The Parhelion unofficial comprehensive release notes II: Cards

“My onboard memory store is more than capable of handling all the mission requirements.”
– HAL 9000

On December 20 2022 NSG released a new version of the Card Text Updates (CTU) document. It contains 43 new entries and 50 updated ones, bringing the size of the document up to 134 pages from the previous 117. Most of the changes are simple housekeeping stuff, like replacing all instances of “brain damage” with the new term “Core damage”, but some of them are more interesting, and in this article I’ll list all cards that have received changes and how they are relevant to you.

Like the Comprehensive Rules, the CTU document has a new versioning format. The last one was version 1.3, but the new is version 22.12 (referring to the year and the month of its release), which is the same as its corresponding CR version.

What you need to know
Cards added
Cards updated
Categories
Individual cards
- Bloom
- EMP Device
- Ika
- Malia Z0l0k4
- Mausolus
- Monolith
- NEXT Wave 2
- Spinal Modem
- Skulljack
- Wetwork Refit

Update 2023-02-21

Rewrote the Ika section since I didn’t realize it was actually the very final card to receive the interface treatment.

What you need to know

There are relatively few changes of particular note in this CTU, which to many will be good news. We were spared this time the type of stealth functional changes that in previous CTUs have occasionally snuck in under the radar and surprised people in tournaments.

The main exhibits are the changes to wordings regarding positions and installed states that are relevant to ZATO City Grid and Nanisivik Grid. The rest may be considered esoterica, mainly of interest to rules nerds (but you’re reading this, aren’t you).

One card which has been the subject of a lot of debate over the years is Warroid Tracker. Some frequenters of rules questions threads might be glad to see it getting an update to make it more clear exactly when its ability applies. Along with the recently updated rules, there should no longer be any ambiguities left regarding the function of this card and other similar ones.

The changed cards are listed below with a link to their CTU entry, and a list of categories linking to explanatory sections later in the article.

Cards added

The following 43 cards which were previously unaltered have received new official text.

Cards updated

The following 50 cards which were already in the CTU document have had their official text updated:

Categories

Most of the changes can be sorted into one of a number of different categories. These categories are listed below, along with the affected cards.

Core damage

The change of all older mentions of “brain damage” to the newer “core damage” didn’t make it into the last CTU, but now they’re here, and they make up about half of all changed cards this time.

Amped Up
Brain Cage
Brainstorm
Caldera
Cerebral Cast
Cerebral Overwriter
Defective Brainchips
Edge Of World
Enforcer 1.0
Executive Functioning
Fairchild
Fairchild 2.0
Fairchild 3.0
Feedback Filter
Fenris
Heimdall 1.0
Heimdall 2.0
Ichi 1.0
Ichi 2.0
Janus 1.0
Kamali 1.0
Kill Switch
Kuwinda K4h1u3
Monolith
Nerine 2.0
Next Diamond
Next Wave 2
Ramujan-reliant 550 Bmi
Riot Suppression
Ryon Knight
Sentinel Defense Program
Skulljack
Spinal Modem
Stim Dealer
Stimhack
Tempus
Tori Hanzō
Týr
Vikram 1.0
Viktor 1.0
Viktor 2.0
Wetwork Refit
Wotan
Zed 1.0
Zed 2.0

Caïssa

Several of the caïssa programs have had their abilities restructured. The restrictions on hosting that apply when the card is already hosted have been broken out into a separate ability rather than being part of the click ability that hosts them.

Bishop
Knight
Rook

Trojan

All existing programs that host themselves on ice have received the previously announced addition of the “trojan” subtype.

Bishop
Botulus
Chisel
Egret
Knight
Kyuban
Parasite
Pawn
Rook
Tranquilizer
Trypano

This [card type]

As part of the ongoing project to harmonize self-references, a number of cards which previously said “this card” or “[card name]” have been updated to say “this [card type]”, which is the standard used by all newly released NSG cards.

Bishop
Black Level Clearance
Bullfrog
Cerebral Static
Employee Strike
Fenris
Ika
Kill Switch
Monolith
Next Diamond
Next Wave 2
Parasite
Rook
Sand Storm
Skulljack
Stim Dealer
Trypano

Ability ordering

A number of cards have had the order of their abilities switched around, for consistency. The tendency we’re moving towards is that static abilities are placed at the top, with paid abilities below.

Bishop
Brain Cage
Puffer
Rook
Study Guide
Trypano

Take -> suffer

Cards which used to refer to “taking” damage are being migrated to the term “suffer”, which was sometimes used even during FFG days, but is now being standardized as the single word to be used for this effect.

Black Level Clearance
Muresh Bodysuit
Net Shield
Shi.Kyū

Ability removal

A number of cards which used the older wording of turning the text boxes of other cards “blank” have been updated to the more modern “loses printed abilities”, which is the terminology used on newer cards. This change has previously been applied to Malia Z0l0k4 as well, and there are now no longer any cards using the “text box is blank” wording.

