Maintenance Access

Criminal Event: Run – Double

Play cost: 0 – Influence cost: 3

As an additional cost to play this event, spend click.

Run Archives. When you would approach Archives (after passing all ice), instead change the attacked server to HQ and approach HQ.

"Don't let self-respect get in the way of a good shortcut." —"G0ph3r" O'Ryan

5 stars

Wow, this card looks extremely underwhelming doesn’t it!

A WHOLE double just to access a single card from HQ!

I’ve seen a lot of people lamenting the loss of Sneakdoor Beta. A classic card from core set, now gone from standard. It's gonna sting for some people to see that its replacement is single-use. However, the Netrunner that Sneakdoor was printed in is vastly different to current Netrunner. That 2 MU that you see on Sneakdoor? At most it would be filled with a Datasucker or a Parasite, but in early days Netrunner, there were not a lot of great utility programs worth playing besides Sneakdoor Beta, so that 2 MU was not a massive cost.

Nowadays, Crim is flush with great programs. You have Cezve, providing a recurring 2 credits, making it a giant economy card, if you can leverage it. You have Cupellation, the Legwork on a stick you want to keep and then use at the right time. You also have Malandragem, a niche and mildly expensive card that’s sometimes an Inside Job.

...And also Datasucker is still in Crim sometimes.

Enter Maintenance Access. Not only are you saving your 2 MU and your juicy 4 credits, installing and using Sneakdoor Beta is basically a double anyway! And as the game becomes faster and multi-access effects become more plentiful, such as Twinning and Cupellation, you’re going to see three, four, maybe five cards in a single Maintenance Access. And that’s on top of the money you would save from surprising your opponent and cheating the HQ ice.

See, in the old context of Sneakdoor, you could feasibly click Sneakdoor a few times in a single turn to see every card in HQ for 4 credits. not a bad deal! Nowadays, though, single accesses like that are not efficient if you also need to contest a fast paced remote.

Now we have a much more deck-building friendly version of Sneakdoor Beta in the pool that doesn’t potentially overlap with other important utility cards. Seems good.

But wait, there’s more!!

The whole suite of cards that Crim loves and feeds off of are powered by this effect. It has a natural synergy with Sable, with successful HQ run refunding the extra click needed to play a double. WAKE Implant is also a multi access card that feeds off of HQ accesses. You can charge it up and then let it rip into R&D, generating a lot of pressure from a two card combo. Ice and credits the corp is using for central servers is ice and credits they are not using for their juicy remotes.

The floor of this card is that it saves you potentially a nasty face check, maybe 3/4/5 credits for a single ice on HQ, if you don’t have the right breaker or a Boomerang. Not bad!

The ceiling of this card is an absolute knockout blow out of nowhere. Just when the corp thought they were most safe, you strike and snag an agenda, get a WAKE Implant trigger, pop your Cupellation and just clean HQ for the win.

It’s not flashy. It’s not Sneakdoor beta. It’s the most boring card that you think you’ve seen a million times over,

And every corp is still never going to respect it.