How does ryo play like?

Run head first into ice like it was nothing
Bully the corp over and over
Watch the corp spend an entire turn drawing cards
Make them do it again

Runner Side Interactions

Banner all of a suddenly makes a lot of sense (mostly Ivik, Pharos, Brân 1.0)
lose 2 credits becomes save 1 credit (didn't break a sub that cost a least 1 credit with most icebreakers) and gain 1 if your successful
Raindrops Cut Stone net damage?, yes please!
Bravado BFF s you even have 17 Influence
Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist without the core damage
Constantly draw hungry make sure to have Verbal Plasticity or Dr. Nuka Vrolyck

Corp Side Interactions

Don't res ice id cant trigger save those credits to FA End your turn with no cards in HQ
Trash an agenda before ryo can access it then Spin Doctor it back to safety
Cohort Guidance Program is always ready
If have 2 cards in hand if ones a Byte! you can force ryo to draw it
All that net damage cant be good for you Measured Response, Fujii Asset Retrieval, BANGUN: When Disaster Strikes, Byte!
Allergic to getting tagged, less clicks to draw or run and possibly lose Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga
Hates Manegarm Skunkworks

Conclusion

Ryo is an id that rewards reckless aggression (that occasionally blows up in your face) and synergies with most anarch card.
This is gold standard of card design its not just here's some credits or card draw, It's a unique reward that requires you to take risk. Excellent work Null Signal, the future looks of netrunner looks bright. 10/10 perfection

Is it possible to derez Cold Site Server with Warm Reception and thus save the power counters from being removed? I believe the Corp player gets to order start of turn effects however they choose, but I'm not sure if derezing Cold Site after the effect has already been queued so to speak would prevent it from happening.

Yes, I think you can.

I don't fully disagree with the general negative opinion that's going around about this card. The review that compares it to all the other currently cheap Barriers makes a great point, it's at the bottom of that tier list no question.

But I do think it's being slightly underrated.

We're in a meta right now where cheating ice is extremely common. The runner's spoiled for choice for ways to get through ice without using breakrs: Boomerang, Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga, Arruaceiras Crew, Botulus, Physarum Entangler, S-Dobrado, Alarm Clock, and probably more that I'm forgetting. I've had conversations with more than a couple players who find this really frustrating, who feel like the core interaction at the heart of Netrunner is not a particularly big part of Netrunner at the moment.

But, here's the thing: with the exception of Dobrado on Threat 4, every option I just listed can only cheat you through one piece of ice. So one of the ways to counterplay ice-cheaters is to go heavily vertical, and going heavily vertical necessitates cheap ice. Cheap ice like Kessleroid.

How does Kessleroid actually stack up against all those ice-cheating options?

Physarum and Crew are non-starters, they can't do anything against this guy. Bankhar slips through it relatively painlessly, but Kessleroid also eats the Bankhar trigger for the turn and leaves the runner having to actually contend with the stronger, meaner ice you put behind it. And because they can't Crew it, that's a problem they can't get out of solving. It's a similar story with Alarm Clock, which can bypass it no problem... but only by making the runner burn 2 clicks on a 1-strength ice and still have to break whatever's behind it.

Boomerang and Botulus break it no problem, except here, I'd actually say that Kessleroid's weak stats are in its favor. If the corp has multiple pieces of unrezzed ice and I Boomerang one of them only for it to be a Kesslroid, I'm irritated. I could've broken that thing for peanuts, and instead I wasted a valuable resource. And if that second piece of ice is something I can't crack and I permanently burned that Boomerang on this thing? Ooh buddy I'm steamed. It's even worse with Botulus, where you have the same problem of wasting a valuable resource on a piece of garbage, but in that case you can't even get through it any faster than once every other turn (Cookbook aside).

Notably, it's the Anarch ice cheaters that dislike this thing the most: it's immune to the Crew, eats Bankhar so it can tag in a buddy for the runner to have to break honestly, and feels like a total waste of a Botulus. Anarchs have been wildly powerful for a good long while now, so I think it might be worth giving this lil' guy a second look. I would never waste the influence to import it and it would never be my first choice for a barrier, but if I was building a glacier Weyland deck I would absolutely give it some serious consideration.

I think the big problem with slotting this in glacier Weyland is the sheer number of good alternatives. If I want a cheap barrier there's Maskirovka, if Boomerang is a concern there's Logjam. The upside of these is they even tax an honest runner using a fracter.

You're not wrong! Unless I really hate Botulus and want to give it trouble, I probably wouldn't slot this over maskirovka. I'm more saying that I might toss this in in ADDITION to maskirovka, if I really want lots of cheap ice that will whittle the runner down. Is that the best approach to a glacier? I dunno! It might not be, at some point you're gonna want slots for ice that actually does stuff. But I can imagine a deck that uses both and gets pretty annoying to deal with. Heck, I've LOST to decks that use both and got pretty annoying to deal with.

