As much a near-print as near-prints can be, in this case of Team Sponsorship. It is now neutral and one universal influence so that everyone, including HB, can join in on the asset spam fun, but for a price. It has the same (albeit reworded) text and rez cost but costs 1 fewer credit to trash, which all runners will appreciate. Not much else to say about it. If you have a horizontal deck and you can spare the influence, you will probably want to play this. If you play a different archetype, this likely isn't for you.
Self-modifying code but:
- You install immediately, so can't install a program mid-run.
- You can pull a program back from the heap. (Or just pay 2 credits, 1 memory extra to install a program from your grip)
- Costs 1 memory by itself and that memory cost sticks around after the program has been tutored.
- costs 1 extra influence out of faction but is an in-faction way for Shapers to pull programs from heap.
The benefit to taking this over Self-modifying code is when you want to be able to pull a program back from the heap and don't mind occupying 1 extra memory while it's around (And once you're done with it, it's one extra card for Aesop's shop)
This isn’t a review, I’m just wondering if anyone else thinks that ‘1 or less agenda points’ doesn’t sound quite right and it would be better for this card to say ‘1 or fewer’? I think the reason I may be thinking that is because people tend to use fewer when referring to a plural (points in this case).
yeah, I think either "one or fewer agenda points" or "one agenda point or less" sounds a little better, but "one or less agenda points" doesn't even sound bad to me to be honest (because of how colloquially interchangeable "less" and "fewer" are).
— D4v1d-Gr43b3rI have always said that 4/2 agendas need to be incredibly strong to see play. And I think Kingmaking might just be up there. If you build your deck correctly, this is essentially a 4/3 but without giving the runner a big boost like Improved Protein Source or the downside of being unable to fast advance it with something like Vladisibirsk City Grid as with Vulnerability Audit.
Ofcourse there is a downside to it, which is that you might not have a 1-pointer in hand at the time of scoring. But then again, between your mandatory draw and the 3 cards this draws, your chances of seeing one are pretty high. And worst case scenario, it still draws you 3 cards, which is probably an upside (unless you draw into a ton of non-1-point agendas).
So yeah, great agenda that will probably see play in specific NBN decks.
Burner: Single handedly forcing Corps to ice up HQ first against Shapers
Functionally Burner is similar to but much less random than Embezzle trading the ability to have an insane upside that Embezzle has with, umm, being a fantastic card. There really isn't much downside to this card beyond it being a little less damaging when your opponent has a Spin Doctor or some other instant speed ability to manipulate RnD (and even then you playing Burner forces the use of these cards).
The important three points when playing Burner is that it is always guaranteed to do some damage, it does so in a way that dodges traps or Oppo Research and that said damage is controlled. If you were to legwork into HQ and see 3 Ice or Operations, that would obviously be a wiff. Even with tools like Imp added in you might trash the "objectively incorrect" card because you are seeing the cards one at a time and might waste the imp on the wrong card. And if you legworked into 2 Snare! and a Fujii Asset Retrieval you are probably heading home in a body bag.
Burner gets around both these issues by showing you all 3 of your choices at the same time and giving you full control of where they go, top or bottom, which can be different (top the Agenda, bottom the Oppo Research ). It also does this without needing to combo with any other cards, hence a Shaper Aniccam event heavy deck running this card would have excellent HQ pressure that must be respected, even with no other HQ cards. And even with just a Twinning, Burner plus Twinning on a standard 5 card hand Corp will let you see and steal everything, which is great fun all around.
All up a fantastic Shaper card. At 3 inf it is a bit difficult to import but it is still possible for other factions. And if you as the Corp leave HQ open on the Runner's first click you have to be aware that you might be signing up to get all your fun tools chucked to the bottom of the deck.
I do think its uniqueness should be pointed out: there's no possibility of suddenly refreshing 3 Nico Campaigns after you've already earned 27 credits and 3 card draws from them. Even if you have 3 in your deck, you'll have to choose which one of the various cards in HQ or Archives you want to install.
— P. T. d. l. R.