On of the topics that Nisei is covering (as fantasy flight did before) is doing retakes of key existing cards (always with a twist) so they can rotate at some point.

You had Account Siphon that were converted into Diversion of Funds. You have Cloak that became Mantle, Clone Chip that now you can say that's a Simulchip. (But Jackson Howard will live always in our hearts)

In this case the card that you this cards compares to it's a jinteki special one, Mushin No Shin. That card was ensuring that if you play that, you're using another game that's not you're tipycal glacier. And it went over of that jinteki those days could be very poor.

Nowadays there are several things that make our old friend Mushin No Shin. Mainly one of those cards that gived also much appeal to buff assets in servers: NGO Front. One of the reasonable drawbacks of Mushin No Shin it's that it prevented fast advance. You were not allowed to score that agenda for 0 credits without allowing the runner to go for that (with 0 or 1 ice in front) but you could not also rez if it's an NGO.

This card takes a different approach, so let's take the differences:

• It puts 2 counters instead of 3
• You hide all your archives.
• You can trash your cards that spice your archives right up (with Breached Dome or News Team for example).
• You can install from archives (or from your hand via trashing first).
• You pay for those counters.
• You can rez or score if you want to. (so it's NGO Front-friendly)
• You can install in a existing remote with ICE

An the (important similarities)

• It allows you to put counters into a not advancable card (like Snare! or another money asset just to bluf it)

• Also it's very vulnerable to expose effects such us 419: Amoral Scammer, Falsified Credentials or Silhouette: Stealth Operative.

In overall I think it's a good card with enough difference to live with Mushin no shin.

Rime is almost a staple in every one of my corp decks now because of how painful it can be. The only times I can't use it are when I get DDoS'd. First, it's a tax: unless an AI is on the field (like my favorite turtle) or a transhumanist, the Runner is always losing money on a Rime server run. Not just from Rime, mind you. All of a sudden, any ice in that server becomes far more dangerous. Archer goes to a strength 7, Fairchild is expensive as all hell to break, Hydra gains an additional head (so to speak), and even Kakugo becomes that much more painful. Furthermore, ice with abilities relying on other ice (like Seidr Adaptive Barrier and Surveyor) benefit from the +1 strength.

One last detail to mention... RIME IS NOT UNIQUE. You can have all three out at once and rezzed, making each of your servers a bit harder to get through, or stack three on top of a particularly painful piece of ice to make it even more spectacularly painful. Did I mention it costs absolutely no influence? Why are you not running Rime? The only reason I can think you wouldn't run it is because you're playing Runner at the moment.

Not so much an review as an observation. As I am researching possibilities for the upcoming ID Swap tournament, I took a long look at the assigned influence of every identity in the game. To date, 6 years after he was released in Honor and Profit, Ken remains the only non-mini faction (which are a different story due to their tiny cardpool and need to import) runner blessed with more than 15 influence. 17 to be exact. Meanwhile there are 5 corps who have that privilege (3 of which are NBN), while one even has 22. Near-Earth Hub, AgInfusion and Titan were/are competitive powerhouses, GameNET is very solid, while Harishchandra and Custom Biotics are considered garbage. That to me seems to indicate that an ID's influence is less important than its ability in determining power level. So why haven't there been more runner ID's with 17 influence, especially since Ken hasn't enjoyed a huge amount of success?

One theory is that corps inherently need to import more cards to optimize their strategies, be it kill, fast advance or a well-rounded ice suite. Meanwhile, runners can spend their influence more freely, as they tend to have most tools in-faction. Anarchs especially were notorious for this for a long time. Who can forget Hatebear, an archetype that spend 8 or even 12 influence on copies of Account Siphon. Even nowadays, 15 inf identities like Hoshiko and Val have everything they need in faction, allowing them to easily import a playset of Apocalypse or Bravado. Because of this, even lower tier anarchs like Null and Kim are not exactly weak, just worse than their competition. A 45/17 anarch would need to have a terrible effect to not be considered broken, and printing purposely bad identities is not something either FFG or Nisei aims to do.

Mind you, the same consideration could also apply to shapers and criminals, just less so at this point in time. I am not a game designer, but I do feel it might just be harder to balance a runner than a corp in terms of influence. That's why we might not see another 17 influence runner soon, or ever. I am curious to see the mechanic explored further though, and who knows what Nisei has in store.

Extremely difficult to justify given the great synergy between Stealth and The Turning Wheel, and the additional costs to use this. Shapers would be using it almost exclusively for HQ, but then why not just play HQ Interface if you need that effect? Or The Gauntlet? You'll save credits and influence. Criminals would be using it for R&D, but at 2 stealth credits per use, that gets extremely expensive very quickly, and Criminals don't get Net Mercur in faction, nor get to be Smoke (note that DJ Fenris doesn't gain the Stealth subtype even if he copies Smoke.)

So the only case I see this being used is in a Criminal Stealth deck with access to a huge surplus of stealth credits that can't afford influence for R&D Interface or any other R&D multiaccess for some reason. But then they're probably spending a bunch of influence on stealth credit sources, and they could shift some influence away from stealth credits toward R&D multiaccess. One R&D Interface or two The Turning Wheels would likely be enough.

With the additional costs and the 3 influence requirement, I don't think this is playable.

Vaporframe Fabricator completes the trio of "Basic+" cards (Calvin B4L3Y and Nanoetching Matrix being the other two).

Like the other Basic+ cards, this naturally finds a home in MirrorMorph: Endless Iteration, allowing for greater flexibility. But unlike the other two, it doesn't just double the basic action. Instead the value of this card comes from ignoring the install cost of ICE and the free install (Note, this only happens while installed. While in R&D or HQ it's inactive). This is a huge boon to vertical decks.

However, it directly competes with Jinja City Grid, which costs one less, is trashed for two more. and installs clicklessly. Jinja is also an upgrade so can be placed in your deep remote with another asset.

Things aren't looking so good for ol' Vaporframe. EXCEPT! This card does not reveal the ICE, nor is it limited to only one server. This also leaves your server free for another Region, an increasingly competitive type. So in a way, this card promotes a square game play as opposed to pure vertical like Jinja, meaning that maybe the two cards don't fit in quite the same decks... unless you're a madman ;)

All that compare and contrasting is nice and all but let's talk about the most important thing...

THIS BABY TRIGGERS AFTER THE APOCALYPSE!!!!

That's right buckaroo, as long as you have one ice in hq PER VAPORFRAME you can ice up your centrals and grind an Apocalypse to a crawl. Rest easy as you wait for the end of the world.

I grant this card: Mad Max/10