At the risk of once again finding that my math skills aren't what I thought they were, I'm going to propose that this card isn't quite as useless as it may seem.

The specific lens I'm going to use is a case where it is installed and advanced once, then immediately rezzed and trashed. In that scenario, it is essentially a double operation with a cost of 1, in that it's to install, to advance, to advance.

The specific use case is in rerezzing an Adonis Campaign or Eve Campaign. My understanding is that the credits on the campaigns stay in place when the card is derezzed, but I was unable to find the specific ruling which states that. Though the math I will go through here presumes this is the case, it isn't a complete dealbreaker if I'm wrong on this point.

Adonis Campaign will normally yield 8 for its 1 to install. The calculation for this is:

  • 12 payout over four turns
  • minus 4 to rez
  • to install

That's 8 for its 1 to install.

What Test Ground brings is the ability to reload that 12 by rerezzing the card. So to the above string of actions we add the following:

  • to install Test Ground
  • to advance
  • to advance
  • to derez Adonis Campaign
  • 4 to rerez Adonis Campaign
  • additional 12 payout over four additional turns

This is an additional 7 off of Adonis Campaign for 2 (and a card). This is the same yield as Celebrity Gift.

All told, then, the two-card combo will yield 15 over 8 turns for 3.

Naturally, it will also work with Eve Campaign, a situation in which Test Ground enables a total of 23 over 16 turns for 3 (an additional 11 for 2).

As for downsides:

  • Yes, this is a two-card combo, with all the issues that entails.
  • No, the copy of Test Ground you include is not as good as either an Adonis or an Eve Campaign.
  • It is perhaps true that having an Adonis sit in a server for as long as an Eve normally does means that the better comparison is not Test Ground compared to Celebrity Gift but Test Ground + Adonis Campaign compared to Eve Campaign, and this is less favorable.
    • Adonis + Test Ground is 15 for 3
    • Eve Campaign is 12 for 1
      • This means that Test Ground is actually only yielding 3 for 2, which is obviously not very good.
  • Yes, you probably are going to want to protect your 16-turn Eve Campaign with some ice, which reduces its value.
  • No, this means that you probably aren't using this as your scoring server.
  • While you could theoretically use Test Ground the turn immediately after rezzing your campaign, you probably want to wait until the turn before it finishes paying out so it's less of a tempting target for the Runner.

Finally, there are some other uses for a 1-cost double operation (which is the lens through which I'm viewing this):

  • derez a piece of ice that's about to be Knifed, Forked, or Spooned
  • derez a piece of ice hosting a Parasite to keep the Runner's memory tied up
  • derez Elizabeth Mills so you can remove another bad publicity
  • derez Lily Lockwell so you can draw 3 more cards
  • after the Runner trashes Crisium Grid on HQ, derez a remote Off the Grid just before the second run on HQ is declared successful ... then rerez it after the run ends

Of course, none of this is to suggest that Test Ground is a great card. But, perhaps, better than useless?

<p><a href="/en/card/08040">Breaker Bay Grid</a> makes this better.</p> —

Welcome to Reviewing the Little Boot Icon: Identity Crisis!, an unfortunately named spin-off to an unfortunately named series of reviews for Reboot-modified cards. Today's review: Gandiva Therapeutics: Tailored Security, the only Jinteki ID that doesn't use net damage, Caprice Nisei, or Trick of Light.

  • Changes: Influence 15<17. The ID was junk at 50/15. It's still bad, but we have been promised more support in future packs.

  • Pros: All your 4/2s are now 3/2s, and Philotic Entanglement and Braintrust are 2/2s. 17 influence is nice.

  • Cons: Nisei MK II is still a 4/2. You can't FA anything but Clone Retirement. Medical Breakthrough is kinda pointless. The limit 2 per deck is annoying as we are a bit short on good 4/2s, 1 more would make life a lot easier.

  • Playstyle: Build a remote with annoying ice and jam things into it. Kaede Ueno is fun to stuff in, and The Sisters allows you to mess up on guessing whether the Runner will go after your agenda. Psychokinesis is also very funny here, especially since you should yomi a little bit on your remote jams.

5/10 Biotech tier.

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Welcome to Reviewing the Little Boot Icon, an unfortunately named series of reviews for Reboot-modified cards. Today's review: Futureproofing/Epiph4ny, super-Dirty Laundry for PpVP Kate.

  • Changes: Credits placed on Epiph4ny: 6<7.

  • Pros: It's Dirty Laundry, but it's 1 cheaper to start with, and is 5 for no clicks instead of 3. Shapers can always use the cash on Epiph4ny, and you can even sell it to Aesop's Pawnshop when it's empty.

  • Cons: Dirty Laundry doesn't take up 1, and this only works on HQ/R&D. This is mainly good out of Shapers with low HQ pressure, otherwise the Corp will make this quite expensive.

6/10 Everybody but me should be playing this. Excuse me while I boot up my Tennin deck.

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Welcome to Reviewing the Little Boot Icon, an unfortunately named series of reviews for Reboot-modified cards. Today's review: For the Laughs, the orange Connect the Dots.

  • Changes: Used to draw a card before the run. Also used to be in 1/3 the decks in the game.

  • Pros: Repeatable Demolition Run on HQ! Limit 9 per deck Demo run is tempting.

  • Cons: Smashing Spree exists and is better, and this is more expensive and has to be drawn earlier.

6/10 We will see how much this gets played from now on.

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Welcome to Reviewing the Little Boot Icon, an unfortunately named series of reviews for Reboot-modified cards. Today's review: Maron, the Ritzy decoder.

  • Changes: loss for using this on a successful run: 2<3. People won a tournament with this out of Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist, and this is supposed to just be Dionysus Bagbiter: Luxe Larcenist support.

  • Pros: Very efficient decoder, that can break anything for a good price.

  • Cons: If you get in and still have , you get fined 2, which makes this rather subpar.

7/10 Nobody would disagree that this is in every Criminal deck, as long as you don't ask. (It's not.)

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