Anvil

Anvil 4[credit]

Ice: Code Gate
Strength: 3
Influence: 2

When the Runner encounters this ice, you may trash 1 of your other installed cards. If you do, the Runner cannot break this iceʼs printed subroutines for the remainder of this encounter.

[subroutine] Gain 1[credit]. The Runner loses 1[credit].

[subroutine] The Runner trashes 1 of their installed cards.

Waiting for the next blow to land.
Illustrated by Scott Uminga
Decklists with this card

Parhelion (ph)

#124 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Printings
Parhelion
Rulings

No rulings yet for this card.

Reviews

While we already have Mutually Assured Destruction, this ICE on centrals can quickly turn into the whole board to Scorched Earth. Note this ability fires on every encounter not just on rez like many of the ICE in Borealis. The runner tends to like the cards they've put out so having a 100% unbreakable sub that forces them to remove one of those nice cards is a real pain.

Ob Superheavy Logistics: Extract. Export. Excel. means you can trade down some of your cards and maintain more board than your opponent while also tutoring cards. Maybe trash a 4 cost card to rez Anemone and hit them for 2 net damage on top of losing something. Could be a 3 cost card to rez Ping and give em a tag. I'm sure you'll think of something.

I think this also has some potential in Jinteki remotes. Put this in front of Nanisivik Grid and you can trash face-down ETR ICE or Bathynomus or whatever making them lose some of their rig and questioning how dangerous the facedown card in Archives is. If you are really in dire straits you can also just trash the agenda they would otherwise steal. Also gives one bit of extra oomph to a rezzed Anemone that has otherwise stopped taxing the Runner.

It has the same weakness of other porous trash ICE where it doesn't do much if the runner decides to run it early with nothing on the board, though even then it steal credits from the runner unless they've decide to run with no rig or money (we've all been there).

I think this card is really strong for the cost and the ability to just make it unbreakable - sure the Runner gets to choose what to trash, but usually they don't want to trash anything. The fact that it can help trigger evil combos makes it all the better!

(Parhelion era)

Great review. This ice also interact with Chief Slee well, because it force 2 subs to fire, give Chief Slee 2 counters. Also, it is a good counter to runner using a minimal amount of installed gears, since it will force the runner to trash something. On the first run, it might not be impactful, but on the 2nd and 3rd run, it can really do interesting damage. In essence, it is a reliable rig shooter, the caveat is that you do not get to choose which card the runner must trash.