What happens if the Corp player installs a card face down horizontally so it looks like ICE, but it isn't ICE? Is just discarded if it ever becomes active?

Can you install a non-agenda/asset card into a server and advance it? Would you just discard the card if it becomes active or the runner accesses it?

Is this considered cheating or just another form of bluffing?

Couldn't find anything that goes either way in the rule-book, although I'd lean towards "you can only install card types that are actually what they are" to save hassle. So assets & agendas can only be installed as either/or, and only ICE can be installed as ICE.

At the minimum, would keep people from protecting non-installed Agendas by playing them as ICE and just never "rezzing" them.

Granted, if you want to play the bluffing game, there's always traps…

Only ICE can be installed horizontally and only Agendas, or cards that explicitly say otherwise, can be advanced. It would be cheating otherwise.

I'm fairly sure this would fall under "maintaining an illegal game state", which is classified as "unsportsmanlike conduct" in the tournament rules.

As with any game that uses face-down play, this should be dealt with fairly harshly. If I were the organizer for a Netrunner tournament and a corporate player was caught installing ICE as an agenda/asset or vice-versa, that player would forfeit the match. A second offense from the same player would cost them their spot in the tournament.

But that's me - penalties are at the TO's discretion.

The AGOT Tourney rules require a player to turn over all cards in Shadows (for those unfamiliar with the game, that basically means they're face down on the table but not exactly in play yet) at the end of a game to ensure no cards were placed there illegally (and not doing so can result in a DQ). I guess it just didn't occur to FFG to include a similar rule here but they should. Putting out, say, an agenda horizontally in front of a server as if it were ice isn't bluffing. It's cheating.

Amuk said:

The Shadows ruling in AGoT is actually the main reason I asked the question. I kept expecting them to address what happened if you installed a card incorrectly, but it was never addressed in the rules. So it got me thinking that given how bluffing is more prominent in Netrunner than other CCGs, maybe installing cards wrong was ok.

Now that you mention it though, installing an agenda like it was a piece of ICE in order to keep the Runner from accessing it is pretty darn powerful. You could never score it, but as long as you never intended to…

The rules clearly state that both agendas and assets may "only be installed in a remote server," where as ice is installed on a server. You can't install a piece of ice inside the server or install an agenda/asset on the server like ice, that is cheating. Hope this helps.

What happens if someone installs a card wrong then? Auto-loss, dependent on TO? Kind of harsh. It's not covered in the rules but does fall under the umbrella of TO judgement. Problems arising from facedown cards were common enough in AGoT to get an actual ruling on cards in Shadows. I'm just curious what the penalty is in Netrunner.

I read the rules and I understand they state you can't install certain cards in certain locations, but what happens if you do? This is my question. The rest of my posts were more a "what if you could install anywhere and it wouldn't cause a loss or dq, wouldn't that be neat/different?" Sorry if all the "what if" obscured my question, I'm just hoping we can get official ruling before GenCon.

We always consider cheating to be a DELIBERATE attempt to circumvent the rules. Each situation will be different, and the cheaters will be pretty obvious. I am sure for a short time we will be lenient in our tournaments, so that new players will understand what they are doing wrong, but at high level play the players should all be familiar enough with the rules to know what gets installed sideways and what gets installed normal.

If you read the word ICE at the top of a card, that should be the clue that it can be placed horizontally. If ICE does not appear, don't place it horizontally. Pretty simple.

I were running the event, you'd forfeit the match immediately if you installed something in the wrong place, advanced a non-advancable card or otherwise created an illegal game state. I'd then spot check this player during midgame to ensure that they weren't installing Agenda as ICE, then later overwriting the "ICE" into the Archives.

On a second offense I'd show you the door and ban you from further activity.

In any tourney higher than an introduction to the game, I'd say it has to be a game loss. There's no way to go back to the game state where the mistake occurred, and I can see after umpteen games in a day how a player might mistakenly toss down the wrong card as an ICE or advance an upgrade that cannot be advanced(especially the second), but it still shows something to the other player that is obviously not what it could be. The game is about giving misinformation, but it still has to be done legally. I know that if I found myself advancing an ice that could not be advanced, the minute I found out about it I'd scoop up my corp cards and give up that game.

Hi i feel this does have to be addressed officially in the rules or Tournament rules,

A simple line stating at game end : reveal all face down cards to your opponent to confirm they were played correctly.

Punishment in a tournement game: loss on 1st infringement , tournament DQ on 2nd.

Just to point this out to players who haven't seen Netrunner cards, or don't remember the examples in the previews and rulebook:

ICE cards are printed sideways. A common complaint about the old game was that the runner always knew when the corp had ICE in his hand because he had to turn the card sideways to read it. You have to *really* not be paying attention or deliberately cheating to install one in the wrong direction.

I'm less worried about installing ICE wrong and more worried about installing upgrades wrong. There was no "root" location in original Netrunner, you just installed upgrades to the server directly. So you couldn't tell if it was an agenda, asset (node), or upgrade that was installed to the server. Now there is a special place for upgrades below the server. I can see myself forgetting and dropping an upgrade into the server until I break the old habit. I'm not really that worried about it, but I'd just like to know what the consequences will be.

Edit: Never mind. I just realized the root is just for central servers. You still install upgrades directly into remote servers.