Welcome to the Stimhack Community Review for Crimson Dust! We’ve restored our thoughts and opinions from Archives while removing all other opinions from the game. Please wait patiently while the judge verifies our facedowns.
(Editor’s note: These were collected well prior to the recent cavalcade of rotation and Core 2 announcements and then Apex ate my homework, so forgive any slightly dated references. There’ll be hot spicy takes on Rotation announcements in the pipeline shortly!)
Mining Accident
miek
Oh boy, this card is just win win for an Account Siphon based runner. Everybody knows that a bad pub is good right? So good that a 50-card blank Runner ID is one of the best in the game. Even without Blackmail bad pub gives a lot of value. Most of the bad pub generating cards have had significant downside such that they’re not played, but I can see this one seeing a lot of play.
StephenBall
One of the actual successful designs of cards that give your opponent a choice. If you have the choice (basically if you have money) do you take the hit right away, or do you give a nice financial advantage to the runner for the rest of the game, barring any bad pub removal? A pretty cool card overall, I don’t know if it’ll end up seeing a lot of play, but I like the design and I like the concept of having these cards remove themselves from the game.
Higgs
Resource-heavy tag-me Anarch decks have historically slotted Activist Support as tech for the All-Seeing I. The trigger condition for this is essentially Siphoning the corp to zero(-ish), because any deck with The All Seeing I will pay the five credits now to play All-Seeing I later if you’re clearly DLR.
This is aggressively-costed compared to both Frame Job and Investigative Journalism, which is what you’re looking for in a card that gives the corp an option. Needing to run a central server is a drag, though, since you’d ideally have as many clicks as possible on a turn the corp loses five credits. Definitely worth trying.
Respirocytes
miek
Designed to combo with the self-damage clan stuff. Definitely works with them but not super impressed by its ability. Synthetic Blood has a similar (better) effect but doesn’t see much play. Arguably Shaper has less reason to self-damage in small amounts of ping like this would support, but I’m still sceptical.
StephenBall
I haven’t played one of those “hurt yourself” decks yet, but I’ve seen them a fair amount, and this card seems to fit in well enough, the question is if it’s well enough to justify deck spaces. I feel like this thing is not going to draw you cards THAT frequently, but it’s kind of neat and promotes that different way of playing the game.
SimonMoon
An important card to simply do the math on. At best it nets 2 cards (causing 1 to be lost from hand due to the meat) so you need to be getting some sort of edge from some interaction it has to justify playing. Combo’ing with Clan Vengeance is not good enough but in the right meta drawing a card can save you from dying to net damage. I like this design as a hate card because it is very plausible to beat and isn’t dead outside of it’s matchup. However since there are way more powerful net damage hate cards that exist I don’t expect this to see any play unless some of those get banned.
tvaduva
A weird Diesel for those Anarch that are playing the self-damage archetype. It triggers the next card in this review as well as Clan Vengeance. It’s probably good in those decks, but not worth it in any other type of deck.
♦ Salvaged Vanadis Armory
miek
I feel like the best use-cases for this card are the ones outside of the runner’s control (at least when deck-building), such as being scorched or purposefully faceplanting a Psychic Field or Komainu. The fact that its R&D means its not deliberately competing with Clan Vengeance, but it’s still cutting it close. I am waiting to see what other better deckbuilders than I can make from this card.
StephenBall
When I first saw this card I thought it was really good, and more of an actual win condition for the self harm deck, but now I’m looking at it again and my opinion has cooled off considerably. You have to suffer quite a bit of damage in one turn for this thing to have any real impact, and a lot of times that’s out of your control. It’s appropriately costed at 0 though.
Shanodin
I’ve seen people doing daft things with this card + Hyperdrivers. It’s an interesting alternative win-con for durdley Shapers, and is just as susceptible to being rushed by fast corps. I’ve not seen how this card performs against standard Moon lists, but I expect it takes too much setup time to get enough value from it.
Aumakua
miek
Los’ breaker! And what a doozy. At 1 influence I can see Noise splashing this with a lot of enjoyment, or just being a generally good card in virus heavy decks. Also really good in Au Revoir + Snitch (although luckily Snitch rotates soon). Works on Archives runs. I think this card will see a lot of play.
