Esâ is the new Noise
Esâ is Runner-side PE
Neither of these are compliments

Apparently I need to make the review 200 characters, so here's some extra letters. AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz

Design:

• Multiply-Interactable: the Runner can interact with this card by running different servers (thus, in more ways than with most assets).

  1. run Archives: By flipping the discard-pile faceup, you turn off CGP’s Turn 1 facedown card in Archives faceup to … cost (except for a few fun fast-discard/-mill). Thus, there's an implicit Unless the Runner breached Archives last turn, … gate.
  2. run the agenda: Because it never-advances (being a BoT trigger like La Costa Grid), you can steal the telegraphed agenda beforehand (if you can breach the scoring remote, if you guessed right and they didn't bait you with Charlotte Caçador, or so on).
  3. run the asset (duh): Just pay its fair, 2[$] trash-cost.

• Both Payoff and (Self-)Enabler:

  • By itself, you can trash cards facedown (1st turn) and use that card archived-facedown (2nd turn), including the one it trashed itself.
  • Or (using just mode #2) you can install an agenda, a CGP, and play Hansei Review, then score out a never-advanced 4/2 next turn (flipping the Hansei’d card after rezzing CGP).
  • Or (using just mode #1) you can trash an installable, then IAA Hybrid Release (installing the trashed card).

• Both Econ and Threat: it can clicklessly earn two credits every turn while “rummaging” too, until it starts never-advancing agendas.

  • Most econ assets (like Regolith Mining License and Nico Campaign) are “cooked” in the scoring remote until you have a scoring window, and you've already exhausted them, or you'll over-install them anyways (tho a few can even rescue themselves, like Wall to Wall and Janaína “JK” Dumont Kindelán). To never-advance with CGP, however, this should be in a secondary, protected remote.

Notes:

• It almost breaks even on-rez ("+$2, draw 1" minus "card to draw, click to install, $1 to rez, trash 1 to use"), but doesn't (which is healthy for drip-econ or other value-over-time assets, IMO).

• This (as @Diogene said in their review) shines under identities:

  • with multiple protected remotes (like A Teia and Asa Group: since it's, of course, not an upgrade (like Tranquility Home Grid or La Costa Grid). Jukebox Asa (8th @ Worlds 2024) splashed two.
  • that care about facedown Archives (Restoring Humanity) or can protect Archives... or are Jinteki. LouDeeRer (2nd @ Worlds 2024) sleeved up the full playset.

• Like Zer0, you can filter cards and earn credits each turn. But the in-faction synergies of Runner-Red are “Trigger-when-Discarded” and “Heap-matters”, while that of Corpo-Red is “Archived-Facedown-matters”.

• Being non-unique, a second copy can (IIUC) flip the card just trashed by the first copy (but then you need three defensible remotes). (FWIW, I've never done that or seen it done, but I'm not a competitive player.) Also, being self-mill, you might need to reshuffle Archives (like with in-faction Longevity Serum, which can “heal” you for +3HP) if you've used the first mode too many times. (FWIW, I've never felt like I had to do that either.)

@tzeentchling:

I’m extremely fond of Cohort Guidance Program because it increases my draw speed and provides minor filtering from my hand of less useful cards, and if the runner doesn't bother to check Archives it's quite easy to get multiple advancements on a NA agenda.

(PS. I wish NSG released more earlier versions of cards! Even without extensive commentary like they did for Stegodon, which of course takes a lot of work to write on top of all the work that already went into it. There's a lot of knobs on this card that were all tuned well, both from the design and development perspective, yet the final version reads so cleanly while still being very deep.)

Idea: Other “CGP-like” assets that are, implicitly, temporarily-disablable (by breaching R&D, HQ, specific remotes) would be interesting too.

• R&D: Look at the top of R&D with 1st mode, and maybe rearrange (or draw then peek) for value; Guess the top of R&D (or just flip it and check for an “interactable" card-type, IE. an agenda/asset/upgrade, being stealable/trashable) with 2nd mode, to place an advancement. The Runner can disable it by breaching R&D. (cf. Federal Fundraising.)

• HQ: Reveal a stealable/trashable (agenda, asset, or upgrade) from HQ, to place an advancement. The Runner could disable it by breaching HQ and hitting enough stealables/trashables (maybe).

• Remotes: Derez another/noncopy rezzed asset (that wasn't rezzed this turn, or an asset/upgrade in another server) at BoT. The Runner could disable it by touching enough remotes? (cf. Warm Reception.)

• Detagging: Take 1 bad publicity to give 1 tag at EoT; Remove 1 tag to install & place 1 advancements at BoT. The Runner could disable it by detagging, as well as by trashing it (with the 1[$] “subsidy” for running/trashing from badpub). (cf. City Surveillance LOL.) (BTW, Repeated tagging or repeated derezzing can be toxic, and repeated deck-rearrangement can drag on every beginning-of-turn. These are all just zeroth drafts.)

