Tech Talk - Stimhack

Welcome back to Tech Talk! Each article in this series takes an in-depth look at a single card, discussing its strengths, when to play it out of faction, and how to deal with it when you find yourself playing against it. Anarch's go-for-broke Stimhack (Core) takes center stage this week.

DOCUMENTATION: There are five cards in the Core Set that initiate a run as part of their effect. Of these five, four of them give very specific benefits to that run, either requiring you to run on a specific server (The Maker's Eye (Core), Account Siphon (Core), Demolition Run (Core)) or having a narrow (but powerful) ability (Inside Job (Core)). The last run-initiating card is a lot more flexible. Stimhack (Core) allows you to run on any server and gives you 9 extra credits to use in whatever way you need/want to during the run. You can power Icebreakers, increase your Base Link against Traces, or even pay off a pesky Red Herrings. And all of this costs you exactly 0 credits.

Oh, and a Brain Damage.

Let's take a look at that first part, the 0 credits thing. For one click, you get 9 credits AND you start a run. That's 10 clicks worth of goodness for a single click. That kind of swing in efficiency can surprise the well-tailored slacks right off the Corp. Here they were thinking you only had a couple of credits after that last run, that they were safe to install and advance an Agenda for a couple turns while you refilled your coffers, and BWOW! (that's an electric guitar chord sound effect, by the way), suddenly you've got 9+ credits and are running that supposedly safe server. That's very tasty.

But then there's the Brain Damage.

Okay, so, yeah, you've got to take a Brain Damage. It's a good thing that starting mid-game, Brain Damage really isn't that bad. Sure, it's a bit worse than Net or Meat damage since it decreases your hand size IN ADDITION to discarding a random card from your hand. But if things are going well on the "building a rig" front then, really, what do you need to be holding on to all those cards for anyway? Scorched Earth (Core) protection? Here's a hint - if they're running Scorched Earth, your clock's ticking regardless of your hand size because, let's face it, they have at least two in that deck of theirs and they are not going to be shy about using them. If you take the Scorched Earth boogeyman out of the equation then, really, a point or two of Brain Damage late in the game is really not that big a deal. Especially if taking said Brain Damage allows you to punch through somewhere the Corp wasn't expecting.

The other run-initiators are great cards (or merely good, in the case of Demolition Run) but only Stimhack gives you the ultimate freedom to do whatever it is you need to do wherever you need to do it. It's like a brain-melting American Express platinum card.

IMPLEMENTATION: This is pretty easy but you may want to write it down - DON'T USE STIMHACK EARLY! It's a mid- to late-game card only. Don't go using it willy-nilly just to get yourself into a remote server here or there. Stimhack is a break glass in case of emergency card. It will surprise you, though, how often a Stimhack kind of situation will arise.

"What," you may ask, "is a Stimhack kind of situation?" Well, the no-questions-asked version is when the Corp is about to win and an immediate 9 credits might let you stop them. Aside from that, anytime you can truly, undeniably make use of the 9 extra credits when you don't NEED to be keeping a lot of cards in hand (because you are mostly drawing duplicates of your Icebreakers or whatever), use it. "Truly, undeniably make use of" means that you're relatively sure you can get into the server and what is installed there is worth it. That means that you need to really watch the Corp player. You need to know when she is bluffing and when she is feeling just safe enough to try to get an Agenda past you. To that extent, you can engage in some bluffing of your own. Try this: on your second to last click, run at R&D or HQ with only a few credits when there is unrezzed ICE, jack out when you can, and make a big show of being really depressed that you're broke and flailing. Watch the Corp make a few bold moves in the face of your pathetic-osity. Then, click one of your next turn, BWOW!, drop a Stimhack and run, baby, run! It won't work every time, especially if you are playing Anarch and the Corp assumes you have Stimhack available. Which is why...

INSTALLATION: ...Stimhack makes a great out-of-faction splash. The point of Stimhack is to surprise the Corp with a tempo shift they weren't expecting. A Shaper or Criminal dropping a Stimhack is, by itself, a bit of a surprise because, let's be honest, even though we went about explaining how Brain Damage isn't that big a deal above, most players think that's just crazy talk. The Corp player may even smile when you play it, shake their head at you like some smug, tut-tutting octogenarian in a rocking chair on his porch, smoking a pipe and remembering when he was so brash and impetuous because, well, Corps are like that, you know? But you'll know better, because you don't NEED to keep five cards in hand anymore and those bonus 9 credits are going to bust past that ICE and score you that Agenda.

Pack two in your deck for two reasons. First, you want to make sure you see it during the game AND because, much like getting involved in a land war in Asia, the Corp will think that playing TWO Stimhacks in one game is one of the classic blunders. However, if it's a blunder to be able to run when you should be licking your wounds and begging for change on a street corner, then blunder away!

COUNTERMEASURES: There's not a whole lot you can do to prep for a Stimhack-fueled run. As always, play cautiously. Don't assume that just because the Runner blew her bankroll running your R&D last turn that she'll HAVE to spend next turn getting money. She may very well run you again right away, so make sure you have your contingencies planned out. Scorched Earth is, of course, an answer, although they need to play two Stimhacks before just one will flatline them. Corporate Troubleshooter (Core) can be a real pain since if the Stimhack run isn't successful, it's way worse than when a normal run isn't successful. The 9 credits don't stick around, so if you mess with the Runner's math enough, she'll end up taking that Brain Damage for the privilege of running into a jacked-up Rototurret (Core) that she had to dump all her credits into breaking so as not to ruin her rig.

Scud is a former editor in educational publishing and is currently working on his first novel and prepping for grad school. He played the original Netrunner, played Dreamblade competitively, and writes and self-publishes a couple of comic books at Lonely Robot Comics. Also make sure to check out his Android: Netrunner blog here at CardGameDB,Electric Sheep.