StephenBall
This card actually seems pretty sweet, this is the kind of AI breaker I like to see. Like miek said, triggers off archives, assuming no CVS, and you can charge it up checking remotes with Desperado or Informants or Maw or whatever you have. The obvious card to compare this with is Darwin. This is way better when charged, breaking subroutines for 1 instead of 2, and is theoretically faster and easier to charge, although that depends on your matchup. Against glacier matchups this will be a tough card. Overall I really like it, and the art is cute.
Shanodin
This goes straight in my deck in the place of Mammon or Vamadeva – it triggers through archives runs and is yet another way to boost the value of run-based criminal and pressure things like Excalibur plays in Jinteki glacier.
Caldera
miek
Continuing my tradition of being a negative nancy, I will be talking about how although this card is powerful it is a bad addition to the game. There are already people who argue that Feedback Filter is a bad card to exist, and that we’re lucky that it’s not very powerful. This card is as good as feedback filter for net damage and superbly better against brain damage. I mean honestly, brain damage is supposed to be hard to land, which is why it’s important that it’s a lot harder to prevent. Outside of a few weird cards like Biometric Spoofing (generally bad and one shot), On the Lam (one shot) and Heartbeat (Apex, so allowed to be weird) it has always been the case that net damage is easier to prevent and brain damage is hard. At 1 influence (and even virtual) this card will see a lot of play everywhere whenever anyone wants to form a control deck that prevents damage.
StephenBall
I hate, hate, hate silver bullet card design, and it’s seemed to take over the game more and more over the past few cycles. Single cards that enter play and neuter a matchup are poor design, and this is certainly that.
Diana’s Hunt
StephenBall
This is a really weird card, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s totally unplayable garbage. The up front cost is huge, and it’s so incredibly situational on having this card and multiple relevant programs in your hand at the same time, and needing to make a run and not caring about all of these seemingly worthwhile programs being trashed.
Whiteblade111
This event is pretty exciting. It has great synergy with a bird breaker deck in Shaper or using Brahmin to bounce the programs like Femme you cheat into play.
tvaduva
In addition to the bird breakers, this can be put to good use with disposable/conspiracy programs like Parasite, Cache, Faerie, dog breakers, Paperclip (doesn’t have to be a breaker), but it would be hard to find times when the 4 cost would be worth it. Maybe the best use is in a Sifr deck running on unrezzed ice, so you can Parasite and trash it during that run. Most likely use is having to get into a server, but not having the clicks to install the breakers needed. The 4 influence likely limits it to only Shaper. Hopefully, the future holds more expensive programs that gives this card a good economical use, since we’re losing 5 of the 7 most expensive programs to rotation.
Reshape
miek
Probably a bit expensive at 3c but anyone who has played Inversificator Kit knows how powerful this effect can be.
StephenBall
Yes, Inversificator has shown us how strong moving ICE can be, but with that you’re moving known quantities. Swapping 2 pieces of unrezzed ICE is often a different thing. Maybe in a heavy derez deck, but they often don’t care that much about which ICE is where, and expose isn’t exactly setting the world on fire outside of Snitch combo decks, which also doesn’t really care that much. 3 credits seems unacceptable for this effect, which I wouldn’t include in any decks for 0 credits.
tvaduva
The unrezzed requirement, 3 cost, and 4 influence really limit the usefulness of this card. It also competes with Escher, which can move around all ice with the additional requirement of a successful HQ run. Good runner play can determine the placement of ice without expose effects and messing around with a Corp’s precise ice placement has some intrinsic value, but it’s not likely more valuable than the 3 credits and click cost to play this event without some other (currently unreleased) card synergy. Most likely result is the Corp trashing one of the unrezzed ice because it’s not in a useful position.
Dummy Box
miek
“by the Corp” – Praise Damon! Honestly this card is already pretty obnoxious with DLR. Imagine how much worse it’d be if it worked with Bug Out Bag or Clot too.
StephenBall
An enabler card, works pretty well with DLR right now, so that’s pretty cool. I think that’s the only thing that we’ll see this card used for, protecting a high value asset, but the most high value asset to decks that expect to be tagged is rotating soon. This could protect programs, but Sac Con is better for that. Time will tell with Dummy Box.
SimonMoon
I think it’s important to note before people start to panic I don’t actually think this card makes DLR Maxx better. At two influence you lose Fall Guy and the Employee Strike which are huge losses, and what you gain is resistance against a trashing strategy. However, most decks right now aren’t trying to trash all your stuff and are focusing on scoring out against you. So you’re losing huge utility against SYNC, Aginfusion, and CI in exchange for beating almost nothing. You can use this to build a stupid powermill Hayley deck with Hyperdrivers and the like, but I think that deck is too slow and unable to disrupt the Corp sufficiently to beat decks like Moons or Aginfusion.
