Scavenge timing justification

By Red Oni, in Android: Netrunner Rules Questions

Posted at

Hello, just to start off I want to say that a friend of mine had a collection of the original netrunner that he introduced us to and we had a blast playing that. For the most part we really like the new game. There are just a few cards who's rulings I don't agree with. Most I understand, don't like but understand. Then there is Scavenge. For completeness here is the card text:


Scavenge
Shaper Event: | Cost: 0 | Inf: 2

As an additional cost to play this card, trash an installed program.
Install a program from your grip or heap, lowering the install cost of that program by the cost of the program trashed

The ruling is that you can trash a program to install that same program. How?

Can someone explain to me, please, how you can scavenge a thing into itself? Common sense tells me that you must target the program when the cost is being paid. By this ruling it exists in 2 places at once. The only thing that makes sense is you pay the cost, wait, then choose what to retrieve. Which to me is like playing Dirty Laundry without choosing a server to run.

Thanks in advance for the clarification.

Posted at

Your interpretation is correct - you pay the cost (including the additional, which is a trashed program), then resolve the card. At the point of resolution, the program is already trashed.

The same is true of Dirty Laundry actually - you pay the cost (2 credits), then resolve the card. The card tells you to make a run, so you now decide what server to run on. Assuming a successful run, you claim your 5 credits when the run ends.