Probably the single best ice in Standard at the time of writing this. Logjam is a gamewinning ice that completely hoses several decks if they don't run silver bullets, shuts down several of the most common cards in the format, and performs well against everything else. Even in it's worst showing it is pretty much a strictly superior Pharos, though pharos doesn't get run and logjam is a 3 of in every BtL for a reason.

As a facecheck:

Naturally, this is logjam's worst performance. Logjam is 6 to rez, and refunds 2, for a net cost of 4 and no cost to the runner.

As regular ice:

Logjam with a single advancement counter is 6 to rez, and has a strength of 4-6 (asset + operation are mostly guaranteed, ice + upgrade are common but may not be in your archives earlier in the game). With 3 subroutines which must all be broken, this makes it at worst about par and at best 2 strength better than the average. For comparison, pharos is -1 to 1 more/less strength for an extra credit, and the runner doesn't have to break one of the subroutines if they don't want to.

Against common scams:

Boomerang is completely shut down without any recourse against logjam. At best they can burn it to deny you the 2cr or recover it on a later run when they are able to break. This is really phenomenal and lets you play cards behind a single logjam with a confidence that you don't normally have against hoshiko or shapers.

Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga pays three subroutines to get past logjam. Nothing special, but gives a more or less 1:1 return on investment.

Botulus can't break this on the turn that it is played, even with Cookbook. This makes Simulchip botulus much less threatening. It also takes three virus counters to break logjam in general, reducing how often they can run and giving an actual use to botulus'd ice.

Audrey v2 needs two virus counters to break logjam's three EtRs, which makes virus counter management much easier in slow grindy games against freedom and the like. Logjam has no special effectiveness against Aumakua other than just being really efficient and high strength ice.

Against actual breakers:

Cleaver is the most common fracter in standard, and is run by most anarchs and most shapers. Other than cleaver, you will mostly see AI, Propeller and curupira. Logjam absolutely eats cleaver for breakfast: every advancement counter is another 2cr the runner has to spend on any run past logjam. Double turbine cleaver pays 12cr to break 12 str logjam, and the cost just goes up.

Unlike pharos, logjam actually beats turbine Propeller. Propeller can't break logjam in the lategame when it is advanced past 8/10 str, and the runner is forced to switch back to cleaver - by which point, breaking with cleaver has a cost well into the double digits.

Curupira only treats logjam as any other large and efficient barrier. It becomes important not to have cheap barriers on the outside of servers to prevent the runner from bypassing logjam by farming charge against these, but for the most part this is just something you have to deal with and conventional criminal breaker suites have the best time against logjam in the current meta.

Special interactions:

Unlike a lot of large and expensive ice, Logjam gets it's money back in a way when it is derezzed - more counters will get added to it when it is rezzed again. This means that if a runner actually wants to pass logjam, then logjam is still cost effective to rez while it's under a Tranquilizer.

Logjam gets forcibly set to 0 strength under Hush. It's a testament to how strong logjam is as a piece of ice that Lat now runs hush specifically to deal with logjam/treeline.

An interesting and rather unique defensive upgrade.

For an average "scoring" deck, an agenda suite usually consists of 8 or 9 agendas that are supposed to be scored out in some pattern of 2/2/3, i.e. scoring out two 4/2 or 3/2 agendas as well as a single 5/3. This agenda suite is great for easily scoring to 7, (as opposed to having to score to 9 with all 5/3s), while still keeping your agenda density low to avoid losing to multiaccess (as opposed to a deck running lots of 1 or 2 pointers). It gives you opportunities to fast advance a 3/2 to quickly close games out and the ability to play a few defensive 5/3s, or you can slot tempo 4/2s like Offworld Office to keep pace with the runner. All in all this agenda suite is probably one of the best, most consistent and most versatile in the game, but if you are running this agenda suite, you should not be running Giordano, because at best it is a worse Manegarm Skunkworks and at worst, it won't tax the runner a single credit.

For this card to be worth it, you need a lot of agendas in the runner's score area, and for that to be true, you also need to be running a lot of "small" agendas that you don't mind them stealing, because if the runner has a few 2 or 3 point agendas in their score area, then they've probably already won...

However, since running small agendas comes with its own inherent drawbacks regarding agenda density, this kind of card is best used in a Corp deck that's already ready and willing to include lots of small agendas for other reasons. The two most obvious examples are Sportsmetal: Go Big or Go Home and Thule Subsea: Safety Below but it could also be theoretically imported into Jinteki: Personal Evolution or other similar IDs.

Essentially, these IDs get some additional bonus whenever an agenda is stolen, which offsets the inherent downsides of running lots of small agendas. A Sportsmetal deck is probably happy running three copies of Hyperloop Extension, Megaprix Qualifier and/or Élivágar Bifurcation because if a couple of these cards get stolen, so what? You still get some money or card draw and as long as they don't win before you do, you don't really care how many agendas they steal.

