So I think this card exists so that people who like to make ridiculous decks have something to obsess over. It has a very powerful effect, but it's not immediately obvious how to make it useful. And I'm not going to pretend that I've cracked the code here either. I've made a few decks with it, and they've all been universally terrible.

But I do have a few observations, which will hopefully be of help to anyone trying to make this monstrosity work...

• Getting free installs/rezzes when you trash your stuff is cool, but in most cases it probably should be viewed more of as a consolation prize, than a goal in itself. You're basically making one of your things worse instead of trashing it.
• You can use this identity to install ice without paying the ice costs. This lets you make some very tall servers, if you're into that sort of thing.
• One of the biggest strengths of this ID is the built in card-search on its ability. It's very feasible to put in one-off tech cards like Mavirus, and just fetch them when you need them, by trashing the correct-sized target.

Also, consider the following scenario:

• You install Alexa Belsky for some reason.
• You install and start advancing Oaktown Renovation.
• The runner, predictably runs to steal it.
• If they manage to get through your ice and commit to accessing Oaktown, you use Alexa's, ability to trash herself and trigger Ob's ability.
• Using Ob's, you overwrite Oaktown with a Snare!. The runner has already committed to accessing, so instead of stealing your agenda, they get a face full of net damage and a tag.

There are probably better sets of cards to do this with. Alexa Belsky is not a card you'd normally want in your deck. It's surprisingly hard to find 1 cost self-trashers though! (Very unfortunate that Mark Yale just rotated.) But either way, the ability to trash an agenda mid-run is noteworthy. And the ability to replace it with something harmful after they commit to access is very interesting indeed.

Food for thought!

This is powerful, but won't be as crazy-strong as its early gameplay looks. Yes, Ob can rez an Envelopment for $5, cause the Runner to pay $4 to break/trash it, and then tutor/install/rez a Border Control for free. Later on, they can trash the Border Control to end a run and tutor/install/rez a $3 ice for free. Their $5 ended up paying for 3 ice (2 installed from R+D clicklessly), BUT in a funky series of pawnings where only one was ever on the table and in the exact opposite order I'd usually want to play these cards. This is an unusual economic flow with lots of on-paper income but I think runners might find reasonable counterplay over time. It might not be much harder to deal with than Blue Sun turning each Oversight AI or Building Blocks into a quick $7-14. But... Blue Sun made $7-14 by playing a bunch of inefficient cards that are not by themselves very good. Few, if any, of Ob's cards are inherently bad and the value they get from the Ob ability is not the easiest to play around.

It may be too much ID value.

• Any time you detonate a Urban Renewal, you can clicklessly install Drago Ivanov. If you already have End of the Line, this will probably be fatal unless they have counterplay. UPDATE: This was strong enough that Drago got banned.
• I suspect this card will eventually get removed not because it's overwhelmingly powerful (although it certainly is quite strong), but because it adds more complications to designing/balancing cards than any other identity I can think of. Ob has to be checked on basically every self-trashing card (particularly those that can trash during a run), any cheap cards which can uninteractively cause damage, and any cards which would cause unanticipated problems if a major identity could readily install them during a run, and any cards which would benefit unusually much from early tutoring (Urban Renewal). Hell, at this point, I'd check for Ob problems on any installable card printed at $0 or $3.
• Border Control is already one of the strongest ices ever printed and giving it the ability to also find/install/rez a $3 card pushes it into the stratosphere. Envelopment was one of the only ices good against Endurance and nobody but Ob could feasibly play it. (Endurance has since been banned, but before March 2023, Endurance was absolutely everywhere).
• Even average assets jump a tier or two when they gain 2-3 basic clicks worth of value. Even a mere Marilyn Campaign or Launch Campaign becomes a well-compensated tutor card. Ob has an unusually wide array of assets that have much more upside than normal if not killed. (Regolith Mining License, Marilyn Campaign, Nico Campaign, Launch Campaign, MCA Austerity Policy, etc). It's a Weyland ID with an unusually strong pool of $3-5 ice and much stronger-than-normal $1-2 assets, and a life-changing amount of tutoring flexibility/consistency. This looks like more ID value than most top IDs get, and its card pool is surprisingly flexible. Update: Ob got restricted in Eternal. It's pretty good.
• Even with Drago banned, you have the ability to reach kill/pain cards so quickly and reliably that negligible cards like Urban Renewal are probably harder to respond to than they were intended/meant to be.

