At first glance, this just seems like a difficult and unreliable way to gain three . After all, it is usually quite costly to successfully run at all three central servers in one turn. It is actually a bit better than that. Still, Encore probably won't find its way into many decks.

Why is it a bit better?

Because it gives you another turn rather than just extra s, this will satisfy a number of beneficial triggers.

-Drip income cards like Underworld Contact and Data Folding will supply fresh s.

-Wyldside and Earthrise Hotel will give you two cards

-Once per turn abilities, like Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: Digital Tinker and Hayley Kaplan: Universal Scholar are again available

-Also available are s. Ele "Smoke" Scovak: Cynosure of the Net, Lockpick and the like.

-Cards like Patron and Security Testing can be used again.

-Even cards like Beth Kilrain-Chang and Rachel Beckman activate again potentially earning you more s from Encore.

Ways to make it easier.

-Omar Keung: Conspiracy Theorist has an easier time, but there's probably no way he will include this card because of the four influence cost.

-Sneakdoor Beta will serve much the same purpose, making your HQ run potentially easier.

-And of course, old faithful, DDoS.

Nasty Corporate tactics that can ruin your Encore

-Caprice Nisei, Marcus Batty, Crisium Grid, and Nisei MK II are among the ways Corporate can stop you.

How does Encore stack up to other three-run events?

-Three (maybe more) extra s is great. You can make a lot happen with it. But...

-Notoriety guarantees an extra point.

-Quest Completed can easily get you more than one point.

-Apocalypse is Apocalypse.

-Upcoming Exploit is potentially game changing too.

In conclusion

I think this card will be fun to play around with. And against certain decks you may find it easy to pull off. But against many, it'll be difficult. And four influence is quite restrictive, so probably only Shapers will attempt it.

Also, don't use drugs if you are attempting an Encore. You'll end up paying your dealer for nothing.

For a long time, there were three anti-AI ICE. Swordsman, Turing, and Wraparound. These are all great cards and they thankfully forced Faust users to include regular icebreakers in their decks. Still Faust and other AIs were hard to deal with and won a lot of games. I know I personally wanted more anti-AI ICE. Well, the past few data packs have certainly provided that. Bulwark, IP Block, and now Chiyashi. Bulwark gives the Corp a nice little bonus if the runner is using an AI. IP Block is a bit better, giving a tag to AI toting runners. Chiyashi though, is quite ridiculous. They went overboard I think. Both Bulwark's and IP Block's anti-AI component can be turned off with Hunting Grounds, a card I think all AI decks should include. But not Chiyashi. If the runner has an AI installed, even if they use something else to break the subroutines, they will have to mill the top six cards of their deck! That's over 13% of a typical deck. They can of course let the subroutines fire, but that'll cost them four net damage and an end to the run.

Besides the anti-AI component, this is an amazing piece of ICE. It is expensive to break, 7 for Paperclip, 9 for Corroder, and 5 and two counters for Cerberus "Lady" H1. It's subroutines are brutal; no one wants to take four net damage. It is at least expensive to rez, and with the new (broken?) Anarch console, expensive ICE is risky.

This ICE obviously synergizes quite nicely with Jinteki: Potential Unleashed. If the subroutines fire, that's four net damage and two milled cards. If they are broken and an AI is installed, that's a win for the Corp too.

Perhaps it is time to include Street Magic in a deck or two. There are a lot of nasty ICE floating around now.

I actually came up with a card idea awhile back that was remarkably similar to this card. The differences being that my ICE didn't have the third subroutine and the strength was much lower but it also wasn't a tracer. My thinking was as follows: There are a lot of viruses. Many of them are extremely good cards. All of them have low install costs (all cost between one and three, not counting Crypsis). Sure there are a couple antivirus cards. But Cyberdex Virus Suite is the only one that is really played. And sure, it is a good card; you'll certainly be glad to have it when facing a virus heavy deck. The problem? It's almost a completely dead card if you find your servers un-assailed by malicious viruses. You may be able to bait a run with it or thwart a siphon, but in general, it won't help you. The solution? An antivirus ICE with a universally useful subroutine included. And here it is, Macrophage.

Here's a rundown on Macrophage.

It is a seven strength code gate with four subroutines. And it is rezzed for just three! That is amazing. To actually break this the runner is going to be spending a lot, nine with Gordian Blade. They could just let the subroutines fire but a runner with no link will have to spend at least 10 if they want to win every trace. This ICE is neutral with no influence cost.

-The first subroutine is great. Why? Because spending an entire turn to purge counters sucks. At a trace four, you have a good chance of winning.

-The second sub is awesome. Trash that Medium before another R&D dig. Trash the Parasite that's about to claim another victim. Or trash that stupidly annoying Datasucker (it really is one of the best runner cards in the game and costs far too little in install and influence costs). A trace three isn't bad; boost it if need be.

-The third subroutine is pretty useful too. Anarchs love their Deja Vu. It sucks losing two ICE to Parasites just to have the runner pick 'em both back up in one click. And because it fires after the previous subroutine, you should have a target to remove from the game.

These three subroutines can of course usually be totally ignored by the runner if they don't have any viruses. But now on to the last one.

-The last subroutine is both the best and worst thing about this ICE. It's great because it is always useful, whether there are viruses on the board or not. But it is only a trace one, yuck. Still there are ways to boost that for free. And if it ends up costing the runner only one to get through each time, that's not too bad for a three rez cost; not great, but not bad.

