Mark Yale

Mark Yale

Poor Mark; this guy will be stuck with Titan Transnational: Investing In Your Future for the foreseeable future. And it's not like he's hard to poach: one influence means this guy returns all his emails.

You want to know why Mark's stuck in such a rut? Try this with me: go up to the card art. Cover up his face so that all you can see is his hair and forehead. That looks like the hair of a man looking to the right, right? Now look at his face, and switch to covering his hair. Is he looking to the left?

Clearly, Mark showed up to his first day as Internal Banking Mugwump... wearing someone else's hair. He'll never live that down!

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LMAO —
Research Grant

Research Grant

Other reviewers have hit the good points of this agenda; I'd just like to give you the math going on here:

If you begin a turn with all 3 of these in hand, they are as efficient as a 5/3. Install-advance-advance one in a scoring remote; if it is not stolen you can score all 3 in 3 clicks (install-install-advance). The same math tells us that two of these can be scored like a 4/2. Install-advance-whatever, and 3 more clicks gets you two AP. The upside to all of this is that the runner can never steal more than one AP from one of these at once.

Because of this, I think Research Grant has a place in HB's long underwhelming fast-advance. Run this in a deck with all two-pointers, and it can make up those shortfalls when you are sweating bullets at 6 points. Using click-gain shenanigans makes these easier to score at the same rate as 5/3s or 4/2s, with the added benefit of things like Efficiency Committee and Shipment from MirrorMorph compressing those install clicks.

If you Fast Track this card, I think the runner has more to fear than you do.

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Some catches: it is as click-efficient as a 5/3 if dealt with the old-fashioned way. However, it is more credit-efficient (3c instead of 5c), and you can use Shipment from MirrorMorph (which happens to be in-faction) to save 2 of the clicks —
Sacrificial Clone

Sacrificial Clone

This card is perfect. Not because it is an interesting flatline counter that is cheap in the early game, but more expensive later. No.

This card is one of the most philosophically challenging pieces of science fiction published in the last decade. Think about it. Noise has created and discarded a sentient being that is physically and cognitively indistinguishable from himself. This society not only teaches people to use others as disposable tools, but also to apply that philosophy to themselves. This card teaches us that the clone has plans and dreams much like the runners we know and love: when it dies, you trash your hand of possibilities for its future.

On the other hand, perhaps the self is merely the continuation of a pattern of thought and behavior, which, though distorted by physical death, can persist in the memory of others?

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@Wookiee "If you're broke with no cards, no programs and only virtual resources, you're not coming back from a corp that was able to Scorch you to death." This card does not trash programs. Maybe you mean that the runner will lose some programs when this blows up hardware based MU, but that's not remotely the same as "no programs". —
@ende23r is correct, the flavor on this card is fantastic. In particular, I like how it makes you realize that for all their lip service to righteousness and fairness, most Anarchs are willing to throw anyone under the bus to achieve their goals. But, in terms of mechanics...I think this card doesn't really have a purpose. Sure, it's a one-use flatline prevention...but at a huge, HUGE cost. Losing all your hardware is irritating, primarily because it costs you your consoles and other MU cards, which will force you to choose which programs you want to keep. But you could build a deck around this, especially in Quetzal, by putting in fewer programs and not worrying about memory. Losing your non-virtual resources is bad. Goodbye Kati. Goodbye Professional Contacts. Goodbye Aesop. Goodbye May. Basically, any resource-based economy gets wrecked. So to work around this, you're going to have to run an event economy, with Lucky Find and Day Job and the like. But then you lose all the cards in your grip. So even if you did have a Day Job lined up and ready to go, it goes in the garbage. And besides, if you're out of cards against a kill deck, you're going to have to draw next turn or you'll just get murdered anyway. The really damning part, though, is that you are left with no money. No money, and no way to make more money. Your next turn after using the clone has to be some combination of clicking for cards and clicking for credits, and probably your next turn after that as well. This gives the corp a nice long time to leisurely gather money and score a juicy 5/3 or a couple Astros. And to top it all off...it doesn't really even protect you against a Scorched Earth. Scorch requires that the runner is tagged, so if you aren't tagged then you don't have to worry. But if you are tagged, then the corp can spend 2 and kill your clone, and then drop the Scorch on their next click. So to recap, this card can't save you against Scorched Earth, and if you use it then you basically have lost the game anyway. Don't play this card. It's 4 influence, which means you probably wouldn't outside of Anarch anyway, but if you want to save yourself against flatline decks just run Plascrete Carapace and/or Deus X, which are 0 and 1 influence respectively, and have all the benefits with none of the drawbacks. —
@tiedyedvortex: It does let you keep virtual resources. Which are pretty weak right now. However, it's a resource. So if you're tagged, it's basically just adding 2 and a click to the cost of Scorched, or blocking a triple Scorch. Because the corp is just going to trash it, then Scorch. It does prevent an SEA+Double Scorch, I suppose. It's an awesome card in intent and flavor, but I wish it were more useful. As it stands, while you don't lose the game right away, you're going to lose in 95% of the cases. If Plascrete said "Roll a 20 side die. On a 20, you don't die from meat damage" I don't think it would see the same play. If you're broke with no cards, no programs and only virtual resources, you're not coming back from a corp that was able to Scorch you to death. Especially given that this is a visible, face up card. Were it playable from your hand, it might have a value in the "get the corp to commit a lot of resources" sense - they go all in on a Power Shutdown + Scorch combo, you throw this out and they have 0 cards in R&D. But if it's telegraphed you have it, there's just not enough situations where it works in a world that has Plascrete, IHW and Deus X. And I always knew Noise wasn't the great guy he claimed to be! —
You can use the ability after you get tagged before the Corp has an action window to trash it. —
Never mind that. You can only use it while an effect that does damage is resolving, because it's a "prevent" effect. —
Sir, for this review, you have my highest respect. Thank you for being an awesome person who actually gives a damn about how great the flavor in this game is. Just... Thank you. —
I hate flavor reviews. —
Paper Wall

Paper Wall

This card does two things: it ends the run and it costs nothing to rez. Based on mostly gumption, with no real evidence, I'd guess that the life expectancy of this card is about 1 turn after being rezzed. By that count, it's got a shorter shelf life than Chimera if you have 4 credits free. Only play this card if you expect to be extremely poor and only want 1 turn of protection.

If you expect AI breakers, Wraparound blows this card out of the water. Even if they drop a fracter, Wraparound will survive to stymie Inside Jobs and the like while this card is crying in your archives. And I'm pretty sure this card won't stick around long enough to feed a Peak Efficiency.

On the other hand, this might be slightly useful with Mother Goddess? The runner has to choose between breaking this and Mother Goddess until you rez another piece of ice, so that's like protection.

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