Superdeep Borehole

Superdeep Borehole 6[credit]

Asset: Illicit - Industrial
Trash: 6
Influence: 5

When you rez this asset, load 6 bad publicity counters onto it. When it is empty, you win the game.

When your turn begins, take 1 bad publicity from this asset.

"They just keep drilling down, no matter what..."
—Valentina Ferreira
Illustrated by Vitalii Ostaschenko
Decklists with this card

Parhelion (ph)

#123 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Printings
Parhelion
Rulings
  • Updated 2023-03-25

    Does bad publicity hosted on Superdeep Borehole give credits to the Runner?

    No. Only bad publicity the Corp actually "has" are counted when giving the Runner credits during a run, and the Corp doesn’t “have” the bad publicity counters hosted on Superdeep Borehole until they take them off it.

  • Updated 2023-03-25

    Can the Corp use effects that remove bad publicity to get rid of bad publicity hosted on Superdeep Borehole?

    No. The Corp does not have permission to spend, remove, or otherwise interact with counters hosted on their cards unless an ability explicitly allows it.

Reviews

"This card is unbelievably cool and twice as weak." -Harold Zoid

This is definitely a cool concept for doom-over-time, but so much worse than the rest. It doesn't do anything positive until turn 6 unless you're farming for bad publicity. It's hard enough to pull off Urban Renewal outside of Ob. Borehole is impossible. The runner has 20 clicks and a ⋆⋆⋆⋆ton of bad publicity credits to draw a Pinhole Threading or force their way in or win any other way they want to. This isn't a card, it's a TikTok challenge.

There aren't any cards which produce enough value from bad publicity to make this card worthwhile. The Outfit needs four triggers for Borehole to be more lucrative than Hedge Fund. Regulatory Capture only gets value from the first 4 bad publicity, and it's doubtful anyone needs cards this bad to get to 4 BP. It's doubtful anyone needs cards this bad for anything.

Cards which force the runner to run are great! Maybe look into Urban Renewal instead? It's a lot cheaper, fires more quickly, and could be lethal with a Broad Daylight counter. Or Drago Ivanov, he moves very fast in The Outfit. Or Dr. Keeling, I've heard that doom-over-time cards which start producing immediate value are pretty good.

(Parhelion era)

If you're playing the Outfit, this is basically an Eve campaign :D

I don't think decks high on bad publicity have much of a long game, and the side-benefits of generating bad publicity are very slight (+$3 for The Family, Regulatory Capture needs 4+ bp to be scorable out of hand, and Broad Daylight is underwhelming at any amount). I don't think the synergies currently exist for Borehole to be playable even if you somehow could keep it alive 4 triggers. (If you can't keep it alive 4 triggers, Hedge Fund is more lucrative).

The idea and lore of this asset is amazing, but you will lose most of the time if you use it, even in The Outfit: Family Owned and Operated. After 3 turns, most runs becomes quite inexpensive, which will let the runner hammer your centrals like no tomorrow. At the end of the count down, the runner can run and run again to pass all the ices, because bad pub reset at every runs.

To protect this, you'll need every trick possible. Border Control and ZATO City Grid. You'll probably need Anoetic Void or Bio Vault.

If you do not win at the end of the count down, you'll have to struggle with 4+ bad pub. Of course, by then you can score Regulatory Capture from hand, if the runner does not find it first.

Your best bet is probably use it as early as possible, before the runner can setup countermeasure. Also, you'll be quite vulnerable to Pinhole Threading, forcing you to spread your ices. Winning with this asset will feel amazing, if you accept the challenge.

The art is amazing, colorful and inspiring, just as the name and quote. Fun card!

(Parhelion era)
3949

This card is unbeliavably cool and twice as weak.

This card looks very bad. However, it is actually quite good and valuable for Weyland decks using Regulatory Capture.

Taking bad publicity is generally bad. You're generally supposed to be compensated with money for taking bad publicity. This is why Hostile Takeover, Too Big to Fail, give you big money in exchange for taking it, so the corp accelerates their game to try to win before the runner get get too much leverage. This card, when you rez it, you LOSE 6 credits, and you take a bad publicity. And increasingly more bad publicity, not profiting from it at all (you profit a little if you are The Outfit: Family Owned and Operated.)

