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Entire video on Top Hat. Watch it, damn you. Also a surprise guest appearance by the strongest man on earth. .....................................................................................................................

Isn't this just a Wall of Static?

Ways in which Battlement is just a Wall of Static:

• It ends the run
• It costs Corroder 2 to break
• It costs Paperclip 2 to break
• It costs Berserker 2 to break
• It costs Eater 2 to break
• It costs Faust 2 cards to break
• It costs Lady 1 counter to break
• It costs Battering Ram 2 to break
• It costs Demara 4 to break
• It costs Breach 4 to break

Ways in which Battlement is not a Wall of Static

• It costs Inti 3 to break (2 less than WoS)
• It costs Chameleon 2 to break (1 more than WoS)
• It costs Saker 4 to break (1 more than WoS)
• It dies to Parasite more easily by one virus counter
• It gains you 1 extra Chief Slee counter
• It costs 2 more in the presence of Interrupt 0
• It has 0 Official Alt-Arts (1 less than WoS)

The Verdict

Battlement is slightly better than Wall of Static against Saker and Chameleon metas. It is slightly worse against Parasite metas. Otherwise it does not matter at all. Seeing how WoS is pretty much never slotted by players that have access to the whole card pool, I imagine the same fate will befall Battlement.

I like the idea of multi-sub barriers existing. This is just the most uninteresting way of doing it. The numbers on Battlement are 100% fair and appropriate. There's simply no reason to print a card if it is almost exactly identical to a neutral core set card.

Would like to see more interesting effects from barriers in the future. Bailiff, Quicksand, Bulwark, Kakugo, Seidr Adaptive Barrier, and Hailstorm are all good examples of barriers with effects in addition to ETR where you can weigh your options when deckbuilding.

Ultimately, I am disappointed by the design of Battlement. If it was in Terminal Directive as a way to give access to more Barriers in a limited cardpool, I could see it. But including it in a data pack is just a total waste. :-(

Mrs. Merchant is very quickly shaping up to be my favourite runner identity. Here's why:

Hand Ob(or De-)struction is something most corps can't deal with. Her ability is a fruitful package of disruption and archives pressure. It's true, the discard isn't randomized, but considering that 1. It will often trigger early, when the corp has not had time to develop yet and 2. As the game progresses, you will often find the Corp without many cards in hand, making every discard painful.

In fact, the reason why I enjoy her playstyle so very much may stem from the fact that she bears certain similarities to my all-time favourite corp identity, Jinteki: Personal Evolution. Both warp the opponent's playstyle to a degree, by denying them cards they would usually have access to, thereby making their game plan unreliable (this is especially true forcombo decks). But whereas PE is reactive and relies on traps and forcing decisions, Alice is proactive and terrorizes the corporation at her own behest.

And running is where she's good at. Since you already have an in-built archives pressure, you will traditionally want for HQ and RnD threats, since Anarchs have a bit of a harder time entering remotes. Medium and Bhagat (Alice lends herself nicely to a resource-intensive build, so [[Career Fair]] is a solid pick), with additional cards that reward running centrals ([[Datasucker]] and [[Tapwrm]]) being rock-solid includes.

Overall, an incredible addition to the game and, as the poets say: "You can run the Jewels, or lose ya fingers."

Flavor review:

What does Weyland do? Judging by the word used in all three of the Weyland Consortium's current megacorp identities, it's build. Weyland builds nations. Weyland builds a better world. Weyland built it.

This is why Weyland uses advancement tokens so much. It's not just construction projects like Oaktown Renovation; even Weyland's ice can be built up. With bricks of clay and blocks of code, Weyland is leaving its mark on the world.

So what is Hortum all about? Why is Weyland suddenly interested in digital gardening? Isn't that a little Farmville for Jack Weyland, the man who built the Beanstalk?

Only two other pieces of ice have Hortum's "parenthetical text" ability, and looking at them reveals what Weyland's building. Mausolus is a tomb... or mausoleum. Colossus calls to mind a certain giant statue from antiquity. Hortum here has a name that means "garden" in Latin (which you might recognize from English words like horticulture).

The Weyland Consortium is paying homage to the seven wonders of the ancient world. Mausolus is the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Colossus is the Colossus of Rhodes. And Hortum? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Could there be a more perfect theme for Weyland? A megacorp all about building, about wonder and expanding the horizon, tips its hat to some of the great dreamers and builders of eras past. The architects of antiquity had the audacity to aspire to greatness and do what seemed impossible. No doubt, Jack Weyland sees himself in the builders of yore.

At the time of this writing, there are four wonders left unrepresented: the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Athena, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Weyland's not the type to leave a job unfinished. I expect to see these Seven Wonders ice rounded off in packs to come.

A subtle card and not quite as bad as it may first look. Mirāju may have strength 0 but it's value is not in stopping the runner through subs but in taxing the runner.

Essentially Mirāju is a question: runner, do you prefer the corp to optionally draw a card and (not optionally) shuffle a card from HQ into R&D or would you like to end the run? It doesn't say this on the card, but in effect running on archives is as good as ending the run (except if the runner wants to run on archives).

Unlike most ice the sub on Mirāju is likely to be broken only once: when it's rezzed the first time. Since breaking the sub means not getting into the desired server (or in the case of Mirāju on archives being bounced back to the outermost piece of ice) a runner, broadly speaking, has three choices:

1. Accept that the corp gets to draw and shuffle a card back in. In the case of Mirāju on HQ that probably means lowering the agenda density of HQ significantly.
2. Try to make the corp too poor to rerez Mirāju and then run twice, once to break the sub and derez Mirāju and once to get through it.
3. Kill Mirāju. While this is easy with cutlery or parasites it does waste a kill card on a low cost piece of ice.

With most code gate breakers breaking Mirāju, and thus derezzing it, costs a credit and a click. It costs 2 credits to rez Mirāju. Since a click is worth more than a credit derezzing Mirāju costs more than rezzing it. If the runner has a money advantage that's not necessarily a problem, though it still costs clicks and that may hurt more than the credits.

This calculation assumes however that there's no rezzed ice in front of Mirāju. If there is the story changes a lot. Assuming there's one piece of ice in front of Mirāju that takes 2 credits to get through the runner needs to spend 3 credits and a click to derez Mirāju vs the corp's 2 credits to rez it.

It may be more appealing to the runner to let the sub fire. This however gives a huge advantage to the corp if done regularly.

When building a deck around Mirāju be aware that there's synergy between Mirāju and Chief Slee that makes runner through Mirāju regularly a really bad idea. Especially in a kill oriented deck this is a scary combination.

Mirāju does have some downsides to the corp. It can be difficult to keep rezzed if the runner is willing to break it repeatedly, those 2 credits per rez do add up And the second clause of the sub is unconditional, if the runner runs through Mirāju the corp has to shuffle a card from HQ back into R&D, even if it would mess up their plans.

By the way if you're thinking of slapping a Sub Boost on Mirāju, that won't work. The special ability only works on the printed sub, not all subs.

Overall Mirāju is a good cheap piece of ice for gaining an advantage through the actions of the runner and deterring all too aggressive running.