Hello Netrunners! This is the Rules team with our latest update. We have clarifications to share today on two topics: first, we’d like to address some questions we’ve been seeing about Patchwork, Steelskin Scarring, and Moshing, and second, we have some updates to rulings involving “install and rez” effects such as the ability of Ob Superheavy Logistics.
If you don’t want to dig into the details, the most important takeaway is that we are adding rulings with clarifications for Patchwork, and updating older rulings relating to 419 and “install and rez” effects to be consistent with the current rules. Here is a summary of what we’re covering today:
- The Runner must choose what card they are playing or installing before triggering Patchwork’s ability. They cannot change the card they will play or install to a card drawn by trashing Steelskin Scarring.
- The Runner can trigger Patchwork’s ability when playing or installing a card that already costs 0. The replacement effect is still able to apply, even though the cost reduction ends up not mattering.
- The Runner can take an action to play Moshing without 3 other cards in their grip, as long as they will be able to pay the required costs when they reach the appropriate step. In other words, a Runner with Moshing, Steelskin Scarring, and 1 other card in their grip can use Patchwork to trash Steelskin Scarring and draw 2 cards, then pay Moshing’s additional cost by trashing the 3 cards they now have in their grip.
- During an “install and rez” effect, “when installed” conditional abilities, like Tranquility Home Grid’s ability, meet their trigger condition after the card becomes installed, but before the card is rezzed and its abilities become active. This means that using Ob Superheavy Logistics to search for Tranquility Home Grid and install it will not allow you to gain 2 or draw a card with its own ability. This is a clarification, not a change; this interaction works the same way that it did before.
- Applying this understanding to 419 means that 419 meets its trigger condition at the same time after the card has been installed, but before it has been rezzed. This means 419’s ability works normally during an “install and rez” instruction. Previously, it had been ruled that “install and rez” instructions fully resolved before 419 could trigger, causing the expose to fail because the installed card was already rezzed. Now, when the Corp resolves an “install and rez” effect against 419, such as the one on Ob Superheavy Logistics, they will need to pay 1 or expose the card, which is a change to how this interaction was previously ruled.
The rulings in this article are effective immediately. We have also updated rulings on the NetrunnerDB pages for Patchwork, 419, Building Blocks, and Tranquility Home Grid to reflect the changes. If you are interested in further rules minutiae, read on!
How Does Patchwork Work?
To understand the nuances of Patchwork interactions, let’s walk through the process of playing an event with Patchwork’s ability from the beginning. Everything covered here works similarly for playing an event using a card ability rather than the basic action, or for installing a card.
A. The Runner starts by initiating the action to play an event: “: Play 1 event from your grip.” Before letting them do this, the game checks that the action has the potential to change the game state, which in this case simply amounts to making sure that the Runner has at least 1 event in their grip. Having passed this check, the game begins to resolve the steps of using a paid ability. The Runner spends to pay the trigger cost of the ability, and then a checkpoint happens in case any conditional abilities might have been met by the act of paying that cost.
B. Now the game is ready to handle the 1 instruction that makes up this action ability. The first thing that happens is the Runner announces targets for the instruction, namely, which object they are going to play. The Runner can do this by separating that card from the rest of the cards in their grip. In practice, the Runner can generally just put the event faceup on the table at this point. Ordinarily, there is no meaningful way for the Corp to interact with this process until the card is added to the play area faceup anyway, so no information is being given away by revealing it a few steps early. But for technical accuracy to the rules, let’s keep the card hidden for now, because it is still in the Runner’s grip at this point.
C. With the instruction’s target selected, the game opens an interrupt window for abilities to modify the effects it will create. This is the point when Patchwork’s ability becomes relevant. The ability reads:
→ Whenever you would play or install a card, you may trash 1 card from your grip. If you do, instead play or install that card paying 2 less. Use this ability only once per turn.
The Runner triggers this ability, which spawns a similar process to the one we are already walking through. The first instruction of the conditional ability interrupt is “you may trash 1 card from your grip.” So the Runner chooses a target for that instruction, the game resolves an interrupt window (in which nothing happens), and finally we resolve it, with the Runner actually trashing the chosen card by adding it to their heap.