Obstacles:

• Your Ob chains run from most expensive to least expensive. A couple of problems with this. A lot of your funds could be tied up for up to 4 turns in an Envelopment which the runner doesn't HAVE to trash. Ob chains will probably delay your cheaper ice, which usually would have been most cost-effective in the early game. Maskirovka looks like a good ice! But when you're trashing a Border Control on like turn 5 it's probably not the ice you'd love to have then.
• You're building around an ID ability which can only be triggered once per turn. Runners can easily force a trash on Envelopment and it is only good at all while your ID ability is still available and a liability otherwise.
• Pre-rezzed ice make it much easier for runners to budget and aim Boomerangs/etc.
• Besides Border Control and (far less so) Stavka, most of Weyland's "trash a card" cards are not inherently great, and very few self-trashing cards are printed at $3, so Ob chains will probably mostly be limited to $5-4-3 (Envelopment -> Border Control -> any $3 card) or 2-1-0 (economic asset -> Urban Renewal -> Gaslighting or Rashida).
• The runner has a lot of influence over when the self-trashing ice are allowed to fire (or forced to fire). Architects of Tomorrow would be a really good ID if runners triggered it every turn, but they don't and it sucks. Svyatogor Excavator and self-trashing economic assets are harder to work around, however.
• In timed play, the amount of shuffling and deck-searching will probably be ridiculous. Tutoring is not a fast process. Thinking through which card to tutor takes some time too.

Card reference (*asterisk on cards which prematurely end the Ob chain unless you have some other effect to trash them).

• $0 - Drago, Gaslight, Rashida, Spin Doctor, Svyatogor Excavator, Sandburg, Angelique, Snare
• $1 - Urban Renewal, Reconstruction Campaign, Launch Campaign, MCA Austerity Policy, Wall to Wall*, Bladderwort*
• $2 - Regolith, Marilyn Campaign, Drudge Work, Nico Campaign
• $3 - Mavirus, Bass Chiriyoga, Reaper Function, Crisium Grid*, Afshar*, Akhet*
• $4 - Border Control, Mausolus*
• $5 - Envelopment

Ob is, at the time of writing, easily the most complex identity in standard, not just on the Corps side of the table, but in general. With the sheer number of possibilities opened up by its text box unmatched by any single other ID, perhaps not just in standard but in all of Netrunner's history (see Eternal), though CI might give it a run for its money, albeit for very different reasons. With time, you'll come to see Ob as a collection of combo lines that you'll need to learn if you can hope to master it, or even simply play against it. The goal of this review is to provide, as best I can, a comprehensive list of the most notable combos that can be done in standard at the time of writing, both as a resource for new players and as a mental exercise for myself. This will inevitably change over time, either as new cards are released or as rotation and banlists strip cards away, in fact, even Ob itself may come to be banned in due time, so for posterity's sake this review is being initially written as of the 25.04 banlist (no change in gamestate has been removed as of the time of writing).

Fundamentals

Obs ability to tutor does four main things for you.

1. Influence Saving, for example where most Corps would feel the need to play 2 The Holo Man to find it consistently thus spending 6 influence outside of NBN, Ob can get away with 1 since they can tutor it so consistently, and thus save themselves this influence. Similarly a Ob deck with 1 Phật Gioan Baotixita and at least 2 Cybersand Harvester is almost as consistent as a Jinteki deck with 3 Phậts.
2. Incidental Value, when you play cards that already have inherent value for most Corps but trash themselves once emptied, you can generate some extra incidental value on the back end of this (think Regolith Mining License or Anthill Excavation Contract etc.).
3. Consistency, by including tutors in addition to the cards themselves you're able to establish your core gameplan far faster and more consistently than comparative decks
4. Tricks, this is a catch all term for combos that only work in Ob, think Stavka + Hafrún, tutoring a Spin Doctor off of Slash and Burn Agriculture + Azef Protocol things like that.