Cerebral Static
Dr. Lovegood
Employee Strike
Rumor Mill

Has -> gets

NSG has generally adopted the word “gets” instead of “has” for static value modifications. This new wording has previously been applied to SanSan City Grid and a whole slew of other cards. It has now also been added to Chisel and Parasite.

Brain Cage
Chisel
Parasite

Installed

Eight cards have received an additional qualifier that they or the target of their abilities must be installed. This serves to clarify how certain ice cards interacts with ZATO City Grid and Nanisivik Grid for example, but it has been added to a number of non-ice cards as well. In most cases this is not a functional change, since the targeting rules state that only “counters in the play area and installed cards” are valid targets unless the ability specifies otherwise.

In the specific case of Cerebral Overwriter, this is technically a functional change, since it could in theory be triggered when accessed from HQ or R&D. In practice though, you would always be forbidden from actually using it due to NCIGS, so that distinction is not very important. It also lacks the standard “must be revealed if accessed” text which cards intended to be triggered from hidden locations tends to have, clearly indicating that it was never intended to trigger from a non-installed state.

Bullfrog
Cerebral Overwriter
Cold Read
Negotiator
Power Grid Overload
Sand Storm
Under the Bus
Wireless Net Pavilion

X

Four cards which didn’t before now use “X” to determine the number of something, rather than “for each” and similar. This is facilitated by the new rule which defines the value of X in situations where it can’t otherwise be determined.

Brainstorm
Jemison Astronautics
Komainu

Interrupt

A number of cards with prevention effects have had the interrupt glyph added to their official text. For most of these it’s just a simple addition of a new icon, but Chrome Parlor has also been rewritten in a more standardized conditional ability form, instead of the old wording which looked more like a static ability. It also now prevents all damage universally, without naming specific forms (which makes it indirectly part of the “core damage” rework).

Caldera
Chrome Parlor
Feedback Filter
Monolith
Ramujan-reliant 550 BMI

Server or root

The term “from this server” was never clearly defined (it’s not mentioned in the CR) and has led to a lot of questions about the scope of certain cards. Six of those cards have now been updated to say “from this server or its root”, to make it clear that cards in the root are also covered by their abilities. Whether this means that “from this server” should now be understood to only mean exactly “cards in Archives, R&D or HQ” is not yet entirely clear (Arella Salvatore and Malapert Data Vault still use “from this server” to refer to the server root, so presumably the old, wide meaning is still in force), but at least there’s no longer any ambiguity about what the individual cards do.

Ben Musashi
Old Hollywood Grid
Overseer Matrix
Red Herrings
Strongbox
Warroid Tracker

Choosing servers

All three existing cards which choose a server at the beginning of your turn have been rewritten to take advantage of the simplified rule 9.10.3b. There’s no longer any need to specify that the ability expires “this turn” since it now does that implicitly.

In addition, choosing a server for Tracker is now optional, the same change as Security Testing got when it was included in System Update. With that adjustment, all four cards that choose a target server at the beginning of your turn (Security Testing, Patron, Tracker and Tsakhia “Bankhar” Gantulga) now use the same wording. Patron was worded as an optional choice from the start, and NSG have chosen to adopt this as the standard moving forward.

As a side note, with the new OP policies that were introduced recently, the difference between mandatory and optional abilities is no longer as relevant for competitive play, but we can still find the consistency aesthetically pleasing.

Patron
Security Testing
Tracker

General consistency

A number of eclectic wordings have been changed to standard NSG terminology for general consistency reasons. These are mostly small grammatical nudges that do not change the semantics of the cards in any meaningful way.

Edge Of World
Kyuban
Negotiator
Nihongai Grid
Parasite
Ramujan-reliant 550 BMI
Stim Dealer
Stimhack
Tori Hanzō
Will-o’-the-Wisp
Zed 1.0

Individual cards

A handful of cards have received bespoke changes that resisted categorization.

Bloom

The second subroutine on Bloom has been updated to say “directly inward from this ice” instead of “in the next innermost position”. This should make it more clear that the subroutine does not function when fired by ZATO or Nanisivik.

EMP Device

This card has had the Bomb subtype removed and replaced by Weapon. This is technically a functional change, making the card tutorable by Asmund Pudlat, but it’s obviously mostly for flavor and consistency reasons.

Ika

The long process of adding the “interface” ability flag to all existing icebreakers finally concludes. Most of the icebreakers received this change in CTU 1.0, with a few stragglers being added in later versions. For whatever reason, Ika was the only one still missing it, but has now come in from the cold.

Malia Z0l0k4

“An” has been replaced with “1”. NSG are generally moving towards specifying quantities with numbers rather than text.

Mausolus

Mausolus has been updated to the more modern wording already used by Hortum and Colossus. Those two were reprinted in System Update and had their wording changed simultaneously. Mausulous was already informally considered to work the same way, but has now been officially brought up to speed.

Monolith

NSG have been moving away from the wording “lowering the install cost”, opting instead for the phrasing “paying X less”. Monolith has now been updated to this new style. This wording could have slight implications for cards that care about the install cost of other cards; if you are merely “paying less”, you don’t have to worry about there possibly being a short instant in time where the actual install cost of the card is different from the printed one. It seems unlikely that a card would ever be printed that cared about such an ephemeral game state change, but stranger things have happened.

