Welcome to the new HB dream: scored Self-Destruct chips, player hits a Gyri Labyrinth, and end of turn you rez Chairman Hiro for the win.

As anyone who's played a brain damage deck knows, getting brain damage to stick, especially enough to win, is hard. Most existing builds I know of that work try and land a chunk of BD (via edge of world, overwriter) and then rely on something like Neural EMP / Ronin / Junebug / Counterstrike to finish the job. I don't see that strategy changing, but this ID promises to make it even easier to set up that BD->kill threat, a strat supported by the new HB agenda (Self-Destruct Chips) and complimented by Ryon Knight (who dissuades running last click, which is when you need to run if you have to draw 3 after taking damage).

That hand size limit will definitely hurt the corp - hand destruction (like Wanton Destruction, Utopia Shard, and Itinerant Protestors) becomes even more potent when you only have four slots to hide agendas, and Legwork has a 3/4 chance of seeing that singleton you've kept there. I see this ID running some sort of agenda-stealing punishment (like Punitive. Midseasons) just to captialize on that fact. Or, they could invest in HQ upgrades. Research Station + Panic button, anyone? :)

One last thing. Anarch gain a lot of powerful tools (Amped Up, Stim Dealer) that give them brain damage in O&C, and Stimhack remains popular. Brain damage decks get better as these BD-inflicting cards again popularity. Then again, if this kind of HB archetype does become successful, expect to see singleton Brain Cages, and maybe even a Public Sympathy or two.

So yeah I guess you guys have already read a dozen reviews about this ID. So I have no intention of repeating all the brain damage, hand size, etc. stuff that others have captioned in detail before me, I want to give my very specific 2 cents to this card.

I think a 40/15 ID is meant to be played aggressive. Self-Destruct Chips is an easy to score agenda (being an HB 3 pointer) which has such a good synergy with CD. So the basic idea is to be FAST on this one. Well fortunately there is a pretty nice ICE setup that is very strong early game, especially in a 40 card deck: GRAILS!

Since you have the 15 influence you can spend 9 on grails, 3 on Jackson and you still have 3 more influence left to spend. Does HB need to splash econ? Nope. Do you need to splash ICE to support 9 grails, 3 Eli 1.0, Turing and/or Architect? Probably not. So here is what we splash: 2x Research Station and a "mandatory" Crisium Grid. Research Station supports grail tactics, negates the ID's drawback.

So what do we do? Fast score at least 1 Self-Destruct Chips to have the runner down -2 hand size ASAP and prepare to kill with a double Merlin. The runner can run into any of the 3 ICE types and be hit by 4 net damage. Unless he has all 3 breakers out grail ice will always be a threat! And we even have Corporate Troubleshooter to get that one ICE up in strength so we can hit that 2x2 net damage!

Enjoy!

Potentially a very interesting ID but it's worth considering that it will exist alongside cards such as Beach Party and Brain Cage which will quickly negate the -1 hand size for the runner.

The increased agenda density in HQ is also a cause for concern but otherwise shows promise of being able to place a runner under early pressure in the face of net / brain damage threats.

A very exciting ID, most notably for its 40 card deck size and full influence. Perhaps a new home for Deadcoats. The question is, how will we mitigate the loss of Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future 's extra credit every turn?