Note that all of this is still happening inside the first interrupt window. The instruction from the basic action to play an event is still imminent, and its expected effects are still that the Runner will play the card they separated from the rest of their grip a moment ago. Everything happening with Patchwork takes place ‘on top of’ that original window.
D. After the first instruction of Patchwork’s ability resolves, a checkpoint occurs. If any active abilities met their trigger conditions from the Runner trashing a card, the checkpoint will open a reaction window to handle those abilities. This window is when abilities like the one on Steelskin Scarring will resolve. We’ll go into more detail about things that can happen at this stage in the next section.
E. The game now moves on to the second instruction of Patchwork’s ability: “instead play or install that card paying 2 less.” There are no targets to choose, as the text here only refers to a card that has already been identified, so the game processes the nested interrupt window (where once again nothing happens) and then the instruction resolves. This instruction’s effect is to replace the “play that event” effect expected from the imminent instruction with a new expected effect, “play that event paying 2 less”.
Notice that this replacement doesn’t care about what the event cost to begin with. The replacement effect is able to apply regardless, so it’s totally fine to use Patchwork when playing an event that already costs 0.
F. With Patchwork’s ability finished resolving and no other interrupt abilities to trigger, the game can proceed to close the original interrupt window and resolve the (now modified) instruction. That means we finally get to the steps of playing an event! The first of those steps directs the Runner to place the event to be played faceup in the play area. This is the point at which the previously-indicated card leaves the grip.
G. Next, the Runner must pay the play cost of the event, along with any additional costs that apply. The total cost they need to pay incorporates the 2 reduction from Patchwork’s replacement effect, along with any other active cost modifiers.
H. After this point, nothing that remains is particularly relevant to Patchwork, so let’s keep it short: the play abilities of the event resolve, the event is trashed, and the game cleans things up by finishing out the steps of playing an event and the steps of resolving a paid ability. Finally, we continue with the Runner’s turn.
Did you get all that? While you definitely don’t need to worry about all these details most of the time, we’ll need to make use of just about everything here to handle all the weird cases that can come up. Let’s take a look at all the strange things Patchwork can do.
Playing Tricks
First up, a weird trick that doesn’t even need any specific other cards: what happens if the Runner targets the same card as both the event to play at (B) and the card to trash to Patchwork’s ability at (C)? This is a totally legal choice, since nothing in Patchwork’s text (either the original FFG text or the updated official text) says anything about the trashed card needing to be a different card. What happens is that the event simply isn’t played: the card in the heap is a new object, and neither Patchwork’s replacement effect nor the original play effect can find it anymore. So the action fails to do anything when it tries to resolve, and the game proceeds. This ‘failed’ action could still be useful to the Runner if trashing a card meets other trigger conditions: for example, the Runner could essentially click for 2 by trashing Strike Fund this way. Note that even though no event was played, the Runner still spent the on the ‘failed’ action, and Patchwork’s once-per-turn limitation is still used up.
Here’s one you’ve likely heard before: the Runner only has 1 in their credit pool, but still plays a Sure Gamble by trashing Strike Fund to Patchwork’s ability. This works because Strike Fund’s ability resolves at (D), and the play cost of Sure Gamble doesn’t need to be paid until (G). By the time we get to (G), the Runner has 3 in their credit pool, and Patchwork’s replacement effect has also applied, so 3 is exactly enough to pay for Sure Gamble. (You might wonder why the game didn’t check the Runner’s ability to pay the cost all the way back at (A)—we’ll get to this in a moment.)
Similarly, the Runner can trash Steelskin Scarring and draw 2 cards at (D). The Runner cannot then change the card they will play to be one of the newly drawn cards, because they already selected the target card to be played at (B). However, there are still situations where the Runner can make immediate use of those cards. For example, Moshing has an additional cost of trashing cards from the grip, and the new cards are definitely in the grip by the time the Runner pays that cost at (G). Since Moshing already has a play cost of 0 and a cost that is modified to a negative value gets reset to 0, playing it for 2 less doesn’t change anything for the Runner. But by using this trick, a click-constrained Runner with only Steelskin Scarring, Moshing, and 1 other card in their grip can take an action to play Moshing, use Patchwork to trash Steelskin Scarring and draw 2 new cards, and then have the required 3 cards in their grip to trash in order to play Moshing.