NEXT Wave 2

As part of a general style shift, the additional condition “if there is a rezzed piece of NEXT ice” has been moved from the trigger condition of NEXT Wave 2 and into the effect itself. The rules team has stated that this is mainly for style reasons, but it has minor mechanical implications. There was an old ruling - still listed on NRDB up until very recently - that you can’t use 24/7 News Cycle with agendas which don’t have an “explicit” “when scored” ability. NEXT Wave 2 used to be one of these, but with this wording change can now be used with 24/7, giving corps access to a method to proactively deal core damage in eternal.

Spinal Modem

Spinal Modem now says “you can spend hosted credits” rather than “use these credits”. This wording was previously applied to Simone Diego as well, and is the standard way NSG implements spendable credits not in your credit pool now.

Skulljack

Apart from the general templating changes, Skulljack has also received the minor modification of only affecting the trash cost of Corp cards. The old wording said “all cards”, which is for all practical purposes identical to the new one since only corp cards have trash costs anyway, but presumably this change was made for style reasons.

(We will all look back on this day when NSG inevitably prints runner cards that get installed in servers and can be accessed, at which point we’ll realize that they wisely reined in Skulljack preemptively to prevent it from taking over the meta.)

Wetwork Refit

Wetwork Refit was reworded to no longer mention being installed in the text. This is part of a general shift in how condition counters are treated, I’ve been told in informal conversations with the rules team. In the future, condition counters will never be installed, but this has not been officially communicated and there’s no guarantee they won’t change their minds again before the next version of the rules is published. Furthermore, the rules and card texts are not currently entirely consistent with this stated paradigm:

CR 1.13.5d “Some operations and events convert themselves into condition counters and install themselves hosted onto other cards.”

It is currently a matter of interpretation whether this particular text update constitutes a functional change, or if 1.13.5d ensures that the counter is still installed, but I believe the latter is the intended reading. Expect further changes on this one.

References

This article uses the NSG Comprehensive Rules Document version 22.12, which was released on 9 December 2022.

For convenience of linking, this article also uses hosted versions of CR 22.12 and CTU 22.12. These are identical to the PDF documents found on the NSG site, but I can’t guarantee that my own hosted materials are always up to date, so when in doubt, always refer to the official versions.

Rules mentioned:
Chapter 1: Game Concepts
1.13.5d (p.17) 1.15.2d (p.20)

Chapter 4: Game Zones
4.6.6i (p.47)
4.6.6j (p.47)

Chapter 9: Abilities
9.10.3b (p.112)

Cards mentioned:
ZATO City Grid
Nanisivik Grid
Warroid Tracker
Amped Up
Bishop
Black Level Clearance
Bloom
Botulus
Brain Cage
Brainstorm
Bullfrog
Caldera
Cerebral Overwriter
Cerebral Static
Chisel
Chrome Parlor
Dr. Lovegood
Edge Of World
Egret
EMP Device
Employee Strike
Feedback Filter
Fenris
Jemison Astronautics
Komainu
Kuwinda K4h1u3
Kyuban
Mausolus
Monolith
Next Diamond
Next Wave 2
Parasite
Puffer
Ramujan-reliant 550 Bmi
Rook
Rumor Mill
Ryon Knight
Sand Storm
Sentinel Defense Program
Skulljack
Spinal Modem
Stim Dealer
Tranquilizer
Trypano
Wetwork Refit
Wotan
Ben Musashi
Cerebral Cast
Cold Read
Defective Brainchips
Enforcer 1.0
Executive Functioning
Fairchild 2.0
Fairchild 3.0
Fairchild
Heimdall 1.0
Heimdall 2.0
Ichi 1.0
Ichi 2.0
Ika
Janus 1.0
Kamali 1.0
Kill Switch
Knight
Malia Z0l0k4
Muresh Bodysuit
Negotiator
Nerine 2.0
Net Shield
Nihongai Grid
Old Hollywood Grid
Overseer Matrix
Patron
Pawn
Power Grid Overload
Red Herrings
Riot Suppression
Security Testing
Shi.Kyū
Stimhack
Strongbox
Study Guide
Tempus
Tori Hanzō
Tracker
Týr
Under the Bus
Vaporframe Fabricator
Vikram 1.0
Viktor 1.0
Viktor 2.0
Will-o’-the-Wisp
Wireless Net Pavilion
Zed 1.0
Zed 2.0
SanSan City Grid
Arella Salvatore
Malapert Data Vault
Tsakhia “Bankhar” Gantulga
Asmund Pudlat
Hortum
Colossus
24/7 News Cycle
Simone Diego

Other:
NSG Card Text Updates Document version 22.12
NSG Card Text Updates Document version 1.3
NSG Card Text Updates Document version 1.0
Remastering System Gateway, NSG blog post

Acknowledgements

Proofreading & factchecking
Cephalopod Wizard tbu3k coldlava JayPumpkin