Corporate Defector
miek
Good thing every corporation has Jackson Howard, otherwise this card might do something. In all seriousness, this might be okay post-rotation, but for now it’s probably not worth bothering with.
StephenBall
This seems like an ability that shouldn’t be printed on a card, luckily right now it doesn’t seem super important. Decks now seem to be all about drawing cards with Moon, or with a thousand Clearance cards, or the classic Jackson Howard. Maybe after rotation this could be more useful, and I do think it is a very strong effect. It’s the type of card where in the Spin cycle it would be like, in a faction and 3 credits to install and 4 influence.
tvaduva
After rotation, this is a useful effect for a low cost. This likely slows a Corp down, making them rely on card effects and mandatory draws. WIth R&D Interface also rotating, it can’t be combined to secure a strong R&D lock.
CFC Mining Contract
miek
The easiest time to score a 4/2 is at the start of the game, where you put down some ice that the runner doesn’t have breakers for just yet. The fact that they declare themselves as agendas means that the runner will contest them much harder than never advanced cards. The downside here being, that a CFC scored near the start of the game probably isn’t going to have many Bioroids to trigger off. Corporate Sales Team (and Advanced Concept Hopper) both seem like better includes before you want this one.
StephenBall
With rotation looming, it’s becoming time to look more seriously at 4/2 agendas. I don’t think this makes any cut. Agendas that are more than 3 to advance are hard to include when they have a conditional effect that triggers only when they are scored, struggling to beat out things like Sales Team which is the same no matter what. If you’re looking for an HB 4/2 in a glaciery deck, take my word for it, Advanced Concept Hopper is really sweet, I loved playing it for the one pack before Sales Team replaced it.
tvaduva
In the competition with Advanced Concept Hopper (ACH) for agenda slots post-rotation to replace Project Vitruvius. Can be used with non-ice Bioroids, so hopefully FFG will continue to print more. Probably slots right in any Architects of Tomorrow decks day 1 of rotation. I’d figure 4 rezzed bioroids is enough to make it better than Corporate Sales Team (CST) just for the time saved to get those credits. How often that happens is to be tested (depending on the build).
♦ MCA Austerity Policy
miek
I think this might be the most powerful corp card of the entire cycle. Its seriously very very very very very VERY good (did I say enough verys? Probably not). As an avid Moon player I’m a bit apprehensive about how much more powerful this will make Moon ETF, but honestly this card is so “must trash” that it is probably going to be super value in every kind of deck.
StephenBall
Every time I sit to do a pack review for here or on the podcast, I have to ponder something. Do I have the energy to discuss whatever new completely dumb card is coming out that is going to lead to terrible experiences for players? This is potentially one of the dumbest cards that has been released in some time, and each pack that comes out has me asking how it’s possible for them to keep topping themselves? You want a definition of must trash? How about an asset that saps a click from you each turn and eventually gives the corporation a 6 click turn? Okay, I have to deal with that now, they have ELP in play as well, so I have 1 click, it’s behind a Fairchild 3, because of course it is. Okay, I’ll let them have it, I don’t have the time or money now: they score a Food out of hand then Sponsorship this back out. Do not like, this card is ridiculous and will never lead to a positive gameplay experience.
Shanodin
I won’t repeat what others have said, just want to chip in with this horrible thought – this card, in RP, with Friends in High Places, and maybe even Enhanced Login Protocol. Score a Nisei Mk2 from hand, why not! Or even a GFI! Better slot that clot, folks.
Inactivist
I thought this was a pretty good card when I’d misread it as giving one click less. Then it just became disgusting. It might not actually fire as often as you’d like, but it poses such a threat while simultaneously depriving the runner of answering clicks you’ll find that your board goes unchallenged while the Runner deals with this. Just prepare to have your hand dived into if the Runner decides the MCA is going to stick.
Restore
miek
A better Interns? Sign me up. In all honesty, it’s not always better, but it definitely seems solid. The rez requirement can be a downside sometimes (Adonis?) but I can definitely see this being good. Until Friends in High Places is MWL3 then this probably won’t see much play.
StephenBall
I do like the design on this one, it’s an interesting way to do recursion that isn’t ridiculously overpowered. Like miek said, Friends has to go somewhere before this would be considered, but I do really like it in theory. Also, points for it being pretty cool sometimes to install and rez ICE, especially a cheeky Magnet.
