Reclaim

Reclaim 0[credit]

Resource
Influence: 2

[click], [trash], trash a card from your grip: Install a program, piece of hardware, or virtual resource from your heap, paying its install cost.

It was a deal, to be sure. She just didn't know for which party.
Illustrated by Josh Corpuz
Decklists with this card

Kampala Ascendent (ka)

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

No rulings yet for this card.

Reviews

Reclaim, at a glance, doesn't seem particularly amazing in the same world where Clone Chip exists. However, there are a lot of little nuanced angles to look at the two cards from. Strictly from an install standpoint, while both are cheap, Reclaim is free, with CC costing 1. CC is a bit safer in general though, considering that it's Hardware and options for trashing hardware are uncommon, and even less commonly slotted into decks. Reclaim, being a Resource, is susceptible to Scarcity, and of course can be trashed when tagged (although it's not that bad to make the corp pay 2 and a to trash a 0 card). Both card's abilities have , so any triggers will work with both. The infamous CC fires instantly (or more technically, at the speed of any available trigger window) and that's where we see a big difference between the two cards. Reclaim costs you a , which is not only relevant because of the cost, but also lets us know that we won't ever be firing it on the Corp's turn (no instant-clots). It doesn't stop there though; as an additional cost to play Reclaim, you must also pitch a card from hand. Not the end of the world (often runners have redundant cards to get rid of) but it's still a cost that CC is without. On the flip side, you do get a bit more freedom in return for these extra costs--CC only allows you to pull programs back from the bin, whereas Reclaim lets you do programs, hardware and virtual resources. That's nearly any card (sans non-virtual resources) that a runner installs as a valid target. Lastly, both cards are Shaper, and cost 2 Influence.

Now that the comparison is out of the way, there's a myriad of potential theory-crafting that can be done. Instead of trying to hit all the marks though, I just want to focus on Adam. (My favorite runner. The only runner.) While lacking the speed of CC, Reclaim does the lion's share of any kind of recursion work you could want in Adam deck. Typically, Adam only runs a few breakers, since all of them cost precious influence. This normally makes him susceptible to program-trashing, but with a Reclaim or two, he no longer needs to worry about being locked out permanently. Likewise, his small hand-size can get gummed early on with programs that he doesn't want to install until later (drawing into 2 Multi-Threaders in turn 1 is awful). Reclaim lets you confidently pitch them early on, or even better--use them as Emergent Creativity fodder only to pull them back later when you have the MU space to afford them. Next, while all the Directives have their place people typically consider Find the Truth to be the strongest, and any time Adam is tagged, FTT usually hits the bin from a corp trash. Reclaim lets you pull back "Virtual" Resources, and as it happens, all of Adam's directives are Virtual. No longer are you blind after a corp trash if you happen to hit a Prisec tag after a Logic Bomb run with no clicks--simply recur it with Reclaim. Speaking of, Logic Bomb (one of Adam's strongest, if not the strongest card) is also a Virtual Resource. One Logic Bomb can change the course of the game. How about 6?

In closing, a lot of times recursion (if it's not naturally built into a deck with things like expendable breakers) or trash-protection comes off as a silver bullet. You don't want to put it into your deck, but you might be tempted just to save you from those awkward SDS corp-scores that snipe your one-of breaker. In Adam, Reclaim fulfills this role as a silver bullet, but is also never wasted--you'll always find a use for one, even if it's just to recur Logic Bomb, which honestly is almost completely worth just on its own.

(Downfall era)
102