Urtica Cipher is a card that defines a playstyle. Basically, in Netrunner, you have several ways to score agendas. You can do the obvious, and stick them being Ice. You can Fast Advance them (with Biotic Labor), you can drop them with no protection, and hope they go unchecked because they look like your next PAD Campaign... or you can play them unprotected, and pretend they are Urtica Cipher.
This strategy is known as the "shell game" Jinteki (usually played with Jinteki: Personal Evolution, even though it can provide interesting results with Issuaq Adaptics: Sustaining Diversity. All your cards are played them same way : Install-Advance-Advance (or Mitosis), and left for the runner to check them out. You basically ask the runner, over and over again, "Is this an Urtica Cipher" ?
But is that all Urtica Cipher can do ? I don't think so. First, it has found a very useful spot in most Pravdivost Consulting: Political Solutions decks. This ID allows you to drop Urtica Cipher for free, and place a counter on it seconds before the runner accesses it. With this combo, every single card you install could be a cost-less, 3 damage trap. You can, also, add Vladisibirsk City Grid in the equation. Install both in the same remote. If the runner leaves it alone, you have the Grid for Fast Advance. If the runner checks it, you transfer the counters from Vladisibirsk to Urtica Cipher, add the free ID counter, and you have a 5 damage trap. Nasty stuff.
Then you have the infamous Clearinghouse combo. Install a card, and start stacking the counters. The runner has to make a call. If it is Clearing House, then have to run it before it reaches 6 counters, otherwise you can flatline. If it is Urtica Cipher, running it will result in the discarding of their entire hand, if it doesn't flatline them. It's one of the simplest, yet most aggravating, combos in the game.
There are, however, some ways to mitigate such strategies. The best option, for me, comes from Light the Fire!, which disables Urtica Cipher and trashes it for free.
This card is in the System Gateway, and for good reasons. It teaches, by itself, that accessing cards can be dangerous, or even lethal. It puts a welcome emphasis on the bluffing part of Netrunner, and strongly enables a completely unique playstyle that, without it, would struggle to see play.
This card immediately became a 3-of in pretty much every single tournament-winning Anarch list. It's more than just an early-game monster for aggression, though; it offers immense credit savings on big ICE for the entire game.
— CelestialSpark