Lots of reviews mention janky interactions between Loki and other niche ice types, like Trap or Mythic. But Loki does have a more powerful, if equally unconventional, use in the current environment heavily featuring the conspiracy breakers (MKUltra, Black Orchestra, Paperclip). Because the runner's on-encounter effects (including on-encounter checks from the heap, such as bin breakers!) happen before the corp's on-encounter effects, the bin breakers will miss their timing window to install versus a Loki; it has no subtypes from the runner's perspective other than Bioroid when encountered. If, therefore, the corp elects for Loki to copy an ice type for which the runner does not have a breaker installed already, they will be unable to do anything about the subroutines, despite having the relevant breaker available in their heap. Unfortunately, for Loki to copy a piece of ice, that ice must already be rezzed, and the normal play pattern of Netrunner means the runner would have therefore encountered every type that Loki could copy at least once. But, how might the runner encounter Loki without having the relevant bin breaker installed?

There are a couple situations in which this can occur:

1) The runner previously encountered a kind of ice for which they did not have a relevant breaker at the time, and have not encountered that type again prior to encountering Loki. No guarantees that this will happen, but if the runner for example bounced off a Vanilla in the early game, they might not have tried to hit the Vanilla again before hitting Loki.

2) The runner has trashed a previously installed bin-breaker to make room for a new program. In this scenario, the runner make have encountered a Barrier on server 1, installed Paperclip, and then trashed it later to make space for an MKUltra when encountering a Sentry. Now, when they encounter Loki, Loki can counter that other rezzed barrier and be unbreakable. Not an especially common scenario.

3) The corp has rezzed ice by abnormal means, such that the runner may have never had an encounter with that ice type at all. There are numerous ways to do this, but I want to highlight the easiest and potentially most devastating way to do it in Standard: with Haas-Bioroid: Architects of Tomorrow. Imagine the following layout: the runner has not yet installed MKUltra, having not encountered any sentries -- non are rezzed. The runner then runs on a 3-ice deep server, with a rezzed bioroid on the outermost position, and two more unrezzed ice behind it. They pass the first bioroid; AoT triggers and the corp rezzes the innermost piece of ice, a sentry such as Ansel 1.0 or Tyr. The runner continues the runner, and the corp rezzes Loki in the middle position. None of their bin breakers can install on the Loki, and the Loki now copies that innermost bioroid, guaranteeing all the subs can fire. If it's a Tyr, that means 2 brain damage, a trashed card and 3 credits, and a hard ETR. Crucially, there is literally no way to circumvent this without hard-installing an MKUltra, using some form of ice destruction, or potentially using a boomerang to break the ETR so they can pass: with no other rezzed sentries, the runner has no way to encounter a sentry and get the install trigger for MKUltra.

I won't say that situation 3 makes Loki either a top-tier ice or that it happens with extreme consistency, but I have had multiple games as AoT where this combo has let me toast a rig! I've copied Ansel and Tyr before, but the best one was copying a Ravana 1.0 who then copied the same Tyr sub twice, trashing 2 installed runner cards and gaining the corp 6 credits. Could have also opted for 4 brain damage, which is like face-checking a Janus with no clicks left, except there's also a soft-ETR attached. Loki is a great and tricky piece of ice, only held back by its low strength.

An incredibly strong economic tool only held back by its low trash cost, which makes it less appealing to place undefended than its counterpart Marilyn Campaign. But it goes +7 and a card draw over 3 turns, compared to the longer cook time of Marilyn Campaign (+6 over 4 turns) and Adonis Campaign (+8 over 4 turns, with a higher up-front cost). In addition to paying out faster, Nico is credit positive the turn it is rezzed, costing the corp nothing in tempo aside from the click spent to install. A frankly amazing asset to place in a scoring remote for a turn or two. Even if you cut it off a turn early and don't get the last 3 credits and card, it still goes +4 -- that's a Hedge Fund!