But what if the Runner finds the card they were digging for with their Steelskin Scarring draws, and no longer wants to play Moshing after the interrupt window? Normally, players are allowed to decline additional costs and thereby cancel the effect the cost applied to. Does this rule apply here?
The Comprehensive Rules (CR) don’t yet provide a definitive answer to these questions, but we will be adding clarification in a future update. For now, our ruling is that yes, the Runner can decline the additional cost. Specifically, the Runner must decide whether they are going to pay the additional cost when the instruction to play the event starts to resolve, at (F). The Runner can only choose to pay the additional cost if they will actually be able to pay it at (G). If they choose not to pay it, the entire process of playing an event fails to occur, and Moshing remains in the grip. In this circumstance, the Runner should reveal Moshing to the Corp to verify that they have legally failed to play it. As with the case where the Runner trashed a card to ‘pay for itself’, the Runner does not get their back, and Patchwork’s ability is still used up for the turn.
Finally, let’s take a closer look at (A). We glossed over it earlier, but the bit about “making sure that the Runner has at least 1 event in their grip” is actually a new ruling, based on an evolving interpretation of the “no change in game state” rule. We’ve previously written about taking steps to reform this infamous rule, and we are now confident that we’ll have the full breadth of this reform ready in time for the release of “Dawn“, if not before. With that larger change impending, when we look at ambiguous cases and need to interpret how the rule applies, we are tending toward rulings that are closer to the way the game will work after the reforms are fully implemented.
In this case, it is not clear how ‘smart’ the rule should be in figuring out whether an effect has the potential to change the game state. None of the tricks above can work if the game doesn’t let the Runner begin the process! Our present interpretation is that for an ability that would play or install a card, the “no change in game state” check only verifies that a card of an appropriate type is present. You still must be able to actually perform the play or install (unless something like the rule for declining additional costs applies), but the game will not try to stop you up-front based on whether it ‘looks like’ you’ll be able to pay the costs inside the ability.
Handling Install and Rez
Today’s updates to “install and rez” rulings came about because we noticed that the existing rulings contradicted each other. In the Rules team, we consider it a priority to resolve such contradictions, since they hinder players’ ability to understand and apply the rules correctly. When deciding how to handle these situations, we need to balance different objectives like preserving existing behavior, keeping the rules framework simple and consistent, and minimizing disruption to regular gameplay.
Let’s dig into what the contradiction is in this case and the steps we took to decide how to resolve it.
Both installing and rezzing have a cost component attached to them: the install cost and the rez cost. Each cost payment also comes with a checkpoint, where the game looks at events that have happened to see if any abilities have met their trigger condition. With an ability like that of Restore, the process to install and rez a card is made pretty clear in the Comprehensive Rules. The relevant steps (taken from CR section 8.5.15 and rule 8.1.2e, with some simplifications) are:
- The Corp pays the install cost of the card.
- A checkpoint happens, and any abilities with trigger conditions met by paying the install cost have their opportunity to resolve.
- The card becomes installed.
- The Corp pays the rez cost of the card.
- A checkpoint happens, and any abilities with trigger conditions met since the last checkpoint have their opportunity to resolve. This includes both trigger conditions related to paying the rez cost and trigger conditions related to an install having happened.
- The card becomes rezzed and its abilities become active.
It is in step (5), the second checkpoint, that the gamestate observes that the install of Tranquility Home Grid has happened, but by this point the Tranquility Home Grid isn’t active yet. So the Tranquility Home Grid doesn’t ‘see itself’ being installed, and its ability does not become pending.
But what happens if the install cost and/or the rez cost is being ignored, as is the case with the “install and rez” effect from Ob Superheavy Logistics? Do we skip the checkpoints corresponding to costs that are ignored? If we do, then the game won’t check for trigger conditions like on Tranquility Home Grid and 419 until after the rez is completed. Maintaining the previous rulings about these two cards requires opposite conclusions on this point.
If ignored costs skip the associated costs-paid checkpoints, an instruction to install and rez Tranquility Home Grid will mean that no checkpoints occur until after Tranquility Home Grid becomes active, making it eligible to benefit from its own installation. On the other hand, if the checkpoint still happens, 419’s ability will resolve in time for its expose effect to successfully resolve, allowing other abilities like Aumakua to meet their trigger conditions if the Corp doesn’t pay the 1. Either scenario means a longstanding ruling needs to be reversed.
