Junk-tier, but really fun to play and to play against.
In power level, it is worse than the already lousy Nova. The "one copy only" restriction hits Ampere harder than Nova. The most important runner imports are often breakers, consoles and maybe other programs which could function well on a single copy. Second and third copies of these cards can help ensure you draw a copy quickly but are otherwise dead draws in most matchups. In contrast, the marginal value of some corp cards increases with additional copies. If you have multiple copies of Spin Doctor, it's not a major setback if one gets trashed because Doctor #2 or #3 can recur it. Cards which require planning/support like AR-Enhanced Security might be hard to justify on a single copy. Draining cards like Obokata get more taxing with additional copies. If Jinteki could, they would probably want to slot 7 Obokatas. (Or 20 Stings, heh).
What corps don't have is a ton of high-influence cards like Paperclip or Bukhgalter or Endurance that are clearly superior and would be used widely if influence were not an issue. And most of the clearly superior corp cards are either ice or economic assets, neither one of which work as well on a single copy.
So, what does this mean for Ampere?
- Ampere is extraordinarily inconsistent and vulnerable to RND. If they trash your one Spin Doctor, you likely have no other good recursion in your deck.
- Your long-term economic situation is dire. Your economy options likely consist of like 4 high-value assets (Rashida, Daily Quest, Wall to Wall, Regolith Mining License) and a slew of low/medium impact operations. If you can't find one of your ~4 key economic cards your first several turns will be grim but remember, they don't know right away if your nuclear silos are loaded and most runners will take unrezzed ice/upgrades from Ampere very seriously. (They will not, however, generally respect unguarded servers. You don't have a defensive identity ability like CTM and can't build well around post-run punishment like Hard-Hitting News).
- Deckbuilding: your pool of ice is unusually strong at low numbers. You can put together 8-10 elite ice easily. If you're thinking like 13-15 ice, you either have to look at mediocre ice like Eli 1.0 (which feels like not enough deckbuilding value in most cases) or exotic sucker-punches like Saisentan and Tyr which are inefficient but could gut a runner that can't know what to expect.
- Your upgrade game is elite. A ton of runner value comes from planning and executing run events, which is much harder for a runner that doesn't know what the defensive upgrades look like and is scared to spend the money to find out. If the corp is poor, the worst-case scenario for an unknown upgrade is short-term usually worse for the runner than for an unknown ice. Whatever the runner is planning for this turn, it's hard to work around an upgrade which could be Anoetic Void or Mamegarm or Ganked or some exotic blast like Mwanza or NATO City.
- Your tag-and-bag game is extraordinarily weak. One copy of Boom plus weak recursion, 0-1 copies of kill-supporting agendas, rough. The worse it is, the harder it is to see coming and the more I'm compelled to try it. Tag and bag is the ultimate Champere move. If you land a kill with Meteor Mining, please let me know.
- Horizontal play is not viable without a supporting identity ability. Ampere will never have a shot at doing this well because any card pool where Ampere *could* be good at wide play would make identities like NEH or CTM wildly powerful. (Also, these factions can run 3x copies of key assets and multiple copies of AR-Enhanced Security).
- Your agendas are high-value but unlikely to work effectively with each other or most of the cards in your deck. Obokata is great in a Jinteki deck where most of their cards pile on net damage or benefit from a low hand size. It's still a tempo hit to the runner and a good defensive agenda in Ampere but it probably won't be vastly better than a Degree Mill. I am experimenting with sucker-punch agendas like Regenesis and Meteor Mining and they are WILD in Champere.
- Your fast-advance game is weaker than Weyland's, but Ampere is probably the closest to viable in fast-advance. You'll miss having multiple copies of Hostile Takeover and Audacity but at least you can substitute with inferior 2/1s. Outside of 2/1s, your agendas won't be much *worse* than Weyland's but they will be *bigger*. A 40-card Weyland identity only needs to run one agenda outside of 3/2s and 2/1s. In Ampere, assuming you're slotting exclusively 3/2s and at least two 2/1s from the major factions, you will have 6 points of neutral agendas which all come in awkward sizes. Getting forced to slot like a third of your agenda points in hard-to-score sizes is probably not ideal for FA. You'll miss having an identity ability, but it might not matter as much in FA as it does elsewhere. Your "ability" to pull out strange and unexpected cards might produce early-game value before the runner has an idea what your opening ice look like. Embrace sucker punches like Saisentan and go for it.