A solid form of punishment, but runners can play around it. Unfortunately, it doesn't trigger on Stargate, as the trashed card isn't accessed. If the runner doesn't see it coming, however, it is easy to bait with a naked piece of asset economy. This sort of thing depends upon the corp already having a credit lead, however, and if both players are floating around 15 credits, HBT probably isn't worth it. Where this really shines is against a built-up runner who has just pillaged the remote, perhaps trashing some defensive upgrades, a Rashida Jaheem, or some other asset meant to bait an agenda. In that case, the runner has likely expended a good chunk of credits passing ice, more trashing cards in the server root -- and they've certainly satisfied the trigger condition! Then, HBT can be a blowout, potentially trashing a console, another piece of important hardware or a resource like The Turning Wheel, and if the runner is now over MU from hardware trashing, they are likely to lose some programs as well. If the runner going through the remote didn't open a scoring window, a choice HBT certainly will; if there was already a window, HBT might stretch it to several turns -- or, frankly, win you the game, if the runner's deck was already low and they had binned important duplicates.

The bad pub clause is almost unimportant, but hurts one niche use-case for HBT: the situation where the corp can fork the runner by only bidding a middling amount of money on the trace (enough for the corp to keep cash for rezzing ice, say, or advancing cards), but enough to hurt the runner either paying through the trace or losing econ resources. Taking bad pub to do this makes the option less attractive, though it technically still exists for end-game scenarios.

Most corp decks would rather run Hard-Hitting News instead, given all that one can do with tags, and that HHN's trigger condition is easier to meet. Still, for a deck in HB that doesn't want to invest all the influence necessary for HHN and tag punishment, HBT can serve as an acceptable replacement for ways to punish a run.

Really bad against a runner with Citadel Sanctuary and some Link (e.g. Sunny Lebeau: Security Specialist, or any runner on Security Nexus). Also requires hard ETR subs deeper in the remote if it's going to protect your scoring server. Still, the raw numbers are fairly impressive: 6 strength, 3 subs on a sentry that rezzes for 7. Bukhgalter breaks for 6/8, MKUltra for an unbearable 12 (or 9 and a tag/click, or more likely, it doesn't break and pays through the traces and gives a click for the last sub). Engolo costs 7. It does make an excellent outer ice for HQ or R&D, both resistant to turning wheel and expensive to pass multiple times. Even so, probably not worth playing outside of Haas-Bioroid: Architects of Tomorrow, and even then not at 3x. The subs just don't bite enough.

For those unfamiliar, Manegarm Skunkworks makes for a powerful combo with Anoetic Void. The two cards synergize for an extremely hard-to-break server, outside of things like Political Operative from the runner.

But I want to talk about the card outside of that particular upgrade combo. It's still a good card -- but I would argue not quite as good as one would be led to believe by its effectiveness when combined with Anoetic. First, Manegarm doesn't combo with plenty of other effects that the corp can use to force an ETR, such as Border Control or Bio Vault. This is because the last paid ability window before breach of the server comes before the "approach" step during which Manegarm would trigger. So, although the corp can force the runner to pay for Manegarm before firing Anoetic to end the run, the corp cannot do the same thing with BC or BV; in those cases, Manegarm provides no additional tax.

In the default case for Manegarm, it asses a 5 or 2 tax on the runner to enter a server, and then likely another 3 tax to trash. This is roughly equivalent to an Ansel 1.0 as broken by Bukhgalter, or a Ravana 1.0 as broken by Gordian Blade. Economically, Manegarm is a like a mid-strength Bioroid ice that trades its cheaper cost for trash-ability. In its favor, it can be used to fake in the remote, and doesn't cost additional credits to install in taller servers; to its detriment, it makes R&D and HQ more porous by being trash-able, and does not persist in a remote after a run. Let's take the following theoretical Ice:

Manegarm 1.0 (Unique)

1, 5 Strength

When the runner breaches this server, they may pay 3 to trash this ice.

: Break subroutine on this ice.

End the run

End the run

Now that's a pretty good piece of ice! It's like a big Eli 1.0 with a downside. In short, Manegarm is good as an efficient way for the corp to deploy resources in the early and mid game. It is not a late-game defensive upgrade per se.