SimonMoon
I’ve been a staunch defender of the merits of recursion as a mechanic, and this here is a well costed recursion card. Good job team!
Higgs
Interns and Dyper tech in one card? Call me intrigued. It’s better than Friends for recurring Moon, since you can recur, install, install, but it’s less raw volume of recursion. Interesting card.
Breached Dome
miek
Shocks 4-6 in IG. Given the Employee Strike resistance this is probably Shocks 1-3 in PU (with Shock being Shocks 4-6). Thank god Shock is rotating, but the pre-rotation Crimson Dust meta is going to be awful largely because of this card.
StephenBall
Really interesting design here, how do they come up with these things?!?! Okay, sarcasm aside, this card is obviously very strong and is going to help make the meta miserable until rotation, and since we still know nothing about the future, who knows when that will be.
SimonMoon
This is a shock replacement, though obviously it was dumb to print before shock actually rotated. I think discussion of this card should take place primarily in relation to IG which is where shock has seen the majority of it’s use. IG is one of my favorite IDs because it causes Archives which is typically the least important central to become an important area of contention between Runner and Corporation. The costs paid to get into archives and the benefits are a very unique and dynamic piece of gameplay. The way in which the Corporation has to balance the merits of defending this server vs either of the centrals is also excellent and this leads to great back and forth and decisions on both sides.
All of this is of course my defense of why Shock should be reprinted and not an actual discussion of Breached Dome in comparison. Since the Corp is usually throwing shock into the trash out of their own free will, the loss of the two trash cost is minor. Milling a card from the runners stack is relevant for decks that want to grind the runners entire stack which some but not all IG lists want to do. Overall I’d say it’s a slight but not massive improvement over shock, and I’m glad to see it exist even if a shock reprint is a better idea.
Sand Storm
miek
This card is pretty good as far as trap ice go. A bit like a one-off Cell Portal. The real issue is that you want it in the inner position but there’s no easy way to put it there except place it in advance.
StephenBall
There’s a smell coming off of this one for me. The best Jinteki deck utilizing ICE in a meaningful way right now is AgInfusion by a mile, and in that case, you could just not rez this card and essentially do its effect. I can’t imagine this ever making decks, but I look forward to possibly being proven wrong.
tvaduva
Another tool for the Jinteki death server archetype, but Jinteki is losing many of those tools with rotation. This is a decent one, but not as needed as the other parts of that combo.
AR-Enhanced Security
miek
We all know how big this effect is right? CtM is a worse version of this effect and absolutely wrecked the meta for months. Unfortunately the most important turns for CtM’s effect are the first few, and 3/1 agendas in general are bad to include in your deck. I can definitely see people experimenting with this card though, and the effect may be powerful enough to justify the 3/1 include regardless.
StephenBall
I like the concept of pushing 3/1 agendas with strong abilities, because with 3/1’s being the most awkward agenda, they have to have amazing abilities to even contend for spots. This card has an AMAZING ability, mainly in CtM, which remains the best NBN deck that isn’t complete bullshit. You want to score this. Finding a place in your agenda suite for it is another story. Can this card actually find a place post rotation?
Higgs
Not sure that this is better than Quantum Predictive Model, or even License Acquisition, so tough to imagine it finding its way into competitive decks.
Rolling Brownout
StephenBall
Trying my hardest not to come up with a shit joke about this card, but it probably deserves it. NBN has a lot of currents. They also like things like Sweeps Week, Hedge Fund, Hard Hitting News, Exchange of Information, Closed Accounts…. Paying 2 for a current is a tough sell, we’ve only seen a few 2 cost currents see play frequently, most notably Enhanced Login Protocol. This is the Donut Taganes of currents, and the second part of it will rarely trigger. If you think of Scarcity of Resources, it often prevents runners from playing resources at all, unless it’s one they desperately need. Resources for most decks now are more important and impactful than events, runners can often just not play an event (or just play their own current).
tvaduva
A card in need of the right meta. We currently have half of it: Corps mostly relying on Assets (not Operations). In a Prepaid-type meta this would have been more useful, but Runners are mostly relying on resources for econ.
Threat Level Alpha
miek
Assuming that the templating of a “guaranteed tag” is a mistake, then this card isn’t so flash. Typically if they have multiple tags, then they don’t care about getting more. If they don’t have any tags, then this is a weak Sea Source that is a double. Even at 1-2 tags this isn’t super great. The only real advantage I see of this card is that it acts as a Sea Source without requiring a run.
