Maintenance Access (🥷) is an “Event-ified Sneakdoor Beta”! It:

• gives you an HQ-Success, not just HQ-Breach (unlike Virtuoso, Eru Ayase-Pessoa, or Beatriz Friere Gonzalez). You will trigger a Maglectric Rapid or PAN-Weave, help enable Jeitinho, and so on.

• replaces with a “Re-Approach” (would approach Archives … change the attacked server to HQ and approach HQ), like Sneakdoor’s “Re-Declare” (would be declared successful … change the attacked server to HQ). The run will still get declared successful on HQ, not Archives (and will also triggers any defensive upgrades, FWIW).

• is a Double. To Deep Dive by running Archives twice (and R&D once), you'll need an extra click (from Sable and/or Swift). BTW, if you installed a Sneakdoor or Slipstream on the turn you use it, then it became a “pseudo–Event: Run - Double” anyways.

• is an Event (not a Program), which taxes “−1 Hand-Size, −0 Memory-Limit”. Unlike SB’s −2[mu] (which taxed both).

Design

Pinhole Threading is the “horizontal” complement to “vertical” bypass/derez/rez-tax effects (like Inside Jobs, Windows of Opportunity, or Tread Lightly’s).

“Passing-Horizontally” cards can:

• “distort” (non-derogatory) ice-placement differently, such as: the Corp icing Archives to protect HQ against MA (and not just double-/triple-icing HQ to protect against Inside Job, Bankhar, etc).

• “reify” dynamic play-patterns, such as: run HQ (force ice rez there, maybe even jacking out afterwards), then run remote (if ice here would be unrezzible). That is, if NSG printed a “Central→Remote Redirect”, like:

  • Run a central server. When you would approach that server, instead change the attacked server to a remote server (if able) and approach it. (passes ice)
  • Run a central server. If that run would be declared successful, change the attacked server to a remote server for the remainder of that run. (passes upgrades too)

However, Runner-side server-redirection rarely gets printed, so I've been wanting more for years (especially as Criminal events). Below was my custom card (designed once I realized Sneakdoor was rotating). It was also a Double, but because of the extra value (multiaccess, draw), not to avoid Deep Dive (since mine wasn't play tested, theirs was LOL). And it let you hit R&D as well as HQ, so that Criminals could attack R&D (like for Zahya and WAKE Implant), the way Shapers can pressure HQ (like with Burner).

Sneakdoor Heist
[$1] Event: Run - Double
[criminal 3/5]
As an additional cost to play this event, spend [click].
Run Archives.
If that run would be declared successful, change the attacked server to HQ or R&D for the remainder of that run.
When you breach the attacked server, access 1 additional card.

Synergies

HQ-Succeeding/Breaching triggers/checks (non-Event):

• Maglectric Rapid (derez anything anywhere)
• Lucky Charm?
• WAKE Implant (to charge for R&D)
• Detente?
• Jeitinho (or Deep Dive, with extra clicks)
• PAN-Weave (drain a credit) + Info Bounty (if HQ is marked) + Zahya

HQ-Multiaccess:

• Docklands Pass
• Cupellation
• The Twinning, Manuel Lattes de Moura?, etc
• Mercury (especially with uniced Archives)
• Virtuoso?

See x:hq t!event d:r

“Run-Events-matter”:

• MuslihaT (draws it).
• Swift (reimburses the Double 's click-loss).
• Sang Kancil? (irrelevant, unless Archives is Code-Gate’d)

NBT is like a “yellowshifted Bacterial Programming”.

For example, after the Runner steals it (with five-ish cards in hand and just two credits in pool), you can: click it to draw 4 (shuffling away an agenda), play Your Digital Life (netting+$7), then play a kicked Oppo Research (the stolen 5/3 turning on both the Threat 3 and the “Reprisal”).

The agenda-counter templating increases the flexibility (and simplifies the timing) of:

• When this agenda is scored or stolen, draw 4 cards, then shuffle any number of cards from HQ into R&D.

Hantu (👻) is a semi-Fixed-Strength (and semi-Limited-Usage) breaker: halfway between disposability (like Propeller) and high-base-strength (like Buzzsaw).

For example, it can interface with Ansel 1.0 twice, or Biawak once. After which, you must spend Leech counters, have charged it with Cookbook, or so on.

(I don't know about the power-level, but I do love the design.)

Hantu is a ghost/spirit in Malay/Indonesian. (False cognate with "haunt"!)