But wait! There are at least a couple of notable interactions with this ICE that go beyond its antivirus potential.

Aryabhata Tech: With four trace subroutines that will most likely fire, you can get a lot of work with just one of these installed, never mind two or three. By the time the first three traces are done, you may have a easy time landing the end the run subroutine.

Chief Slee: Again, since the subroutines will usually fire, Slee can smell the blood in the water. This seems to be an easy include if you are still trying to make her work.

I forgot to mention that the ICE I came up with also did not have such a clever name. I looked up Macrophage and found the following: They are a type of white blood cell that engulfs and digests foreign substances in the body. Certainly a fitting name for this powerful ICE.

Scenario 1: You're playing v. EtF. They've just scored their second 3/2 from hand with a San San behind a Tollbooth. And it's only their sixth turn. You've finally got your decoder up and running. This is going to suck you think, but you bite the bullet and make the run. 12 credits gone, but you got rid of that stupid San San.

EtF responds by installing another ICE in front of Tollbooth, clicking for a credit and then playing Friends. San San is reinstalled and an Adonis Campaign for good measure.

Scenario 2: This time Gagarin is your nemesis. You decide to check the new remote they just created. And it's Jeeves. You think, "I really can't afford to trash it, it'll set me way back. But if I don't, they are going to get some easy points. And I have already spent the credit to access it." So you trash it.

Gagarin calmly does much the same as EtF. Jeeves is reinstalled and a Commercial Bankers Group for the heck of it.

Would these scenarios bother you? More likely they do bother you now. This card is finding place in countless decks. Someone, for some reason, thought it would be okay to put only one pip on this card. A card that is incredibly versatile and powerful. Cards in archives are supposed to be hard to retrieve. Sure there are ways to get them back. Shuffle 'em back in with Jackson or Preemptive Action. Or spend two clicks to retrieve and then play a card with Archived Memories (a card that costs two influence).

So, yeah, I don't like this card.

Now onto counters to it. The following can be effective. Archives Interface, Salsette Slums, Imp, Edward Kim: Humanity's Hammer, and Wanton Destruction. All orange cards. Good cards, but not easy to slot into just any deck.

EDIT: Forgive me if I'm beating a dead horse, but I am getting more and more annoyed with this card. In addition to the above strategy of reinstalling powerful, high trash cost assets and upgrades, I am seeing another all too common scenario. On Jinteki.net I am seeing a lot of Asset Spam 2.0 decks. I will say that the asset spam decks of old, while sometimes annoying to play against, were perfectly legitimate. The corp would try to overwhelm the runner's economy and time with plenty of must-trash assets while sneaking out a point or two when they could. FiHP takes this to a whole new level. I'm seeing Gagarin and RP decks with FiHP, Clone Sufferage Movement, and a combination of the following: Museum of History, Encryption Protocol, Bio-ethics, Hostile Infrastructure, Jackson Howard, Preemptive Action, Mumba Temple, Tech Startup, Mumbad City Hall, Mumbad Construction Co. and more. Between clicking for money and making runs to trash, there isn't even time to draw cards, much less make runs with intentions to steal an agenda. I'm going to go ahead and tell anyone who is reading this, that if you are doing this, please STOP! It is not a legitimate strategy. Will you win? Probably a lot, Against me, you'll win by default as I will end up conceding after 20 turns of horrible monotony. But deep down, you must realize you are taking advantage of an obvious mistake that FFG made. It is similar to people still running the Au Revoir, Turning Wheel, Snitch combo. Or the DDoS, False Echo, Hyperdriver combo. You know it is broken, so stop doing it.

And last thing. This is one of those cards that demand that every runner, for the foreseeable future, build their deck with counters to it (much as corps must build around Sifr at the moment). Cards like that may be fine in and of themselves (this one isn't) but they should all cost a lot in influence so that at least you don't have to run into them every single game.

This is a pretty good card, if it is used correctly. It is quite similar to Stimhack. Cold Read doesn't provide as much money, less than half actually, and the downside or penalty for the money is potentially worse. However, that penalty can be avoided or at least mitigated unlike Stimhack.

So if used correctly, this is potentially a zero cost Sure Gamble that also lets you make a run! Here are some good ways to use it:

1: Make a run without using any programs. Of course you need to use the money too.

-Trash that unprotected PAD Campaign for free.

-Host programs and hardware on Personal Workshop and run at a naked server or simple barrier. Other options are Self-modifying Code, Artist Colony and Clone Chip.

-A less common use would be to steal an unprotected NAPD Contract, Fetal AI, or any other agenda with Predictive Algorithm in play.

2: Use programs, but ones that are trashed on use or that are almost out of counters. This would include the breaking and entering suite, the friendly puppy dogs, and others like Overmind.

EDIT: Drugs mentioned another good set of breakers, the Birdies. You can't trash it if it is no longer installed. I think this would be a great card to include in a Birdie deck as the derez effect gets really expensive really quickly.

Now there are some other good things to consider. It is a run event, so Ken "Express" Tenma: Disappeared Clone is a fan of this card. It will avoid the tax from Enhanced Login Protocol. And it can be combined with other run effects like Desperado and Temüjin Contract.

A word of caution though: I'm pretty sure that cards such as Medium and Datasucker will be "used" if their trigger condition is met. So be aware of that in your deck building.

All in all, a solid card in the right deck and an easy include at one influence.