Can somebody help me out with the ruling?

 

My turn as a runner begins with me having:

- Aesop's Pawnshop installed

- A Q-Coherence chip installed

- A Parasite hosted on a piece of ice

 

A series of events initiates:

1. Parasite gains a virus token

2. The number of virus tokens on the Parasite is now equal to the strength of the piece ice so the latter has to be trashed

3. Parasite has to be trashed as well now

4. Q-Coherence chip has to be trashed now

 

Since it is my turn and I should be able to choose the succession of same-time events resolving, can I use Aesop's ability to either:

a. Trash Parasite right after Step 2 resolves and gain 3 credits

b. Trash the Q-coherence chip right after step 3 resolves

 

Thanks!

You get to choose the order, but you cannot normally "interrupt" effects already in motion: i.e. steps 1, 2, and 3 are not separated, except in your diagram. Once the Parasite gains the token, it trashes the ICE without delay. There's no "moment" for you to trash it with Aesop's instead. Each thing happens fully in the order of your choosing. Only "avoid" and "prevent" effects can interrupt any full process. "Step 4" above is a result of the Step-1-2-3 that has happened, so must be resolved before you can do anything else.

 

Simply put, the granularity of your "series of events" is simply incorrect. 1, 2, and 3 are the same "event." 4 is the immediate result of that event, and can only be interrupted by a card with "avoid" or "prevent" on it: Sacrificial Construct, for example.

 

If you want to get the most out of this, 1) use Aesop's to trash Q-Coherence (hope it wasn't supporting the Parasite, because now it's gone too), then 2) add a token to Parasite and trash the ICE.

 

That's it. No double-dipping; no interrupting "simultaneous" effects with other effects that don't have "avoid" or "prevent" on the card (even then, the effect will fail if it's a cost: e.g., if you use Sacrificial Construct to prevent Aesop's from trashing the card, you don't get the 3 credits, since you didn't trash the card). This is pretty clearly explained on page 21 and following of the Rulebook, along with a number of FAQs. Nothing has ever been stated that one can interrupt a process until it is fully resolved, except with "avoid" or "prevent."

 

The best thing you can do for yourself is get Q-Coherence out of your deck, since it trashes even when you discard a program from hand.

The best thing you can do for yourself is get Q-Coherence out of your deck, since it trashes even when you discard a program from hand.

 

But the rulebook explicitly says that in the Discard phase you Discard a card, you are not trashing it. I am not saying Q-Coherence is that amazing, but would be outright garbage if it trashed itself from everything. Yet I do not plan to use it out of Overmind/Pawnshop combo.

The best thing you can do for yourself is get Q-Coherence out of your deck, since it trashes even when you discard a program from hand.

 

Not really in my deck, I was just thinking whether is a possibility. Thanks for the answer though!

 

But the rulebook explicitly says that in the Discard phase you Discard a card, you are not trashing it. I am not saying Q-Coherence is that amazing, but would be outright garbage if it trashed itself from everything. Yet I do not plan to use it out of Overmind/Pawnshop combo.

 

Yeah, gotta agree with that. Discarding <> Trashing. Same thing like Tri-maf contract not dealing damage to the runner when it is discarded during the discard phase as opposed to trashing it as a result of net damage or Crop trash effects.

Agreed on discarding is not trashing. I thought "trashing" and wrote "discarding," not thinking.

Neacau, I am actually wondering on your Tri-maf example. The way I read through the rules, it seems that all the cards not currently in play are inactive, therefore considered only by their cost and traits/keywords (like for program/hardware/ice/operation searching/tutoring) but never for any printed effects. In the few exceptional cases that this should be overridden, like Snare, Shi.Kyu, Space Camp, I've Had Worse etc. this is specifically written on the card so there are no misinterpretations, i.e. the card itself says that a part of it should be considered active for the current occasion. I've had worse being the best example for our case, states specifically that it should be activated on event "taking net or meat damage" and only the drawing part - no clicks, no credits. So my reading is that if Tri-maf contract is trashed from the hand, it is inactive, no part of it activates for the event, and the only thing that matters is that a resource/connection is being trashed (note how Fall Guy can't prevent this trashing because Tri-maf is not installed) - no damage taken. No contract struck - no mafia retribution

But, the truth is, I am not certain in the above statement, so it will be best to ask Lukas specifically about it.