Once we recognized the contradiction, we took a close look at the related rules and came up with several proposals to get these interactions to behave in a consistent and systematic way. As we do with any rules change that has meaningful gameplay implications, we then shared our proposals with the Standard Balance Team (SBT) and got their input. Ultimately, everyone agreed that reversing the 419 ruling was the better way to go: SBT felt that it would have a smaller and more desirable gameplay impact than a change to Tranquility Home Grid, and we felt that the rules system that supports this behavior is more clear and consistent.
Currently, the CR doesn’t directly address what happens in these situations. The closest we get is rule 1.16.5c, which suggests that “ignoring” a cost changes it into a cost of 0, in combination with rule 1.16.1d, which suggests that costs of 0 still follow the same procedures as non-zero costs. But nothing currently puts those pieces together or clarifies what situations they apply to. The next rules update will add language to make it explicit that the steps and checkpoints associated with costs happen even when those costs are ignored, and that “install and rez” effects work as summarized in the list of steps above.
An Even Deeper Dive
The explanation above actually leaves out a bunch of history and detail that we had to sort through in order to determine the core of the issue. Here are the original rulings, as they appeared on NetrunnerDB until today:
If the Corp uses an ability to “install and rez” Tranquility Home Grid in a single instruction (such as Restore), can they trigger its ability?
No. Even though Tranquility Home Grid’s ability will be active by the time of the next checkpoint after its trigger condition was met (when conditional abilities with that trigger condition are marked pending), it still was not active when the trigger condition actually happened, so it will not be marked pending. The “install and rez” is performed in order.
If the first time the Corp installs a card in a turn is with Building Blocks, does 419 trigger?
Yes, but the barrier is both installed and rezzed simultaneously, thus rendering the ice ineligible to be exposed. Because the barrier cannot be exposed, the Corp can decline to pay 1 and 419’s ability will simply do nothing.
Neither of those rulings has much to do with the discussion above! This is because both rulings predate the modern rules framework: the former comes from the Uprising Release Notes, released in early 2020, and the latter is even older, coming from the Reign and Reverie Unofficial FAQ in 2018.
So what are these rulings talking about? The Building Blocks ruling predates the modern system of instructions and checkpoints entirely. In the FFG era, conditional abilities resolved “immediately” after their trigger conditions were met, but that “immediately” included several caveats. One of those caveats was that if an effect was written “A and B”, then A occurred simultaneously with B. So if an ability told the Corp to “install and rez” a card, the card was nominally being installed and rezzed all at once, rather than being installed first and then rezzed. The key piece of this ruling that has remained relevant is that a rezzed card cannot be exposed, and the question is when exactly 419’s ability resolves during an “install and rez” effect under the modern rules framework.
The Tranquility Home Grid ruling comes from the era when instructions had just been introduced. We had the beginnings of the modern timing system, but it received numerous refinements over the following couple of years—and it will continue to receive refinements going forward! Surprisingly, the ruling concludes that Tranquility Home Grid is rezzed by the time of the relevant checkpoint, which does not appear to be particularly well-supported by version 1.4 of the Comprehensive Rules (the current version at the time), but rather, seems to be relying on the previous framework for “install and rez”, which had only just been made obsolete.
Regardless of the ambiguous timing, the ruling still concludes that the ability won’t become pending. Its argument is based on rule 9.6.5b, which had just been introduced in CR v1.4, and which uses some ambiguous language. The interpretation of that rule has changed over time, as interactions like Saci versus Magnet have necessitated more careful evaluation of exactly when and how a trigger condition is met. We are looking at ways to improve the clarity of the rule for the next Comprehensive Rules update.
Both of these rulings will be updated as described in the previous section, to match the behavior expected from the current Comprehensive Rules.
Summary
In summary, we’ve covered rulings intended to clarify behaviors related to Patchwork, 419, and “install and rez” cards like Building Blocks and Ob Superheavy Logistics.
We are aiming to release a new version of the Comprehensive Rules before the end of 2024 that will contain clarifications related to these topics, among some other changes.
As always, we’re happy to hear your comments and help with your rules questions. You can reach the Rules team by email at rules@nullsignal.games, on our social media account @Netrunner_Rules@peoplemaking.games, or wherever else you happen to find us.
