Woodcutter 2.0

The only possible way this card makes any sense from a design standpoint* is if there's some sort of "Install an ICE, immediately rez it for X fewer credits, then you may advance it up to Y times" Operation coming further down the line. That would also make the Weyland identity from this set passable, which seems to give validity to this hypothesis (in my mind, at least ).


* - I can possibly write off Woodcutter as some weird "I have no idea what we were smoking that day" moment, everyone has those. But a second ICE with the same (presumably flawed) mechanic? Too much of a coincidence.

Peekay: You mean something like Amazon Industrial Zone?

Amazon alone doesn't cut it - too slow and expensive (and with no way to move ICE between servers, you need to have one installed on every server you actually want to make Woodcutter/Tyrant work). I've tried, it's not viable. It really needs the flexibility of an Operation, and probably the efficiency of a "do X actions as part of this effect", like Shipment from Mirrormorph.

(oh, and another problem with Amazon - it's just one card, meaning you have 3 copies of it at most. Now imagine a scenario where if you don't draw into one of your Amazons, you have 6-9 unusable ICE cards in your deck. Does that prospect really appeal to you? Of course, you could AggNeg for that Amazon, but then we've just moved into the realm of "did he really just do that?" )

This could arguably be the most useless corp card released so far.

I suppose Oversight AI from this data pack could do something for this, although personally I wouldn't be tempted by it..

It's not a flawed mechanic. You combine it with amazon industrial zone to rez it immediately. It's preferable to have + subroutine ice against criminals and shapers because an advanced ice wall is hard countered by femme fatale, and having everything at really high strength doesn't help as well against shapers since their icebreakers retain strength throughout the run.

If parasite didn't exist, I would always prefer woodcutter over advancing icewall.

Thing is, Ice Wall costs 1 and stops a run. Woodcutter costs 4 and doesn't do anything at all until you rez it and then advance, costing you both time and money.

(and hey, if someone Femmes my icewall, I'm glad - it means he won't Femme any of my actual proper ice (i.e. not that first turn nonsense))

Put 10 counters on this and Morning Star busts it for 1 cred. Fortunately, you won't see Morning Star in Shaper and Criminal decks as it's 4 influence, but makes this card of limited use

I'm really at a loss as to why this card exists. I simply haven't thought of a reason to include it over any other in faction, neutral, or out of faction ICE.

It is not that it is a bad mechanic, it is just the the cost/strength ratio is wincing. With Amazon I am still paying 8-9 creds to get even one sub routine on it. With oversight AI, I am praying they don't have a barrier breaker out until I get enough counters on it, and otherwise, I am paying a fortune in credits to see them waltz by it the first time.

Woodcutter is cheap enough to splash (credit wise), and you never feel you are over advancing it. I would love to play tyrant, I just wish it was cheaper or had a higher strength.

The main idea behind advanceable ice seems to be having few, specific pieces of ice on every server, custom tailored to hose whatever icebreaker the Runner has installed. The runner installs Morningstar? Use Hadrian. The runner installs Aurora? Use tyrant. The runner installs mimic? Use Shadow. There are some tools that help building up your custom ice tower, but as of now, the deck is still subpar because of some serious holes like in-faction Code Gates, Traps and Fast Advance options. When at least 1 out of 3 of those will be addressed the deck wil be able to become competitive.

The ability is good, but it must be rezzed and it require click to advance, so i prefer other Ice like Toolboth.

The ability is good, but it must be rezzed and it require click to advance, so i prefer other Ice like Toolboth.

>< just spend the extra 3 for hadrian's wall its much better.

Not a great card by any means, but behind a Sensei means it could actually DO something on first rez.

Ok, I've been testing this lately (well, someone had to). While it's still far from great, it's nowhere near as terrible as everyone makes it out to be.

Firstly, if you are paying full-price to rez this, you are doing it wrong. Amazon Industrial Zone exists. Use it.

Secondly, advancing this thing makes it a monster. If you've ever suffered the pain of your Str 8 Ice Wall being Femmed through for a measly credit, then imagine every one of those advancement counters made it more expensive to break with both Corroder AND to bypass with Femme Fatale.

Thirdly, it's not about surprise ETR. None of the 'advance only while rezzed' cards are ever likely to land you a surprise Subroutine resolving (excepting Corporate Troubleshooter or Experiential Data). What they do, and do VERY WELL is tax the runner. You can make it prohibitively expensive to run your servers.

The deck I've built using these is in no-way a tournament deck. It's a slow, glacially-paced deck that wins through attrition, before rushing an Agenda when the runner is poor, or has lost breakers to Destroyers, or both.

Try something new today. You might be surprised.