Today's announcement about the Double Time data pack for the Spin Cycle has me a little perplexed when it is speaking about Queen’s Gambit (Double Time, 102).

They state: "...Another option is to simply destroy whatever card you advance. The Anarchs gain another Double event in Double Time, the server-smashing Singularity (Double Time, 101)."

Maybe I'm missing something, but why would you ever want to do that combo? You would waste two clicks to play Queen's Gambit for up to 6 credits and then spend one click and 4 credits to make a run with Singularity! (That's a -1 loss in value.) That's quite a gamble that you might trash a powerful asset card, and you wouldn't even know unless you spend yet another click to make a run on Archives (-2 loss)! Better to just spend three clicks to get three credits.

Could it work out to your benefit?...Maybe...but only if you end up trashing an asset with a high trash cost...Is it likely? I doubt it.

Thoughts? How would you make this combo work to your advantage?

Well, what if they have a rezzed Sansan and/or an Ash (or any other combination of nasty upgrades), and they just installed another card in there (presumably an agenda)? Then you get the benefit of trashing the upgrades and the agenda, which will now be in Archives, where it is usually only lightly defended, if at all.

Besides, once you've run their R&D and HQ a couple of times, you can usually make very reasonable assumptions about the unrezzed cards they install in their servers.

So I don't think the Singularity run is necessarily a gamble.

Sure, the example in the article might be a bit of a fringe case, but I can imagine situations that do come up in actual play where Queen's Gambit plus Singularity is a reasonable play. That said, would I run Queen's Gambit over other economy cards? Perhaps not, but I'll at least give it a try. It's worth noting that it's 0 credits to play, so it can get you back in the game quickly after you've burned all your cash, or your accounts got closed by the corp. I think Singularity is the stronger of the two cards, though.

I suspect if you're ever using that combo, it's not because you needed the cash and then want to neuter the card you advanced - it'll be because you WANT to play Singularity but can't afford the run immediately. Queen's Gambit away!

I suspect if you're ever using that combo, it's not because you needed the cash and then want to neuter the card you advanced - it'll be because you WANT to play Singularity but can't afford the run immediately. Queen's Gambit away!

Perhaps, but it's quite a risk, considering that you will have to wait until your next turn. You may have been duped into advancing a Corp's agenda card which can be scored on his or her turn.

Maybe the best time to use the Queen's Gambit/Singularity combo is when you have already found a high-trash cost card during a previous run and using this combo at least helps you to break even.

Perhaps, but it's quite a risk, considering that you will have to wait until your next turn. You may have been duped into advancing a Corp's agenda card which can be scored on his or her turn.

Feesh was suggesting that by using Queen's Gambit you gain the money necessary to do the Singularity Run you wanted to do anyhow. At which point it's irrelevant if you're advancing their agenda with it because you are trashing it immediately after.

Any other ideas on how to make this a useful combo?

This comes in handy in a very specific scenario. Let's say there is a card out there and it has 5 adcancement tokens on it. You can't run it because you're just not sure if it's a Beale or a cerebral overwrighter. If it's a beale it's game over if you leave it out there if it's an overwrighter it's game over if you don't run it. Basically Queen's gambit sweeteens the pot for what you want to do anyways (which is trash advanced cards and then access them in archives where it's safe.

Singularity is the return of Death From Above from NR 1.0, recast as a Double.

I really love what FFG has done with Netrunner, but this is such a bad idea.

There are two cards I never ever wanted to see again, and Singularity/Death From Above is one of them. It doesn't really matter what the cost is, the use of a single card to trash any number of the opponent's cards, sight unseen, goes against the spirit of the game. It discourages experimentation by the Corp, and makes the game less "interesting" (q.v., Sid Meier). The Corp is responsible for creating the playing area, and FFG should avoid anything that makes it overly efficient to reduce the footprint of the playing area.

More Scorched Earths, coming right up.

Blah.

Except it's not the same card at all. The Corp player knows as soon as the run begins that he's facing a demo run; death from above was instant speed from grip. This actually gives a chance to react with troubleshooter, strong ICE, or any other gambits they might be packing to keep the runner out and waste the card.

Or, have a Thomas Haas be the card they are running at and simply trash the card and reap the credits once they have wasted a lot of credits on getting past ICE.

Man, the look on the runer's face when I've pulled that off at tournaments have been hilarious. It was late game and they were convinced that it was an Agenda I was advancing, so they used stimhack and took another 4 brain damage from the Janus I rezzed with aid of the bioroid trap ICE, only for me to trash Thomas as soon as they were one ICE (in a 4 deep server) away from scoring him.

Why not wait until they are through all the ice? After passing the final ice, there's two steps in which you can use paid abilities before the runner accesses cards.