The Cleaners

The Cleaners 5/3

Agenda: Security

[interrupt] → Whenever you would do meat damage, increase that damage by 1.

"I use bioroids because I can wipe their memories or just blow their brains out when the job is done. No witnesses means no witnesses."
Illustrated by Gong Studios
Decklists with this card

Revised Core Set (core2)

#111 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Rulings
  • Updated 2017-04-09

    The Cleaners adds an additional point of damage to the source of the damage before any damage is prevented. [Official FAQ]

  • Updated 2017-04-09

    The Cleaners can add unpreventable meat damage if the source is also unpreventable. [Official FAQ]

Reviews

Service with a smile

Ah yes, and here are The Cleaners, these are the units that take care of the funny smells, hard to clean body fluids stains and the occasional nosy busy body so that we can focus on getting things done... The Cleaners while cleaning Weyland's dirty laundry, like many other 5/3 agendas it provides a significant benefit to the corp player. Let's take a look at the details:

Combos

The following cards all cause meat damage any of which can combo with The Cleaners to cause even more damage:

Agendas: a second copy of The Cleaners adds yet another damage to whatever the original meat damage cause is, a total of 3 damage each time Vulcan Coverup is scored, and my personal favorite: each on Private Security Force becomes 2 for a total of 6 possible meat damage per turn! (not too many runner decks are built to withstand losing 6 cards a turn for very long!)

Assets: a total of 3 damage with Contract Killer or Dedicated Response Team.

Ice: a total of 3 damage with Flare and a total 4 damage with Checkpoint.

Operations: a net 5 meat damage with Scorched Earth, 3 with Traffic Accident and with Punitive Counterstrike 2+ damage (likely 4 damage, possibly 7 damage if runner was unlucky enough to not win after stealing Government Takeover) depending on the agenda that was stolen.

(Did I miss something obvious, I'd appreciate suggestions in the comments below, I may add it to this review)

Pros

Can really boost flat-line deck increasing likelihood of flat-lining runner

Compounds tempo hit on the runner whenever meat damage is dealt

5/3 agenda helps with agenda compression when constructing a deck and minimizes the likelihood the runner can access an agenda on a random access.

Helps quickly chew through Plascrete Carapace or side-line other meat damage mitigating cards

Cons

5 advancement cost makes it difficult to score

3 agenda points provides significant boost to runner if stolen

Many meat-damage causing combos require tags or other conditions that can sometimes be difficult to line up.

Summary

The Cleaners can certainly be a fun part of an overall flat-line deck strategy as 1-2 scored copies of can be nearly impossible for a runner to overcome. Thankfully since Weyland has a number of meat-damage inducing options making The Cleaners certainly worth considering in such cases.

--It just saddens me when I see cards with no reviews. If you appreciated this review, please give a heart and I'll be encouraged to write more.

(Data and Destiny era)
I might be missing something, but what does meat damage have to do with Dedicated Technician Team? —
Oops, that was supposed to be Dedicated Response Team! Thanks TheNameWasTaken you were not missing something extremely clever on my part! —
Unfortunately The Cleaners has no effect with Argus Security, as Argus states that runner suffers 2 meat damage, as opposed to the corp 'doing' meat damage. —
Thanks amavric, totally see your point. Argus Security has been removed from the review —
Does the runner not by definition "suffer" meat damage whenever you do meat damage? Is the technicality that you didn't do the damage yourself? —

Now here's a 5/3 that's worth considering, despite the awkwardness that comes with 5 advancements. Scorched Earth isn't around anymore (RIP in peace,) and BOOM! doesn't usually care about doing 8 instead of 7. What's that leave as the main beneficiaries? The smaller, incidental meat damage cards. In rough order of usefulness:

Weyland Consortium: Builder of Nations doubles its meat tax to 2 per turn usually - insane.

Prisec doubles to 2.

Traffic Accident becomes more threatening (2 up to 3.)

Punitive Counterstrike gets another point of reach.

Argus Security: Protection Guaranteed goes up to 3, though they can take a tag instead.

Dedicated Response Team goes up to 3.

Mr. Stone doubles to 2.

Contract Killer - 2 to 3.

Breached Dome doubles to 2, if you can spare the influence for minor one-off traps.

There's others, but at the time of this writing none of them seem particularly useful in Weyland. Basically, it becomes much more likely that some combination of things will bring the runner into kill range. Cleaners do stack, but at that point you've probably won on points anyway. Nice card, glad they spared it from rotation.

(Crimson Dust era)
Presumably you mean Traffic Accident, not Traffic Jam. —
If you're using Breached Dome, them plus the cleaners means you don't need too many in Archives to make it a dangerous place for the runner to access. —
Last I checked this doesn't actually work with Argus, since terminology is technically making them do damage to themselves through the trigger (similar to "the runner trashes X" instances). —