Just as Hades Shard alleviated my frustration with Jackson Howard, thereby dissolving my compulsion to smash any yellow-colored objects in my house and allowing me to get some sleep at night, Clot has come into my life to rain shit on tournament-obsessed fast advance nerds who should have never stopped playing Magic: the Gathering.

Has there ever been a better time to be an Anarch? Not since Self-modifying Code has one runner faction had it so great. Seriously. In the very first data pack since Order & Chaos flooded us with unfathomably fun and powerful cards, we get the one card in the game that actually forces SanSan-obsessed twinks to play Netrunner. I love this card so much that I have ordered 500 more packs of The Valley in the hopes of fashioning an orange tuxedo out Clot cards. I don't think it's hyperbolic to say this is the most vindicating moment of my entire life.

PROS:

  • Invalidates the most annoying Corp deck builds with the exception of Jinteki: Replicating Perfection.

  • Forces Corp to tell you when to run on HQ. Did they just purge virus counters? Guess who's probably holding an agenda or two.

  • Is a virus, thereby working in harmony with the best runner ID in the game.

CONS:

  • None. This card does nothing wrong.
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Playing clot as a singleton in shaper also looks great. With SMC or clone chip, it can hide from its own downside, and be tutored up after biotic install adv adv, or after install adv on a sansan. Beware you cannot do it after the last token, as the corp "reacts" first to his own click. —
As an anarch player and hater of all things FA, I obviously love this card. I am worried, however, that the only thing that will change is that the FA decks will include the Cyberex virus-trashing card. —
@KitsuAeryn That is a very valid point. I don't worry about it too much as 1) virus purges aren't too devistating to my playing style and 2) most Noise decks run Clone Chip/Deja Vu anyway. —
He rages at "Magic: The Gathering Nerds" who use competitive yet degenerate strategies to play a game that doesn't end up feeling like Netrunner, yet HE plays Noise Solitaire. LOL. This made my day, you get a "like" :^) —
I don't play Noise solitaire. Full suite of breakers, run about every 0.75 turns. Yup. —
I will have to say that my initial impressions of Clot have been on the negative side - and this is coming from a player who has been a standing advocate of Anarch for a whole year, plays NBN but thinks Astro should be Limit 1 per deck, and cruises far past MTG in favor of VtES and A:NR. :) The need for this kind of a card is real, but it is not exaclty the best way to go with it. A FA NEH will laugh at the face of danger with Cyberdexes, and without a reliable tutor or splashed Clone Chips this might be just a waste of 2c. It's hard to find without tutors, should not be a three-of include, is dead against many other decks... Clot is strictly speaking not an Anarch card, but a Shaper card with an influence cost. :) Glad to see something not easily splashable in Criminal though. It's a card we needed, not deserved. A more reactive, universally playable card would've been better. Traffic Jam is in a better direction, as is The Source, but they are as clunky as Clot. Anyways, I hope time will prove me wrong, and until then there's nothing wrong in being excited about this card! —
Doesn't shipment from sansan pretty much negate clots ability? Install in new server, shipment, astro token, score.. —
Still can't score it! Clot says no. You can load it up with as many advancement tokens as you like, but you're not allowed to score it even if you meet the agenda's advancement requirement. It just sits there being sad. —

Sadly this card is a counter for nothing other than good times and game enjoyment, as the official ruling is that you have to use Fun Disrupter before the Corp declares his or her trace strength. This means if your opponent is Blue Sun, and they have more than god (and of course they will), this janky little piece of cardboard will spare you from exactly six of the 49 tags you were about to get from Midseason Replacements.

Pros:

  • Good to play if you would like to have an argument about the rules in the hopes of stalling the inevitable double Scorch headed your way.

  • Combo with SMC and surprise your opponent. Congratulations! You now have three fewer to spend on preventing the next trace, which starts ...now!

  • Only 1?

  • Can be combo'd with a Sharpie to make a Desperado proxy.

Cons:

  • Does nothing of any value.

  • Even the art is nondescript, suggesting not even the makers of this card had any idea as to what it was supposed to do.

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It's orange. Surely it should be a Grimoire proxy.:) —

What once started as Jackson Insurance in my Noise deck has now become a must-include card in all my decks. Why? People love relying on Jackson Howard! You would be surprised how many agenda points this guy has gotten me when I drop him unexpectedly while playing Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter or even The Professor, and how many times those points resulted in a game winner. People will treat Archives like some kind of run-proof vault in which they will feel secure cramming every agenda in their deck, their Social Security Number, and all incriminating photos of themselves as long as they have their favorite yellow card on the table, sated by that shit-eating grin.

It is a cheap, dirty, and craven way to win, but I encourage every Runner to do the same. Jackson Howard Dependency Disorder (JHDD) is a rampant illness in this game, and the only way to fight it is to force the Corp to be more creative.

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So very true. Wins me approx 15% of games. Dead useful against glacier types who think a single jacko is sufficient insurance against having multiple agendas in archives while constantly overdrawing into their hand. Amazing how many players don't understand the timing if installed from hand —
Thank you guys for the tip :) Just went from zero to eight (+3 on film critic) playing against Industrial Genomics. I just played naive, and avoided touching his Jackson :) —
I agree fully, I headed to this page to post a similar review. But I must say, you put it better than I would have :) —

So after a few games with Earthrise Hotel in place of Wyldside in my Noise deck, I can say that the main problem with this card isn't the initial cost, it is that it leaves you after three turns. If you play Noise like I do (and it may be fair to argue you shouldn't), you have now gotten used to letting Wyldside burn away for the majority of the game. Without being able to tutor for anything besides viruses, Noise depends on massive card draw, especially if you run standard breaker suites. (And let's be honest if you're only running Crypsis/Darwin while relying on Hades Shard you are a terrible person.) Even when I had Earthrise in my starting hand, I still felt "under-drawn" by mid game. Resorting back to one click/one draw after the hotel kicked me out really ruined my game's pace.

I personally feel that Wyldside + Daily Casts is a much better team than Earthrise Hotel + Armitage Codebusting. The number of clicks spent in each combo tend to average out, but with the former I get through my deck more efficiently.

I could see using Earthrise more in a Noise (or any other Runner) deck that doesn't use Aesop's Pawnshop. With Aesop's in play you always have an out if you get sick of wasting credits to WS. But if you would like to ditch Aesop's for a more traditional economy for some reason, Earthrise Hotel has the benefit of not having to marry it for the entire game.

For me though, Wyldside still suits my needs better.

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This card has me looking forward to other SanSan Cylcle cards like Vintage T-Bird, Middle School Sockhop, and Rodeo Drive Bristro as they all perfectly exemplify ANR's Cyberpunk setting.

Maybe it's time to slow down on the Data Packs for awhile, FFG.

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So far, most cards that have affected grip seem to be related to the mental state of the runner (with Borrowed Sattelite being the exception). I'm in agreement with Addison, this card seems somewhat out of theme; both for netrunner (even with the campus overtones), and also for the current conception of what the hand size is. —
I don't see a theme in cards that increase hand size for the runner: [Public Sympathy](/en/card/02050), [Borrowed Satellite](/en/card/03050), [Theophilius Bagbiter](/en/card/05049), [Origami](/en/card/06074), [Box-E](/en/card/06055). I rather like the fusion of the old and the new, we always seems to look back fondly at the past and it seems the android universe is no different. —
Because in the Cyberpunk future there are no beaches, just desolate cityscapes by the sea? I don't really mind the variety, yo. —
What's wrong with taking some time off to hide amongst the millions of other people celebrating? —