But it's not without its drawbacks, Ob has three main drawbacks that can cause problems for them and that'll you need to be aware of if you want to beat them.

1. Deck Thinning, by repeatedly tutoring instalables out of your deck you "thin" your deck, irrevocably increasing R&D's agenda density over the course of the game. This makes you very soft to R&D multiaccess once you reach the late game and often puts you on an implicit "timer."
2. Fragility, it's entirely possible to draw your cards in the wrong order, if you draw your Hafrún it's not possible to pull of the Stavka combo from hand, and you may need to expend your precious recursion from something like Spin Doctor just to get the Hafrún out of your hand and back into your deck.
3. Cheapness, many of your staples are very cheap cards, there simply exists far more options for trashing 3 cost cards to fetch 2 cost cards and so on and so forth than there are ways to trash 7 cost cards to fetch 6 cost cards. This tends to lead to Ob decks playing quite cheap ice, pushing them towards Rush and Asset decks, although some attempts at glacial Ob have been made in the past.

Unconditional Tutors

There are two notable unconditional tutors in standard Mavirus and Cybersand Harvester. These assets can trash themselves at any paid ability window and will allow you to tutor for any 2 or 1 cost card respectively.

2 Cost - Manegarm Skunkworks, Hafrún, The Holo Man, Tucana, Regolith Mining License and a slew of 2 cost gearchecks like Kessleroid, Descent, Flyswatter and so on

1 Cost - Phật Gioan Baotixita, Bladderwort, Tranquility Home Grid, Humanoid Resources, AMAZE Amusements, Wall to Wall, Hearts and Minds, Malapert Data Vault, The Powers That Be and Tithe have all shown up in Ob decks at one point or another and are worth considering.

You can also cascade a Mavirus into a Cybersand Harvester into a 1 cost over the course of 2 turns as well if you really need a specific 1 cost.

Conditional Tutors

These are primarily cards that trash themselves after emptying, thus giving you an Ob trigger, but only if you can protect them for the requisite amount of time. There are many of these, such as Otto Campaign, Nico Campaign and so on but the three most notable that see play are Anthill Excavation Contract, Regolith Mining License and Humanoid Resources.

In addition to the existing ability to tutor 2 and 1 costs, Humanoid Resources opens up the ability to tutor 0 cost cards, notably:

Spin Doctor, Svyatogor Excavator, Angelique Garza Correa and Mitra Aman.

Lamplighter falls into this category since it can and will conditionally trash itself. The only notable combo I've seen pulled off with this so far is that if the runner steals an agenda from a server protected by Lamplighter you can fetch an AMAZE Amusements and present a "surprise" 2 tags that the Runner may not be prepared to deal with. However, it's worth saying that if you tutor 1 cost cards like Phật or Powers they will not "see" the score that trashed Lamplighter and thus will not immediately fire (unlike Azef Protocol which occurs before the score).

Envelopment is also technically a conditional tutor since it can trash itself, but as this is attached to a subroutine, it will only happen when and if the Runner wills it to.

M.I.C. can be used to trash itself during a run, allowing you to get a 5-cost card in the process. But anecdotally, this is far less common than the ubiquity of the now rotated Border Control.

Catalysts

These are cards that trash another card, usually for some benefit, but, by getting the benefit on the catalyst itself and the Ob trigger, you double dip on value.

• Extract is a lot of money (6 credits, 2 more than Hedge Fund) but it can also be used for tutoring.
• Svyatogor Excavator can fire repeatedly if left on the board, both making you money and assembling your game plan.
• ZATO City Grid can be a powerful defensive upgrade, or a powerful "offensive" upgrade used to rig shoot.
• Stavka is the catalyst for the Stavka + Hafrún combo, but it can also just be used in general to get a very efficient one time sentry while firing Ob
• Azef Protocol requires you trash an installed card as an additional cost to score it, but this too can fire Ob

The most notable Azef combo involves fast advancing it with Slash and Burn Agriculture and trashing a 1 coster to fetch Spin Doctor and immediately save the Slash and Burn Agriculture in Archives. However the ability to tutor other cards like Tucana, The Powers That Be or Phật Gioan Baotixita which then still "see" the score, as the trash occurs before the score are also notable as they can allow you to immediate get the pay off from the clickless install from Tucana or Powers or present as surprising burst of 3 damage that the Runner may not be prepared to survive.

