There's something incredibly satisfying about this card.

It's a super-charged Aesop's Pawnshop in event form with two cards for your trouble! Since you don't want to deplete your stock of cards twice as fast (usually), I'd recommend against having both this and the shop. Since this only hits programs, it's a great pair with Cache for net 5 and two new cards! Turn your dead Pelangi into cash! Recycle that digital doggo!

It's also great to smelt your unused silver bullets like Misdirection and Clot into something useful outside of their given matchups. Also, if you have memory to spare, it's perfect for the rest of your SMCs after your rig is up to speed.

Hayley is typically the best with this, as her ability thrives on having a ton of low-cost cards at the ready. Obviously, it also loves to be in Levy AR Lab Access decks for even more profit!

Also, I don't know what its art is supposed to be, but I think it's a re-purposed typewriter turned into a music box. It's lovely regardless!

313

A weak but tenacious code gate for Weyland! I've seen a lot of this due to rampaging Hippos and hungry Maxxes with Spoons destroying ice left and right, because this can't ever fall prey to those if it's correctly placed on HQ. Anywhere else and this is diet Enigma, so please don't do that.

This one REALLY hoses Anarchs running Black Orchestra (aka all of them), they pay 3 to break and still have to hit the first sub to even get a look at HQ. It's a minimum cost 3 for pretty much every Decoder, which is solid for a 3 cost ETR. It slots in just about any Weyland deck that wants to discourage frequent HQ runs!

313
Nice! I never considered the fact that it's immune to cutlery and Hippo considering you can't break all its subroutines on HQ. —
It's also immune to Amina's credit denial and Inversificator's repositioning! —

Given the current Hippo filled meta and the low two influence cost, I carry a pair of those in most of my decks. It is however vulnerable to Chisel or Parasite.

Huge barrier out of the faction with the best of 'em for a cheap as dirt price! It's a weird reverse Fire Wall, starting at essentially 5 strength, then going down and down until you get to "very expensive Vanilla" territory. But for like 3 runs, it's not bad!

To keep it strong, it's probably best in a server that won't get run often, like Archives or a scoring remote, and definitely best as the innermost ice so the runner can't just bounce off it three times and make it a 2 Corroder challenge in one turn. The less they run, the better this remains, so cards like Enhanced Login Protocol or MCA Austerity Policy, while out of faction, are great. In faction, Weyland has plenty of implicit threat with IDs like Argus: Shootboys Inc. and The Outfit: Chicago Stereotypes, and sometimes that's all the threat you need to force careful runs only.

Obviously Cyberdex Virus Suite is seriously good with this card! Also, Reverse Infection doesn't just work on Runner cards with virus tokens, so if you've got your deck stacked with Stones it might be a fun splash to do some pseudo-damage (if you're jonesing for some low-quality jank). Keep it far away from Chisel, as it'll die at double speed!

I'd say the best decks to use this with are kill decks that prey on a single taxing must-run turn and massive glacier decks that can take the tempo hit of a purge turn with relative ease. Fast Advance still has Border Control to completely stop a run or Gatekeeper for 3 of limited time power with draw. An interesting new ice to be sure!

313

This guy is one versatile connection.

1) He'll give 1 for 1, which is a pretty good deal.

2) He's one influence, so you will notice him popping up in Kim, Sunny, and Wu decks focused on link/connections, in addition to Geist, who he loves for the trash ability as noted below.

3) He's also a pseudo Emergency Shutdown that can be used at weird times during the runner turn! After running on HQ, you can run on a remote safe in the knowledge that any unrezzed ICE will be very expensive for the corp (sad days if it's Vanilla though). I believe the window on him is such that you can either force the corp to rez twice or simply shut it down and bypass entirely. (Please correct me on this if I'm wrong!)

Since he's unique you can't pull off completely absurd multi-James combos during a run without Street Peddler, which is probably for the best. Easily one of the best sources of (one and only one) link in the game, and a great splash in almost any faction for his great ability.

313
You've almost got the derez part down, just a quick clarification: you can either 1) derez an ICE on-approach (this skips on-encounters BUT allows the corp to rez again, if they can) or 2) derez on-encounter, suffering any on-encounter effects (NOT bypassing) but taking away the opportunity for the corp to re-rez. What makes Maxwell special is that he allows the Runner to choose whichever is the better option. —
Btw for Anarchs who just need the link/connection and are influence-starved, The Archivist can provide a cheap +1 link and give a decent-but-not-great effect as well. —

I love this garbage card. It's hilariously inefficient to break just about anything (hello, 8 for Spiderweb), but man, if you are seriously prepared to use this, it is an incredible tempo crusher for the Corp. Obviously, you need a LOT of money to keep this thing viable, what with zero strength and 2for breaking each subroutine. And thanks to the wording on the card, you can't even use e3 Feedback Implants to reduce the cost on multi-sub ice (please correct me if I'm wrong)!

What's changed since this card came out? Şifr. If you keep hammering a server and throwing back barriers, you aren't going to worry too much about the "once per turn" rule on OP Suitcase. This helps with costs fairly significantly! It probably beats out Dinosaurus as the console of choice for this breaker, doubly since it helps with your other breakers and doesn't rely on which you install first. Another minor synergy is with Network Exchange, taxing extra every time they put it back in a deep server.

Obviously it's not going to help against all the rude code gates out there, but as a Shaper, you have Gordo Swordo, so don't sweat those too much (good luck with sentries, as usual). For maximum jank, get out the Paintbrush and Bob Ross that DNA Tracker outta your way!

This card has enormous drawbacks, but if you're already running Şifr and have cash and no influence to spare, it might be worth a second thought!

313
Won't work with e3 Feedback Implants - you have to use Ankusa to break ALL the subroutines in order for it to trigger. —
Duh, that's what they said... —
Oh, right. "Correct me if I'm wrong." —