The trash cost is high, but its win con only lets you win after a ridiculously long amount of time, and the closer you get to winning, the easier it is for the runner to trash it. So as other reviewers say, it looks more like a Tik Tok challenge than a part of a legitimate strategy.


The point of this card is the following.

You play a big-money bad-pub weyland deck like The Outfit: Family Owned and Operated or Weyland Consortium: Building a Better World. You have 3x Hostile Takeover, big 3 pointers, and 3x Regulatory Capture. You probably have Punitive Counterstrike, to force the runner to play around that.

Good news, 8 turns went by. You scored 2 Hostile Takeover from hand. You scored Send a Message, simply IAA'ing it like a boss because you had 40 credits and the runner only had 15, and they had to respect the double Punitive Counterstrike. So you're now on 5 points.

That's when you install the Superdeep Borehole. You rez it at the end of the runner's turn, taking 1 more bad pub, to a total of 3. Now, the runner absolutely must trash this thing on their turn, or you will get to 4 bad pub on the start of your turn, and be able to score Regulatory Capture from hand for the win. If the runner is a Nyusha "Sable" Sintashta: Symphonic Prodigy on Tunnel Vision, odds are they won't get past your remote server ice on this short notice anyways.

Congrats! You managed to get 2 bad pub from the borehole. You can now simply Extract the borehole, you don't need any more bad pub, and its built-in win con is goofy anyways. Now you simply draw into Regulatory Capture and win the game.

What's that? The runner huffed and puffed and trashed your Superdeep Borehole before you could get a second bad pub from it? That's okay, install another. If they don't trash it (face down) before the start of your turn, you'll get your 4th bad pub and proceed as planned. If they do, they paid 6 to trash something that you didn't even rez.

Or, at this point, just draw into the third Hostile Takeover. Then you are at 4 bad pub. What's a runner to do.

So, particularly in the (Parhelion) startup meta, this card is key to any weyland decks that want to run Regulatory Capture, because this and Hostile Takeover are the only ways for you to get bad publicity in Parhelion startup. And while it may seem crazy expensive for what it does, because it gives you a path to score Regulatory Capture as a 2/2 from hand, it creates a win con that is actually very hard for the runner to disrupt. You don't need to have both a 3/2 and Trick of Light in hand, and have advancement counters on the board, to fast advance. You don't need to have Biotic Labor and a pile of money and a 3/2. You just need to have played normal weyland for a while, and at some point installed a borehole that stuck around for two turns. And you don't have to try to score a second 5/3 pointer behind ice to win anymore, which is often the achilles heal of Punitive Counterstrike decks, which gets mooted once the runner steals 4 points from R&D before you can win.


So, contrary to what other reviewers are saying, do not "install this early", and don't focus on the "when it is empty, you win the game" text on the card. Install and rez only when you are 2 points from victory so that all you have to do is draw into Regulatory Capture to close out the game.

(Parhelion era)

note that the runner only pays $5 at most (not $6) to trash SDBH, because at least $1 is free from the bad publicity credits.

(nvm, you wrote "facedown", not "first turn faceup", you're right. Netrunner DB won't let me edit or delete comments e)

still, while scoring three 2/2 Regulatory Captures from hand is powerful, four bad publicity means the runner could run R&D four times a turn without getting bankrupted, no? and steal the Regulatory Captures before you can draw a fast advance them.

(sorry for the typos, but I use dictation and didn't catch them, and Netrunner DB won't let me edit the comments after posting.)

I like the plan with Punitive Counterstrike. It is a fun plan. But from experience, like @D4v1d-Gr43b3r says, by turn 3 (with 3 more turns to go), the runner can just run non stop with almost no penalty to their economy, allowing the runner to check centrals non stop. To remedy this, you could use Sandburg to make running more expensive for the runner. But then, there is always Endurance... Good review and nice ideas, thanks for sharing!