Ammunition

There are a notable handful of ice which have powerful effects when rezzed, Obs ability to tutor these at unconventional times can have very powerful, sometimes even deadly effects.

• Ping can tag the runner.
• Flyswatter can purge.
• Bumi 1.0 can trash a trojan.
• Anemone can do 2 net damage.
• Hafrún can disable a breaker.

Some of these can be found using Mavirus, others will need a mid-run catalyst like Stavka or ZATO City Grid. It's worth saying that all of these cards only fire when rezzed "during a run on this server" which is important because it means you cannot use Ping to give the Runner a tag on your turn for End of the Line nor can you install Hafrún on a different server to the one the Runner is currently running on and expect it's ability to fire.

For the uninitiated, the Stavka + Hafrún combo involves using Stavka to rez a Hafrún just as the runner approaches the Stavka, allowing you to disable their Killer and attempt to forcibly fire the two program trashing subroutines. This can be beaten by having multiple Killers installed, flickering a Killer using Simulchip or bypassing the ice using something like Malandragem, Laser Pointer or Physarum Entangler. Or by having otherforms of redundancy, such as a pre-installed Boomerang or Botulus in addition to a Killer. Or, by simply destroying the ice on encounter using Arruaceiras Crew.

Fodder

Ob's ability to tutor an ice when needed and then dispense with it once it's outlived its usefulness while cascading into another card allows it to get value from ice other decks deem too unreliable. Ice like Envelopment or Sandstone are over efficient when rezzed but decline in efficiency over time, in the long term this isn't worth it for most Weyland decks but for Ob they can make the most of it during the honeymoon phase and then trash them using a catalyst once it starts to decline.

Furthermore, the many incidental purges that come from cards like Mavirus or Flyswatter can unintentionally refresh Sandstone, extending its usefulness.

Other ice that doesn't innate benefit from Ob but often shows up in Ob includes Maskirovka, Afshar or Kessleroid because they're reasonably efficient in their own right and because they can be tutored quite easily, or trashed by a catalyst to find another ice as needed.

Because Envelopment is 5-cost, many Obs deck that include it also like to include some 4-cost targets such as Syailendra or Tree Line but this isn't essential.

The Anatomy of a Turn

Most of the time, turns pass by rather intuitively, but when it comes to a strict "once per turn" ability such as Ob, it pays to understand the minutiae of turn structure. Importantly, start of turn triggers are said to exist before the turn proper, so if you fire Ob while using start of turn triggers such as Anthill Excavation Contract then you can still fire Ob an additional time during your action phase.

So for example, imagine an Anthill empties during your start of turn, you could then fetch a Cybersand Harvester during your start of turn window (before your mandatory draw), and then once your action phase begins, you can use the Cybersand to clicklessly install a Humanoid Resources and then use the Humanoid as you still have three clicks remaining. However, in this scenario, you would not be able to install a Spin Doctor off of the Humanoid trash since that would be the second trash of the turn.

However, if you imagine a situation in which you have already used Ob on the Runners turn, for example, using a Mavirus to install a Manegarm Skunkworks during a run, then an Anthill that trashes itself during your start of turn triggers would not fire Ob.

Another small detail unrelated to timing, is that you can use Obs ability purely for the shuffle. You can fire Ob when you trash a 0-cost card (like Mitra, just to forcibly shuffle your deck. You can't actually install a -1 cost card, since such a thing doesn't exist, but forcibly shuffling your deck could be important for breaking R&D lock or outmaneuvering Cataloguer, so it's something worth keeping in mind if there was nothing serious you actually wanted to search for that turn.

Wrap Up

This has been a fun excercise for me and hopefully this will be a useful resource for you dear reader. If I get the chance, I'll hopefully update this with new info when the next set releases. Assuming Ob is still around terrorizing Runners...