StephenBall
This card seems pretty unplayable to me. The numbers on it have to be bad, since it can give a tag without the runner doing anything to provoke it, but it being a double really neuters it (which is probably good). I do really like the art on this one, so it’ll look nice in my binder.
Priority Construction
miek
Mushin for ice. This seems like a lot of value in Tennin, Builder of Nations, or just in general with Red Planet Couriers. Also ignores the install cost if you happen to be in a situation where that’s actually significant.
StephenBall
This is exactly the kind of card advancable ICE decks need. It’s a lot of value, essentially turning 1 click into 4, and saving a fair amount of money. 3 advancements is the magic number, as we all know, and this is the best way we’ve seen to get it. Only working on a remote server pulls it back from being totally crazy, but I’m never going to complain about cards that promote actually putting ICE on remotes.
Higgs
This card is nominally a ton of value – pay one credit and two clicks to do at least three credits and four clicks of work. Best-case scenario is something like Titan jamming Atlas behind Mausolus on turn two. Outside of the best-case, I see a lot of situations where the corp will be holding a Mausolus hoping to draw one of these, and a lot of situations where the corp will be holding one of these while it tries to shore up centrals or money up. It seems tricky to build a deck that uses this card effectively when it draws it without completely face-planting when it doesn’t.
Shanodin
I’ve been obsessing over making Weyland decks recently, so I obviously tried this out a ton when I got the pack…. I discarded it 10+ times then took it out of the deck without ever actually playing it :(. Could be because I slotted it into a pre-existing deck and didn’t build around it, but the deck did have all the current good advancable Weyland ICE. The problem as I see it is that anything which diverges from the standard rushy Weyland build can’t compete in the current meta, but standard Weyland rush probably doesn’t have the slots for this, just take a Restructure instead.
Fractal Threat Matrix
StephenBall
More support for the milly corporation archetype, but this card is really expensive, possibly too much to justify really using this. Thankfully the influence is high enough for things like PU to stay away.
tvaduva
Probably best in a Skorpios deck, since the mill effect has a direct impact beyond the runner eventually running out of cards and Weyland is not set up to take advantage of Runners with diminishing stacks. It’s not a region or unique which means you can stack them and use Breaker Bay Grid to rez it. You do have to choose your ice carefully because a runner can let a subroutine fire to avoid this effect.
Inactivist
Reminds me of Will-O’-The-Wisp, another 4 cost upgrade with a minor disruptive effect that didn’t see much play because it was a 4 cost upgrade with a minor disruptive effect. Might see some use in Skorp builds, but otherwise it’s an expensive inf splash for Jinteki grinder builds or a fun way to demonstrate the milling fallacy.
Conundrum
miek
Quandary into Enigma into Conundrum. You gotta love the flavour. Unfortunately at 8c to rez this is probably not doing enough for you, even if they have the AI. The thing about expensive ICE is you typically want some hefty face check, and this has no face check unless there’s an installed program, and even then they choose which one to trash (or just break it). It’s definitely not an awful card, but you always have to be wary of how much Emergency Shutdown, Parasite or Cutlery can ruin your plan when you play expensive ice.
StephenBall
I wish this card was better, because I do like the design of this, and I was rooting for our friend Enigma to grow up to really be something. I think that this card just simply doesn’t warrant its cost. I guess I should have learned from Eli 2.0 that ICE doesn’t often grow up to be all that successful. We need to learn Fairchild’s secret.
tvaduva
I do like ice that can serve as tech cards, although as others have said this does seem a few credits too expensive. It’s nice that all factions have gotten anti-AI ice, and now we have a neutral ice as well. There’s also design space for Corps to manipulate subtypes that hasn’t been explored.
Final Thoughts
StephenBall
The Red Sand cycle is now complete, and leaves me with a sense of apprehension. While not as disastrous as the Flashpoint cycle, we were certainly given a lot more to chew on and a different game. Rotation looms and we will have to truly think about how these cards will affect the game with that smaller card pool. I’ve been worried for a while, I’ll admit, but I hope those worries end up being unfounded.
tvaduva
Glad to finally contribute to a Stimhack article, since I’ve appreciated the effort others have put into them. This pack has a lot of interesting cards that can be built around. It’ll be interesting how they will be used after rotation and with future cycles.