Hantu (Wikipedia)

Like Nico Campaign, Otto is a three-turn drip, with an extra payout afterwards, but +[click][click] versus +3[$], Draw 1. NB. Nico’s gives you twice as many “units-of-value” (unless you're scoring agendas, spamming assets, using abilities, or so on with Otto’s).

Like MCA Austerity Policy, Otto is a three-turn “countdown”: if you can protect it for those turns, you'll gain two clicks (for a five-click turn, enough to FA 4/2’s or NA 5/3’s). NB. Otto’s last drip (take 2[$] from this and gain [click][click]) funds two basic-advances (1[$], [click]: Place 1 advancement counter.) flush.

Very cool.

IMO, Null Signal should print more such “Dripping-Countdown” campaigns. Both with economy bonuses (like Otto, or costlessly-installing, never-advancing, etc), as well as with offensive bonuses (like damage, tags, trashing installations, zapping credits, de-allotting clicks, etc).

PS. I had a custom Jinteki asset with Do 2 net damage after dripping for three turns (CF. Urban Renewal), as well as a Weyland one with Trash 1 installed resource; after the Reboot Project released an NBN one with Give the Runner 1 tag (Engagement Metrics). But I prefer NSG's countdown of three-turns (two-turns-rezzed).

[$3] ASSET [-$3]: Advertisement - Hostile - Clone
[jinteki 3/5]
When you rez this asset, load 8[$] onto it. When empty, trash it and do 2 net damage.
When your turn begins, take 2[$] from this asset.

Scatter Field is a 4s/2↳-for-$3 when singly-protecting a server.

(CF. “Non-Porous Eli 1.0”, or an “EtR-ified Drafter”.)

Notes

Especially when you're protecting an early asset (like Humanoid Resources / Regolith), building your secondary remote (alongside Mahkota Langit Grid), or rushing an agenda. Even if you'll double-ice that server next turn anyways, an SF can act like a Gatekeeper (CF. This ice gets +4 strength if you rezzed it this turn.).

To fully-break a four-strength three-sub ice with turn-one decoders, it should cost the Runner four-to-five credits (IE. more than its rez-cost). For example:

• Buzzsaw costs 3[$] + 1[$] (but just 1[$] with a Leech).
• Unity costs 3[$] + 2[$] (or 4[$] with a second icebreaker).
• Euler only costs 2[$] + 0[$] (if they facechecked-then-installed, 4[$] if they didn't).
• Shibboleth costs 2[$] + 2[$] (even at threat level ≤ 3).
• Cat's Cradle costs 3[$] + 2[$] (wouldn't tax you +1[$] to rez, unless they pre-installed it for some reason?).
• The new Sang Kancil only costs 1[$] + 2[$] (if they Bravado or Clean Getaway into your SF; 5[$] if they basic-run).

Of course, besides breakers:

• Boomerang costs 2[$], [trash].
• Physarum Entangler costs 2[$] to bypass.
• Botulus can fully-break it after a second turn (or can pass it the same turn it's installed, but only by firing off “½ Drafter”).
• Overclock) costs 1[$] (with the decoder).
• Bankhar just costs Suffer 2 net damage (but needs a whole turn to set up).
• Arruaceiras Crew can't destroy it by itself. (EG. would need 4[$], Take 2 tags, [trash] and needs a second copy).

Thoughts

Design-wise, I love ice with some “incidental positionality” (like Turing, which is both “pro-Remotes” and “anti-AI”).

It's fun to “expose-by-deducing” (“Why didn't they just install this card into their empty remote with an already-rezzed barrier, and pay the one credit to install this in front of there?”).

Compare its ability (While this ice is the only piece of ice protecting this server, …) to other “Vertically-Positional” abilities.

• a “Flexible Curtain Wall”: EG. If this is the outermost or innermost piece of ice protecting a server, it gets +4 strength.
• an “Inverted Seidr Adaptive Barrier/Surveyor”: EG. This ice gets −1 strength for each other piece of ice protecting this server.

PS. Given Asa Group rotating, can this “Singly-Icing-matters” effect (along with the non-(◆) Mahkota Langit Grid the new “Installer IDs”) incentivize some more secondary/tertiary remotes? For Fully Operational and to “expose-by-deducing” (or try to!), like “Why didn't they just install that card into their empty remote with an already-rezzed barrier, and pay the one-credit to install that ice in front of there?”