A slightly inefficient code gate breaker with a great last ditch ability.

If you are facing an even strength ice, Abagnale is just as good as Gordian Blade (and cost just as much). But against a odd strength ice, Abagnale will cost you 1 more to break than Gordian Blade. Here, Leech would help a great deal to manage the strength of ices and save you a sweet 2.

If you are playing in the startup format, Unity might be better, if you have the influence for it. Otherwise, this is not the worse, but you will suffer more against glacier. This can be remedied with all the tools that criminals have (Boomerang and Inside Job for example).

But where Abagnale shine is at the end game. This will void the calculation of the corp in your ability to breakthrough to the server. In a last ditch attempt, you can use the ability to bypass the ice and thus save you a great cost. When the corp is trying to hide behind a strong (or annoying) code gate, this can be clutch.

Hence, if you select this breaker, you should have a second copy of it in the deck (and hopefully in hand). This would allow you to pull the trick a second time, in that last ditch Legwork run for example.

Kudos to slobad31 to give us the story behind the name. It gives a nice explanation for the art (which would otherwise be hard to understand). The quote is jsut perfect. Average breaker, good card.

Chosing this card is all about reading the meta. Using Networking will save you 1 (or 2 if against SYNC: Everything, Everywhere).

If you are worried about tags, On the Lam and No One Home are just better, in faction. Even out of faction, you could go for No One Home or Deuces Wild, each cost 1 inf.

Thus, I see no real reason why you would slot Networking instead of any cards that would give you creds. Unless you are sure to face a lot of tag giving corp (usually NBN). In which case, it is a card that will save you 4 if you are hit by Hard-Hitting News. This is why it is all about reading the current meta.

If you are unsure of the current favorite corp or the current meta, just avoir Networking and slot 3 cards that will give you credits (or anything else that is useful).

The quote and graphic is great. The usefulness of this card is not. This should have been a neutral card.

Diviner is an underpowered and boring replacement for Aiki. First, it's a single subroutine, which is a poor setup for playable ice. Of the 37 most commonly used ice, only 6 have one subroutine, and 5 of these (Ping, Tollbooth, Funhouse, Turnpike and Magnet) are mainly used for their ability. Vanilla is the cheapest gear-check in the game, and at least forces the runner to dig for a breaker. There's no scenario where Diviner is the best ice you could have. I don't even think there's a scenario where it's a good ice to have. This card would be more interesting if it had 2 subroutines (1: do 1 net damage, 2: reveal the top card of the stack, and end the run if it has an odd cost).

Criminals get Tranquilizer, Anarchs get Botulus, and Shapers appear to get Egret to finish the pattern of 2 cost programs you host on ice. As the earlier reviewer noted, the MU cost can make programs such as Egret tricky to account for, but now we have tools like DZMZ Optimizer or Supercorridor to help with memory.

Rielle "Kit" Peddler: Transhuman gets good use of Egret as it provides her a way to deal with carefully positioned Barriers or Sentries. In combination with other options like Pelangi or Engolo (depending on what format you are playing) Egret lets Kit get through some of the modest glaciers that tend to develop in the mid to late game.

Also interesting with Tāo Salonga: Telepresence Magician, as you can move the ice Egret is hosted on to a more useful position with his ID ability. The Corp can just trash and replace the ice you host this on same as the Tranq or Botulus of course, so try and put this on something the Corp will miss. If they trash it anyway, use Simulchip to have your Egret perch on something else.

On a lore note, the first printing did not include any flavor text, making the connection between the abstract idea of an egret and changing an ice's type a bit confusing. An ancient Egyptian creation myth has a heron (egrets are herons) making a cry at the beginning of the world. In ancient Greece, as the flavor text in the new printing points out, the heron was a messenger of Athena and was interpreted as a sign of her favor. Aztlan ("the place of whiteness/herons/egrets") is the mythical homeland of the Aztecs, although whether it was a paradise or a tyrannical kingdom is unclear. In Asia the heron is a symbol of beauty and in Chinese the word for egret is similar to the word for path or way.

Clearly then the Egret is meant to be a kind of creative blessing, something that perhaps inspires the runner to think outside the box in regards to a certain ice.

If you're passing on a blank 3/2 like Project Yagi-Uda, I'd pass on this as well. Yes, it allows you to free up a deck slot that might have otherwise gone to Preemptive Action or Spin Doctor, but that isn't much value. I'd appraise Longevity Serum's ability at ~2 credits of value. In contrast, the other 1-copy-only agendas have unique effects which aren't easily replaced by a 0-cost card.

I would only choose this card in decks where trying to score 4/2s would be too hard (e.g. PE). If you can score 4/2s, it doesn't make sense to cut a 4/2 to include this card -- any combination of Nisei Mk 2, Cyberdex Sandbox, Corporate Sales Team, Viral Weaponization, and Offworld Office are much stronger.