Giordano gives you a "late" game defensive upgrade that could potentially cost the runner as much as 6-10 credits in an average Sportsmetal game by the time you're going for the final agenda push, which can be just enough to keep them out of a scoring remote they thought they could get into if you're keeping the tempo of the game fast enough and they're forced to play low to the ground.

A couple of notable details

• It's unique, so you can't protect multiple servers with these, but that's true of a lot of defensive upgrades so it's not like it's an uncommon restriction

• It's a facility, a lot of people I talk to seem to assume it's a region since it kind of sounds like it should be one, but it's not, so feel free to stack this with Regions and all sorts of other defensive upgrades

• It's ability triggers when the run is successful, this is rare, most similar effects trigger on the approach step, not the success step. Both can theoretically keep the runner from accessing any cards in the root of the server, but this wording is notable for the fact that it's a nonbo with other defensive upgrades like Manegarm Skunkworks or Anoetic Void since you can't force them to pay the Giordano tax then end the run with Anoetic. Plus, on-success effects like Dirty Laundry or Deep Dive will still technically fire too...

• This ability counts non-agenda "agendas" so cards like Nightmare Archive, Hangeki or Meridian all count as "agendas" for the purpose of Giordano calculations. As would cards like News Team, Shi.Kyū or Fan Site were they still in standard. It's for this reason that "Core Sports" decks have evolved as a way to force the runner to add Nightmare Archives to their score area, simultaneously making it harder for the runner to win despite stealing a large number of agendas and super charging effects like Giordano and Fast Break

• It dies to Pinhole Threading and Light the Fire!, this isn't something new nor unique to Giordano, but it's still worth noting that if you are relying on making an impenetrable remote server using Giordano plus a bunch of negative points to make the runner spend 20 credits or something, they can still just Pinhole it like any other defensive upgrade

I don't know enough about sports to tell you what kind of field that is or what kind of sport it is, but someone once said it looks kind of like a Dorito and now I can't stop seeing a Dorito chip whenever I look at it. The quote is a paraphrasing of the old Netrunner quote: "The world changed. Crime did not." for those wondering about that reference.

TLDR: A niche defensive upgrade for Corp decks looking to include a large number of small agendas and/or lots of sources of negative agendas.

I feel like this card is half of a combo that doesn't exist yet. Wait a minute, have I written this review before?

Compared to every other criminal run event mainstay at the time of writing, you have almost no reason to play this card. Many cards in most criminal decks are cheap, usually 4 credits or less, because criminals don't usually have the money to support a big rig and want to run early, fast and low to the ground. That means that at best, you are getting yourself an Overclock and a card draw, and at worst, you are hitting one of your 1 or 2 cost cards and end up feeling absolutely terrible.

If you want a generalist value run-event, play any of the following, each of them can make you as much if not more money with a much higher consistency. Even Overclock doesn't see much play in Criminal because they have so many other good run events to choose from and getting one extra card draw just isn't enough to make up for this inconsistency and unreliability.

• Bravado
• Carpe Diem
• Dirty Laundry
• Diversion of Funds

So what would make this card playable? Something that sets up the top of the deck obviously, if you can play a pretty Reg Criminal deck, include two disproportionately expensive cards like Femme Fatale, two copies of Concerto and a couple copies of whatever your setup card is, then you might just be onto something.

As far as I see it, there are 3 basic options:

• Something that restructures the top of your deck, like an infaction Making an Entrance reprint
• Something that tutors to the top of your deck, like an infaction Test Run reprint
• Something that lets you put cards from your hand on the top of your deck, like a Criminal version of Mindscaping or Flower Sermon

My personal favourite idea so far is like a Blueberry!™ Diesel near-print, call it say "Grape Diesel" where it says, draw 3 cards, then put one card from your Grip onto the top of your stack. This way, even outside of Concerto you can use it as source of good in faction card draw that then puts your dead draws like a spare copy of your console back on top of your deck for you to bottom next turn with The Class Act or shuffle away with Boomerang.

However, this would also give you a very reliable way to set-up Concerto, say you have a copy of Femme or whatever the equivalent future high cost card is already in your hand as well as a Concerto, the corporation then makes an obvious agenda push in a heavily guarded remote that they're pretty sure you can't get into. It's at this point that you play the Grape Diesel, putting the Femme on top of the deck, then rip the Concerto, giving you a whopping 9 credits to play around with it's quite literally an in-faction DIY Stimhack sans Brain/Core Damage.

Don't get me wrong, this whole thing is clunky, it's a three card combo that requires you to hold quite a few cards in hand in preparation for this. But... as long as each of those other two cards are worth playing in their own right, then Concerto might actually make sense as a big power play that can swing games in the Criminal's favor by giving them a sudden and massive injection of credits.

Will such a set-up card ever be printed, and importantly, will it ever be printed in Criminal? That remains to be seen, but the potential is there, could Stimhack be reborn wreathed in blue? Only time will tell...