This may be my favorite card to come out since Blue Sun. It is very niche, but it's niche in exactly the way the best tech cards are niche - small but essential effects that indirectly win you the game by dismantling your opponent's winning strategy - and, more importantly, it's ALL the tech cards at once.

Playing against Fast Advance? Forfeit an agenda to go get your Clot or Clone Chip midway through their installation.

Playing against some kind of murder deck? Forfeit the agenda you just unhappily stole off them to go get your Plascrete Carapace.

Just face-planted into a Destroyer because your SMCs were tied up with getting your rig gowing? Forfeit an agenda and return the favor to that Archer, or just get a new breaker and keep going past Ichi like it wasn't even there.

More to the point, it stretches out all your tech cards. These days, Shapers want Plascrete Carapaces for 24/7 News Cycle, Film Critics for Midseason Replacements and The Future Perfect, Deus X for that random person who keeps bringing Personal Evolution to every tournament, New Angeles City Hall if you're that person, a cheap fracter for Wraparound, etc. There's just not enough deck slots to fit all these in so you can have them at the exact moment you need them more than anything, and leaning on your existing search tools (i.e. Self-Modifying Code) produces an externality chess players call an "overworked piece" - when your Queen is protecting both your Knight and your Rook, you're bound to end up losing one when she has to save the other. Artist Colony just softly pats you on the head, says, "it's okay, we all make mistakes," and gets you back into a game you otherwise would have lost.

"But if you haven't scored any agendas, it doesn't help," you tell me. Let's face it, for one, if you can't score any agendas, odds are good either you're already locked out of the game or your opponent isn't getting substantially closer to winning and you don't really need a tech card instantly, so this isn't the card for you.

But for me, who enjoys playing Aesop-based decks that already can use 0-cost assets as "Easy Marks," it's a vital card that never feels totally bad. And it's only been two weeks, and I've already lost track of the number of games I won solely because I had Artist Colony to save me from the blowout.

I think AIR may have potential as an alternative to Adonis Campaign, Launch Campaign, Private Contracts, The Root, and Worlds Plaza as a recurring-economy engine for Blue Sun.

Let's review the pros and cons compared with the gold standard, Adonis:

CONS

• It must be rezzed through the runner's entire turn in order to recoup the money you get off it, unlike Adonis Campaign where you only need to pay to rez it right before you pick it up.

• Its trash cost is one lower than Adonis. (This does matter - the primary reason to play Private Contracts is its high trash cost.)

• Its returns diminish the more ice you put in front of it (since you'll have to pay the install cost), whereas Adonis will always be three credits for a click.

• As an Upgrade, can't be retrieved with Executive Boot Camp.

PROS

• Zero influence. And unlike Pri-Con, gives three credits per click.

• Setting aside the cost for rezzing it, which can potentially be recouped by picking it up, guarantees the three credits for the click, whereas Adonis only pays out the money if the runner doesn't trash it.

• Upgrade, so it can be installed anywhere - on top of existing assets, in scoring servers, or even in central servers - where Adonis needs to have its own quiet little space. This also means AIR synergizes much better with The Root, since you don't have to protect two separate remote servers.

• If you're willing to accept the diminishing returns, can pay out on additional installs in the same turn, where Adonis Campaign will never earn you more money than three credits per turn.

• Synergizes slightly better with Executive Boot Camp, since its effect doesn't happen at the start of a turn. (If you leave it down on the board for a turn, you can use an EBC to rez it for three credits instead of four and then break even on your first piece of ice installed.)

I don't know which is better, but it's worth testing.

Slowly, I think this card is coming into its own and getting the respect it deserves. It's not for every deck, but it's definitely for some.

For those of you who doubt the one true advertising god, imagine this hypothetical card:

Marketed Targeting
0 - Operation: Current - NBN (*)
[current text]
Name a card. The Runner cannot play or install that card.

Ridiculous and overpowered, right? But what experience has shown us is that Targeted Marketing often has the same effect as the above card. 10 is a ridiculous sum of money to just hand over to the corporation, even to unlock your best card, and many runners will only make that sacrifice if it's a difference between life and death.

Thus, Targeted Marketing's function in your deck is not to gain you money, but rather, to gain you tempo. It's the closest Netrunner has gotten us (though Snatch and Grab is close) to an unlimited corp tool for screwing around with the runner, until the runner scores an agenda or finally snaps, and the longer the runner is put off from getting their engine running, the longer you have to prepare for the midgame.

But before you go shoving it into every deck you have, a few things to keep in mind about the one true advertising god:

• While you will rarely get the 10 bounty from TM, it's best to play it in a deck that can put that money to maximum nasty threat and also benefit most from the tempo gains it can offer. So far, it seems this often means combo decks - after all, 10 is more than enough to fast-advance out an agenda with almost enough for the Cyberdex Virus Suite security plan, and often will be enough to break trace parity for Punitive Counterstrike/SEA SourceMidseason Replacements. While I haven't tried TM in classic glacier decks yet, I have to think it won't pay sufficient dividends.

• Playing TM well doesn't just require knowing your opponent's deck archetype and the likely inclusions that deck has, but what role they're looking to play at different stages of the game and what roles you need to keep them from playing for as long as possible. In other words, naming the right card requires understanding the entire game-state, which many players (especially newer players) don't do well. For example, the Reina Headlock deck is very reliant on its economy engines to push it out of the early game and start really grinding the corp into the dust - that means cards like Sure Gamble, Daily Casts, Liberated Accounts, Earthrise Hotel, Career Fair, and Kati Jones. That's a lot of targets! And then consider the cards that a deck like Headlock plays that really give you headaches - cards like Vamp, Clone Chip, Crescentus, their breaker suite, etc.

  There are two takeaways from this point. First, don't worry about picking the absolute right card. Chances are good they won't have a copy in your hand right when you play TM. That's fine; you're investing in the next few turns, not just this one. And second, know what you want. That sounds like a silly koan, but the truth is, it's very easy in Netrunner to make plays just because they "give value". Like clicking for credits or drawing cards you don't need because "you'll need them eventually", or playing ice you can't even afford to rez, or reinforcing a server the runner won't be able to get into for a while, not knowing what you want at that particular point of the game and how best to get it is the easiest way for Netrunner players - runner and corp - to cede tempo for no reason. So too with TM.

  When you play the card, you should always ask yourself: what do I want? How do I get it? How does the runner stop me from getting it? How do I stop him from stopping me? So in the first few turns against Reina Headlock, you should probably name an economy card over Vamp or another scary card, even though the latter cards will have a greater impact on the game as a whole. What matters is the present. If you take away their money now, it may well be they'll never be able to afford that Vamp at all.

• Likewise, TM offers one interesting contrast with other currents in giving the corp an incentive to occasionally replace it with a new target. This is something you should be willing to employ, but remember: playing TM, or even just including it in your list, is adding a speed bump to your deck, because it doesn't do anything by itself; its entire benefit to the game stems from how much it frustrates your opponent. So every time you play TM, but especially when you replace one, you need to be willing to ask yourself, "is this even worth the click?" If your opponent will be hassled less than a click's worth of tempo, or you could get better tempo advantage with another play, don't be seduced by the fact that TM is "free" and "could be 10". It's neither of those things.

And that in turn points to one of the paradoxes of TM: you'll almost never perceive the ways it's helping you win. All you can do is put it in your deck and try to feel the waves of rage emanating from your opponent. Wear sunscreen.