheaply realized by an MCA Austerity Policy or IT Department, and those actually leave the server you paid so much into intact afterwards.

At 7 would-be points, this card becomes the whole game. The corp can no longer trash it themselves, and the runner will be going after it with everything they've got. The corp's best plan at this point is to just put all resources on guarding the Board while throwing 1-pointers behind a token amount of ice just to keep the runner from accumulating resources. I can't really see this plan resulting in success outside of the surprise Biotic Philotic play.

Notable interactions

• Domestic Sleepers : If stolen by the Runner, it is worth -1 Agenda Point

• Shi.Kyū: Becomes a -2 Agenda Point

Great against

• annihilates Notoriety
• Human First

Work around

As no Corp wants the Board to be accessed by the Runner, it can be packed with a couple of cards:

• Executive Boot Camp to play it as a 1-of, saving influence in the process.
• Encryption Protocol, to increase its trash cost
• Architect, to either trash it before access or install it from archives
• Ash 2X3ZB9CY, to increase its access cost
• Self-destruct, to prevent access

• Jackson Howard, to return it to R&D

  Architect and Self-Destruct work really well, since The Board nets the Runner with 2 Agenda points only if it is trashed while it is accessed. Which means the Runner accessing the Board from Archives is not an issue.

Bad against

• Iain Stirling, as it supports its strategy
• Quest Completed

It occurs to me that it would be entirely possible to build a deck using entirely 1-point agendas; you'd only need 7 different ones, and there are 5 in Weyland and 5 Neutral. With that deck, and this card in play, it would be impossible for the runner to win.

There are plenty of things that could go wrong with this plan; with such high agenda density, the runner could win before you get The Board in play. If you do get them out, you'd need to protect them fiercely; once the runner gets enough agendas, they can kill them to trigger a win immediately as all their agendas jump back up in value.

Still, it seems like a fun deck concept to build around... might be able to make it work.

Thinking about building Jinteki PE with this, Philotic Entanglement, and 1-pointers. Probably one copy of The Board with some Boot Camps to tutor it up. That leaves enough influence for some good end the run ice, but not a lot of it. Maybe a package of situational one-ofs to be able to search up with Boot Camp. Pretty much the only things I'd want to ice up are The Board, Philotic, and HQ (because of Account Siphon and Vamp). Wouldn't rez The Board until I absolutely had to, of course. Seems like a fun idea.

This card would be interesting but it's unusable because of the existence of Rumor Mill, there is nothing you can do to prevent the runner from simply winning when he has the scores he needs by popping rumor mill. It's a shame, but it requires to much building around to make it eventually working. The weakness to one very prominent card makes this unusable for tournament play.

The Board has a lot of incredible potential out of faction when paired with executive boot camp, especially in Industrial Genomics. With the plethora of 1 point agendas and the ability to make archives un-runnable with multiple Shi.kyu, Shock!, and Hokusai Grid, the runner won't be able to keep up with your plans without coughing up 17+ credits, and to make things worse you just installed a Caprice / Ash to protect it. The downside to running this sort of strategy is that it is incredibly difficult and impractical for the corp to win a 35 minute tournament match by scoring 1 pointers, so you must look for a flatline victory. This is very easy for Jinkeki and between un-trash able Ronnins and Neural EMP, once the board is in play and archives is un-runnable, it is only a matter of a few turns before you have an easy flatline win.1 The Board and 3 EBC are obviously essential for this strategy, but other good includes are reuse, daily business show, and anonymous tip. Remember your strategy isn't to score or to stop the runner from scoring, only to get the board up and un-trash able, followed by a flatline as quickly as possible, you can be sure the runner will catch on and begin only clicking for creds!