IP Enforcement

IP Enforcement X[credit]

Operation: Gray Ops
Trash: 5
Influence: 5

As an additional cost to play this operation, remove X tags.

Install 1 agenda from the Runner’s score area with a printed agenda point value equal to X. If the Runner is still tagged, place 1 advancement counter on that agenda.

“I believe you have something of ours.”
Illustrated by Rafael Monk
Decklists with this card

Elevation (elev)

#66 • English
Startup Card Pool
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Reviews

IP Enforcement “unsteals” an agenda, like a “kinder Exchange of Information”, crossed with an “inverted Psychographics”. (But into a server, not safely into your score-area.)

For example, if they have 3 tags and stole a 3/2 (like Tomorrowʼs Headline), you can remove 2 tags to IA the stolen agenda, then AA to score it out. Which costs a total of 4[$], [click][click][click], Remove 2 tags., IE. (specialized to X=2):

[$2] Operation
Play this operation only if the Runner has at least 3 tags.
As an additional cost to play this operation, remove 2 tags.

Install 1 agenda with printed agenda point value exactly 2 from the Runner’s score area.
Place 1 advancement counter on that agenda.

Same with 2 tags for any 3/1 (like Oracle Thinktank), and 1 tag for any 2/1 (like Post-Truth Dividend). NB.: both Headline and Thinktank have a Tag-on-Steal (When this agenda is stolen, give the Runner 1 tag.).


Design:

  • Its multitag-punishment is tag-removal (IE. As an additional cost to play this operation, remove X tags.), not just tag-gating (IE. Play this operation only if the Runner has at least X tags.).

  • It will install the agenda (not add it to your score area or add it to HQ), which means you still have to score it out. (NB. This also means that The Holo Man can triple-advance it! Because you have not installed any cards from HQ this turn.) As the Runner, if you've stolen an X/Y and floated Y tags (or 1+Y tags), your risk is bounded. You won't lose your 5/3 at 1 tag (unlike EoI); and even if you went Tag-Me, you might steal the 5/3 right back (unlike EoI).

  • It's a powerful operation that's trashable, but with an exorbitant trash-cost (of -5[$], which is as high as Bellona’s “steal-cost”). BTW, Win-Cons with thematically-related trash-costs could be fun too, like a printed -$[2] but As an additional cost to trash this operation, take 1 tag. [EDIT: like Public Access Plaza!]

  • It's a non-HB 5/5 inf card. (But only NBN decks want this effect anyways, no? Unlike Big Deal).

AFAICT, you'll primarily be unstealing 3/2’s or 4/2’s (which can be fast-advanced, and are worthwhile). For example, Shipment from Vladisibirsk’ing a IP Enforce’d Next Big Thing would need 5 tags. Will it make sense for a 2/1 to get opportunistically unstolen? IDK.*


Flavor:

  • The art shows a “you've been served” home invasion. Flanked by bodyguards, a lawyer is handing over the holographic subpoena (with marquee’ing “LAWSUIT”).
  • To take back their stolen intellectual property, NBN sics the state on some hacker (knowing exactly who they are and where they live). Maybe an Anarch is sharing the trade secrets for the manufacture of a pandemic vaccine, or as revenge for an infection; maybe a Shaper is geeking out on those secrets, editing the mRNA vaccine process to g-mod themselves; maybe a Criminal is just holding onto those secrets, to extort a “blackmail pension”.

(Elevation era)