You don't need to check with Lukas; it's covered by the rules and the FAQ.

 

Cards not installed are inactive. You can't use the ability text unless it specifically calls out an uninstalled state (such as I've Had Worse, Creeper) or it triggers on access (Snare!, TGTBT).

 

Tri-maf does no damage unless it's trashed while installed.

 

Q-Coherence is wonky, because Traits (such as Program) are always active (otherwise cards like Special Order wouldn't work). Because the ability on Q-Coherence is ON Q-Coherence (and not the trashed card) the trashing of an inactive Program still triggers Q-Coherence and causes it to self-trash.

You don't need to check with Lukas; it's covered by the rules and the FAQ.

Q-Coherence is wonky, because Traits (such as Program) are always active (otherwise cards like Special Order wouldn't work). Because the ability on Q-Coherence is ON Q-Coherence (and not the trashed card) the trashing of an inactive Program still triggers Q-Coherence and causes it to self-trash.

 

Ya. Q-Coherence is really poorly designed, in my opinion. Put simply, it is just a bad card and has no real use other than possible shenanigans somehow enabled by a 0 cost 0 influence piece of hardware.

Can somebody help me out with the ruling?

 

Hopefully I understand your scenario correctly; otherwise disregard my post entirely.

 

 

Aesop's fires during your "turn begins" window, so for this to even be a thing, this sequence of events must be occuring during that window.

 

You get to choose the order in which begining of turn resolutions occur. However, a given resolution completely resolves without interruption except via a "prevent" effect.

 

If something self-trashes to trigger an effect or as part of an effect, you generally cannot prevent it from trashing via some other means and still benefit from the effect that trashing is associated with.

 

Parasite doesn't directly trash, but is trashed as a side effect of the piece of ice it is on getting trashed which happens as soon as the extra virus counter is placed on Parasite. You would thus not be able to interrupt the resolution of the ice dying to trash parasite to the pawnshop. If you chose to feed Parasite to pawnshop before placing the virus counter, you'd get your money but the ice would not die. You wont get both effects (money from pawnshop, dead ice).

 

Q-Coherence chip trashes itself when a program trashes; this is not under your control and it would occur when the Parasite trashes. You could feed Q-Coherence to Pawnshop first before placing the inciting virus token on Parasite, but if you have no free MU you would have to trash a program to free up MU.

 

So, basically, Q-Coherence doesn't work well in this scenario and has anti-synergy with hosted programs in general (Parasite, Caissa). One possible usage of it however, would be in conjunction with Pawnshop plus Sage or Overmind (or one of the other extra MU enabled programs that have been spoiled from SanSan cycle), where you don't need Q-Coherence's extra MU to host with and are just using it to drive up your unused MU number. Feeding them to Pawnshop nets some credits as Q-Coherence is free, but overall this is a very low-yield economy option and not even remotely worth it in my opinion.

Yeah, thanks everybody I agree with what was said and my question was mostly derived from an insufficient understanding of certain rule points.

Hey everyone,maybe this was indirectly answered but I 'd like to double-check it. If I have a Cortez chip installed ("trash: choose a piece of ice. The corp must pay 2 cr. as an additional cost...") and my turn begins, can I first declare that I am choosing an ice for the cortez chip and then trash it in order to have both effects, the 3 credits gain and the additional rez cost?

Hey everyone,maybe this was indirectly answered but I 'd like to double-check it. If I have a Cortez chip installed ("trash: choose a piece of ice. The corp must pay 2 cr. as an additional cost...") and my turn begins, can I first declare that I am choosing an ice for the cortez chip and then trash it in order to have both effects, the 3 credits gain and the additional rez cost?

 

Nope. You can trash it as the cost of its effect or you can feed it to Aesop's: no double-dipping.