Card of the Day

Written by Foolkiller

City Surveillance (CS) is a very powerful tool for the Corp. In fact, many have said it may be too powerful. The ability to tag the Runner without tracing is equivalent to gold for the modern Corp, as it forces the Runner to use unorthodox methods to avoid the tags. In these troubled times of Precision Bribery, Code Viral Caches, and Time to Collect the Corp must resort to such tools to actively fight the aggressive Runner.

Unfortunately, rezzing CS tends to put a big red bullseye on it, and most Runners will quickly remove it from the offending fort if possible. Roving Submarine makes an excellent companion for this card for this very reason. Most Runners that rely on protecting their resources (and their hide!) will quickly realize this, and run anything with a Roving Sub. This "bullseye effect" means that CS is best used as an ambush, hoping for maximum return the one time it is used. If you are lucky enough to secure it in a Sub, the Runner is faced with a migrain-scale headache for the rest of the game.

The advantage to CS being a Node is that it can serve as a double ambush with Data Sifters in your arsenal. If the Runner gets rid of CS you can still use it to nail them in a round-about way. Almost every Runner will trash CS, so this play is a near-guarantee.

Using several CSs at once has obvious advantages, assuming the Runner doesn't want tags. Of course, this requires that you find a way to keep them in play long enough to be useful. Combining CS with Newsgroup Taunting is an awesome strategy, forcing the Runner to pay to perform the most basic acts of playing the game: running and drawing. Using Edgerunner, Inc., Temps to saturate the field with Newsgroup Tauntings, CS and a TRAP! or two can really bog the Runner down.

An important thing to remember is that CS is only a means of slowing most Runners down. This is a huge advantage, but don't forget to take advantage of it. Bag the Runner if they got tagged, or remove their resources if you aren't prepared to Bag 'em. Don't use CS unless you are also prepared to take advantage of it. Giving tags for tag's sake do you no good. Once the Runner realizes that you are bluffing, they will stop paying bits to avoid the tags.

The low rez cost of CS makes it easy to use without impacting your own financing, and even the presence of a single CS in your deck is almost always helpful. The card may not come up every time you play, but if the Runner suspects it, they will run nearly everything to make sure they don't get CSed while using Bodyweight Synthetic Blood.

City Surveillance is an excellent card with broad utility. There are very few drawbacks to CS, making it an ideal tool for nearly every Corp deck, even if just as a diversion.