Coalescence

Coalescence 2[credit]

Program
Memory: 1 • Strength: -
Influence: 2

When you install this program, place 2 power counters on it.

Hosted power counter: Gain 2[credit]. Use this ability only during your turn.

Breathe in.
Be as the dew rolling down a leaf; let yourself go.
Breathe out.
Illustrated by Elwin "Jakuza" Rumplmair
Decklists with this card

Rebellion Without Rehearsal (rwr)

#89 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Rulings

No rulings yet for this card.

Reviews

The “Green Cache”.

Without synergies, it's worse than Easy Mark (you break even: gaining four credits while losing two credits, a click, and a card in hand; and you can't play it when bankrupt); but with synergies, it can be ‘blinked’, recurred, charged, ‘sacked’, ad infinitum. (Note that it's power counter–based (not virus counter–based like Cache); it can be used only during your turn (not whenever); and, obviously, it's in Shaper (not Criminal).)

In general, Programs that are “limited-usage” (and which are proactively useable and generically useful) act like Events that (by sticking around) synergize with:

  1. Recursion: There's always more Clone Chip–effects than Same Old Thing–effects.
  2. Sacrifice: Coalescence, because it is proactive and generic, and because it's permanent, can be fully spent for its full value, then sacrificed for extra value. (cf. Plascrete Carapace, which is reactive and situational, and has When it is empty, trash it., as does AirbladeX (JSRF Ed.).)
  3. “Programs-matter” (& “Installation-matters”): That is, the many cards that reference programs (like a program, a program or piece of hardware, etc) explicitly, or implicitly (like You may install 1 card from your grip., Spend hosted credits to install cards., etc; because Events are played not installed).
  4. “Counters-matter”: In particular, Coalescence can be charge’d (although, for less value than many other Hosted power counter: … or … for each hosted power counter.; and, unfortunately, there's no “mass-charging”, like Cookbook’s “mass-infesting” for viruses).

Coalescence + Sacrificers:

Coalescence + Recursion:

  • Simulchip: “flicker” it thru the heap (installing it for free, after paying for the Chip), earning three net credits.
  • Rejig: “flicker” it thru the grip (installing it for free), earning four credits.

Coalescence + “Power-Counters-matter” (Charging):

  • Rigging Up: [$0][$6] (because “rigging it out” both decreases its cost (by all two credits) and increases its effect (by another two credits)). It's also chargeable by Into the Depths, etc.

Coalescence + “Programs-matter”:

  • Gachapon: “discover” it thru the stack (installing it for free); cf. Sure Gamble’s [+$4] (but Events aren't “Gachapon-able”).
  • DZMZ Optimizer: save 1 extra credit (or two extra credits, if you have two DZMZ’s), as well as using the extra memory-unit(s).
  • LilyPAD: draw 1 extra card.
  • Environmental Testing: “cash out” 25% faster/sooner.
  • Muse: if you want to bring two programs into play off one click (whether to trigger “program installed”, or to feed program sacrifice, as a “DIY Harbinger”).

Other interactions/observation:

  • Maven: grants +1 strength indefinitely, as well as funding one Break 1 subroutine. activation (because Maven counts each installed program, unlike Echelon, which counts each installed icebreaker only).
  • Khusyuk: dig one card deeper (by tracking your [$2]-drop “flush”).
  • Urban Art Vernissage: if you need to ‘launder’ install-only credits into fungible credits.
  • Arissana: you can flash it in and use it all up mid-run (thus, neutralizing the “temporary unless trojan” downsides, while still benefiting from the upsides of clicklessness & even ambushability). It's also fetchable by Kabonesa Wu: Netspace Thrillseeker, Test Run, etc.

P.S. You can also read the old Cache reviews, or @YsengrinSC’s ArissanaCoalescence deck.

(Rebellion Without Rehearsal era)