Bahia Bands

Bahia Bands 2[credit]

Event: Run
Influence: 1

Run any server. If successful, resolve 2 of the following in any order:

  • Draw 2 cards.
  • Install 1 card from your grip, paying 1[credit] less.
  • Remove 1 tag.
  • Place 4[credit] on this event. You can spend hosted credits to pay trash costs for the remainder of this run.

Illustrated by Anna Butova
Decklists with this card

The Automata Initiative (tai)

#30 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Rulings

No rulings yet for this card.

Reviews

Ah, finally a 1-influence costed neutral cantrip card that is interesting. Let us compare this to its predecessors, Build Script, Process Automation and Deuces Wild.

Both Build Script and Process Automation were incredibly boring cards, almost signaling to the consumer that FFG had run out of ideas that month and desperately needed to fill the card pool by +2 with... something. Arguably, Build Script was probably the better of the two, but neither were particularly great and inclusion of either or both in your deck usually meant that you either didn't want to put the effort into finding a better card, or some serious jank was incoming. At best they were/are a technical increase of one-unit of tempo each (if we value one , and draw equally) at the cost of 1 influence.

Deuces Wild took this to another level. Effectively, if you only ever chose the first two options, it was identical to Process Automation with the disadvantage of the 2 upfront cost. The second and third options however, greatly expanded its utility, suddenly giving it the potential to provide much greater value. Using our ratio from before, removing a click is a three unit swing (1, 2 ) and while exposing a piece of ICE usually can't be distilled to a numerical value, its effect can be game-changing (not to mention that you get a free run out of the deal). If I'm honest, when Deuces Wild was printed I was annoyed at how good it was. It wasn't broken, it wasn't drastically warping the meta, but it just felt too safe.

So now, with Deuces Wild rotated out, Bahia Bands comes in as the replacement and finally I can breath a sigh of relief. This strikes a clean middle-ground between the previous three cards. It's more interesting than Build Script and Process Automation without being the guaranteed immediate win that Deuces Wild was. For starters, two of the abilities return--draw 2 cards and remove 1 tag. These are fine--drawing 2 cards at the cost of 2 credits isn't good on its own, and while the value of a free tag removal on top of it is great, it's going to be situational and small (it is after all, just one tag).

The other two abilities are new and not immediate, guaranteed wins on their own either. Installing a card at a -1 is very likely to something the runner can do, but it forces them to move the game forward. It doesn't just say "hey dummy, gain money." Now the runner has to show something, they have to do something, they have to lose a card and unless the card costs 1 they have to spend something. This overall creates a more interesting board state. And lastly, possibly the most creative of the four cantrips is a whopping 4 value... that can only be spent on trash costs. Again, this is wonderful--this is a nice, relatively powerful effect (a value of 4 units) that is very situational and also requires the runner to do something. They have to make a run, they have to either know where an asset is or they have to guess properly. And of course, the asset itself (or combined assets in the case of upgrades) must be valued at 4 at least in order to obtain the full value. It isn't as simple as "hey, get free information and make a run anywhere" like Deuces.

No, overall I like the design of this card. It feels fun, it's not a free win and it's not an overpowered mess. At first-glance it seems like it will be the strongest against asset-spam NBN, what with the 4 trash and tag removal, but we will have to see.

(The Automata Initiative era)
96

This card is very, very significantly stronger than Deuces. It is roughly on par of being able to take three options off Deuces.