How does Chaining work with Drive By and Psychic Field?

By Raven Bloodeyes, in Android: Netrunner Rules Questions

Posted at

So Drive By exposes a card which happens to be Psychic Field. Does the Psi game with the potential of net damage trigger first as it chains, or does Drive By trash Psychic Field first so its ordinary effect is now "Unresolveable"?

Thanks.

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Uhm, I'm not entirely sure, but here is my assumption.

SInce there is no "prevent" or "avoid", there now indication of priority. So both Drive By and Psychic field trigger on "when exposed". This means that the active player chooses which simultaneous abilities trigger in which order. As the runner, the active player would choose the trash ability first. Now Psychic Field triggers, but since it is now in archives, it cannot be triggered.

End result is pyschic field gets trashed and the psy game doesn't trigger.

However to get an official answer, please send an email to FFG's rules question email address.

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Actually, I'm pretty sure Psychic Field fires.

Drive By's trash effect isn't TRIGGERED BY the expose. Those are simply two effects of Drive By - you expose it, and if it's an asset, you trash it.

Psychic Field however has a clear conditional trigger -"when accessed or exposed while installed". That means the chain reaction rule kicks in and it resolves in the middle of Drive By, in the same way a 'when accessed' trigger must resolve before you can use Imp, for example.

I could be wrong, but without an official ruling to point to that is how I'd rule it.

Edited by CommissarFeesh
Posted at
Chain Reactions
If during the resolution of an ability another ability meets
its trigger condition, then a “chain reaction” is created. The
ability that just met its trigger condition resolves immediately
following the active effect on the current ability.

Yeah, this is textbook Chain Reaction. The "active effect" in question would be the expose, followed after Psychic Field fires, by the "trash that card" effect.

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Also a minor correction to ngunz's post about simultaneous triggers. The active player doesn't choose the order of resolution of all abilities, only his own. ALL the active player abilities must resolve before the inactive player. So if this were a case of simultaneous resolution, the active player would have no choice but to resolve Drive By first.

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Sent it in officially. Got this reply:

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Thanks for the question. The psi game does trigger when the card is exposed, before the card is trashed. Hope that helps,

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Lukas Litzsinger
Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games
[email protected]

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Good to know, thanks :)