A major downside to Guru Davinder is that even in the optimal case where you can afford to pay out the ears to prevent damage, you can't steal Obokata Protocol (or an agenda protected by Ben Musashi.) If you expect that, but still want to play Davinder, you'll need either Film Critic or Whistleblower to get around the steal cost. Imp would let you put the agenda in Archives for a later steal, but isn't a permanent solution.

He's also much more efficient dealing with large packets of damage, such as Urban Renewal, Snare!, Psychic Field, City Works Project, or Punitive Counterstrike. Lots of small bits of damage will quickly consume your bank account, but paying to prevent 3+ damage could be well worth the cost. Worst case, let him trash himself and at least you prevented something.

Relevant Ruling: Nisei Comp Rules 1.15.1.b: The Runner cannot pay the additional cost to steal Obokata Protocol while Guru Davinder is installed, because the Runner could not currently take 4 damage if instructed to: Guru Davinder’s first ability would prevent the damage.

For me this is one of the most elegantly designed cards in Netrunner. It's fun to play with and against because of the bluffing aspect, has great versatility and has just the right power level.

It also makes 5/3 agendas in glaciers much more viable in my opinion. Baiting the runner into runs into your four ICE deep server will probably never get old. And if your bait fails then you get to make some money, which most traps can't. Open on the field it can mask some of your money and also bait the runner into runs which you can punish them for.

Love it, love it, love it. Put it in your HB deck.

This little guy is deceptively powerful. For a cost of zero, a and a card, you get to generate 1 per turn. This is on the level of Rezeki and Data Folding except putting them to shame because of its install cost. The catch is of course that you can only spend these s during a run, after a run is successful--that's a pretty narrow window... or is it?

Look, I'm no Shaper, I hate Shaper, and I will never be a Shaper, so I'll leave it up to the Green Homeboys to figure out all of the SMC-Net-Mercur-Da-Vinci-Triple-Install-Hayley-Trigger-break-reality shenanigans. Instead, let's take a much more practical approach--just using this guy's money to trash cards.

Too simple? Well, when have you ever played a runner game where you didn't trash an asset... or an upgrade? This guy gives you the same long-term security as the best of them with almost no tempo hit. Heaven forbid you see asset spam, as this poor little narwhal will be drained faster than Weyland can drain the ocean and set up a parking garage in the empty space (and then burn it down when the runner steps in; which considering, is remarkably fast).

"What if the corp isn't running assets or upgrades?"

...if I could live in a world where the inclusion of a 0 cost 1 Inf card meant that every single corp ran nothing but ICE and Operations, I'd include it in a Heartbeat. : )

Seriously though, the point is it's not really something you need to concern yourself with.

Now, the companions share a theme of punishment if you let their s build up too much. Taka's is pretty harsh which not only gives you a tag, but gives it to you with the corp primed with 3 to react to it (unless you're one of those bastard 419/Security Nexus/Citadel decks with 7 Power Taps installed but those decks don't need Taka anyway). Point-in-case, you're probably trashing Taka rather than taking the tag. Fueno though? Fueno's a bro.

Fueno operates on the concept of "pay-it-forward," simply asking that if he's gone out and scrounged up 3 s for you, that you simply give him the next he holds, because dangit, he's tired and it's hard to go hunting while he carries so much. Mechanically speaking of course, you lose 1 at the end of your turn so that Fueno can stick around and generate another at the beginning of your next. In certain situations, you're completely fine with this--especially in asset spam. Do you need to lie low against CtM? No prob--you'll pay those 1 or 2 extra s forward so that they can be used to fight help the next CtM trace after they've flipped over another Bankers Group. HB got you down with Ash? Use those Fueno s to fight the trace (and trash Ash). Gagarin? Fueno now reads "access one server each turn ignoring Gagarin's ability. You get the picture.

And Lastly (because I have to), quick shoutout to Adam and this card. Adam generally runs NaT so he he has to trash everything he runs into. Against taggers, this can be pretty rough since he wants to run hard early (potentially turning on HHN). Fueno gives just a little bit of extra cushion--no up-front tempo loss with a few 's insurance for those awkward 5-Trash Mumbads or Jeeves that you hit in HQ. Of course, if you had less than 5 credits, then Fueno might actually force you to trash them anyway but shutup, you're playing Adam so you already know nothing can be perfect. (Except of course that Adam is perfect!)

Back to reality, would I recommend a copy of this in Anarch, Adam, or any other non-Anarch deck where you have a stray Inf? Sure I would. That being said, I also wouldn't ever recommend more than 1 copy. It's unique, so you're not stacking the effect, making future Fuenos a dead draw, and in a sense, a loss of a click (because you had to draw it). Likewise, it's ability is good... but I mean, it's not that good. Drip econ is at it's best in bulk. One or two credits a turn is great, don't get me wrong, but 6 is insane, and Fueno on his own can't get you there. But really, if you grab an early Fueno in your opening hand and drop him down turn 1... are you really not going to use that money at some point?

Malia is a strong card. There are many possible scenarios that Malia works fantastically, but let's talk about economy resources. Especially Liberated Account and Daily Casts.

Runners who want money use these cards. So all runners use these cards.

But why not Armitage Codebusting? Six-time Magnum Opus, with 4 less credits. And it's neutral! Every runner can Armitage, and must Armitage!

The thing is, the rule of this game already gave you somewhat useful-and infinite-economy: click for credits.

1 credit/click. You can always do this. Every other economy cards should be MUCH better than this ratio.

Dumb calculation. You can net 11 credits from Armitage. (12 minus 1) Sounds cool. What did it cost? Everything...... 1 click to draw, 1 click to install, 6 clicks to get all credits on Armitage. Result: 8 clicks for 11 credits. 1.375 credit/click. (Why am I calling it 'Dumb' calculation? Because some smart people always argue that 'draw' should be less than 1 click... but I don't care because I'm dumb.)

So why not armitage? 1.375 credit/click sucks. And spending eight freakin clicks for 1.375 credit/click really sucks.

So why Liberated? It's 10/6, 1.67 credit/click, and pays you back quite fast. So why Daily Cast? It's 5/2, 2.5 credit/click. You must wait for it, but ratio is just fantastic.

...and now Malia kicks in....

Case one. Runner doesn't care about their kidnapped economy. Well nice, You just spent 6(3) credit and one click and one card for nothing but my kidnap-bioroid. Yum Yum.

Case two. Runner tries to get back their economy paying some ransom. Another dumb math time. Liberated? (10-3)/(6+1), 1 credit/click. Dailiy Cast? (5-3)/(2+1), 0.67 credit/click.

Wow, it becomes more ridiculous with some ice and upgrades. Sometimes runner should forget about their past,-and be hard at work, click for credits, otherwise they'll-have to click for removing tags.

Thus, I like Malia as an asset form of Economic Warfare. But it baits run, rather than requires run.

Out of Spark, if you were to install and rez one of these, then the runner immediately ran and trashed it, you’d have spent 1 to gain 1 and cost the runner 1 and 4. A 5 swing for a click isn’t too shabby, though I’m not sure it’s quite strong enough to make the cut. Slots be tight, as they say.