My approach to glacier typically involves quite a lot of ice in the 6-8c range, so I might be biased here ...

i think this is actually better than imp in the current card pool!

  • cant get purged
  • draws a card
  • costs 0
  • self-trashes, which is actually a benefit with simulchip and scrounge
  • no knobkierie or friday chip in standard
43

Mitra Aman (😷🧪) is “hard” ice-swapping (the Runner can't jack out since they're already approaching), alongside burst econ (0[$]3[$]).

Design

Its gain+swap is strictly more flexible than a cost-redux (CF. Install a piece of ice in that position, ignoring all costs. You may rez that ice, paying 3[$] less.). CF. How Clean Getaway can earn “Asset-Trashing credits” (unlike Dirty Laundry), but lets you keep them too (unlike Bahia Bands).

It rewards the Runner for revealing hidden information (and remembering that revelation). For example, despite ‘missing’ on HQ/R&D breaches by seeing an (untrashable) Cloud Eater—or other more realistic AP/Destroyer facechecks (like an Empiricist, Vampyronassa, Boto, etc)—you've at least learned that it's swappable. And if you access(/expose) a splashed Mitra out of Weyland or Haas-Bioroid, you could hedge against a Biawak or even Týr, while running on rezzed Descents and Ablatives.


However, Mitra Aman has some limitations and does some telegraphing. (Transcribing some analysis during spoilers from “Elevation and Rotation - In Person Netrunner discussion ft Sokka, The King, and Peter H.” | @Kitchen Meta - With Bridgeman :)

  • Given an unrezzed rooted card, you can now approach a rezzed Tatu-Bola and encounter a facedown Saisentan and flatline. Which (Against Jitneki in particular, when running into UNrezzed ice, you already need to prepare for an AP* anyways, like a Killer being pre-installed/available.) But **Mitra implicitly pseudo–derezzes the safe/known ice (which will cost credits to re-rez); unless you're only swapping out heavily-On-Rez ice, like Anemone.

  • While recursion gives you “ice-advantage”, swapping only gives you “ice-selection”. You can get back your best ice that got CrewCharm’d, but your deck/servers are still “down one piece of ice”.

  • Telegraphed on centrals: Besides a few upgrades that can defend centrals or relocate themselves (like Mavirus and Adrian Seis), installing a card in the root of iced HQ/R&D is very suspicious.


Also, Mitra’s +3[$] econ is like Bola’s +2[$] (not NGO Front), IE. their credits can't get “cashed out” until their server gets run.

PS. ICE-Swapping is catnip [non-derogatory] for more casual players like myself. So let me know how it feels to play against, and how good it seems to be when playing with it!

Cards

IDs:

  • triggers A Teia off-turn: like Tatu-Bola does.
  • fuels LEO Construction (2 inf-per-copy): swapping previously-sacrificed Bioroids in and non-Bioroids out. For example, “(rezzed) Ablative → (sacked) Bumi”.
  • enabled in Restoring Humanity: when you want the spiky ice (being swapped in) to be available later against a not-yet-known server, and you don't care about the gearcheck (being swapped out) ending up in Archives rather than HQ. (And AU Co. milling itself? In decks with enough ice.)

On-Rez/“Blinkable” ICE:

Flavor

mitra means “friend/colleague” and aman means “safe/secure”. This “spring-loaded mind” is ready to be hot-swapped in against even the most mindful Runners.

Custom

I like that Mitra is “Midori, but good” (no jack out, credit-gain, Archives-swap too).


Here's a variant that's repeatable (like Midori) but more constrained (than Mitra): to can trigger it every run (with a cost-reduction and direct-rez), but it's limited by the ice you're swapping out (to give the Runner more deduction hooks, and let them do more risk management):

  • Once per turn → Whenever the Runner approaches a piece of ice protecting this server, you may draw 1 card and swap that ice with a noncopy piece of ice from Archives or HQ that shares a subtype. You may rez it, paying 3[$] less.

Which makes you swap Barriers with Barriers (“primary ice-types”), unless you swap AP with AP (“secondary ice-types”), but not Anemones with Anemones.

Rules

The Elevation box includes this “refcard”:

Mitra Aman allows the Corp to swap an installed piece of ice with a piece of ice from HQ or Archives. This effect uninstalls the previously-installed ice, trashing any hosted cards or counters, and installs the other ice in the same position. The Runner will still be approaching that position.

A player installing a card through a swap effect does not pay an install cost and does not have the opportunity to trash other cards as part of that installation. A Corp card that becomes installed by being swapped enters the play area unrezzed, just as if that card had been installed normally.


Rules-wise (IIUC!!), the Corp may choose to rez Mitra (at Step 6.9.2.e), after the Runner has chosen to not jackout (at Step 6.9.2.c), and before the Runner will approach/encounter whatever ice is at that current position (at Step 6.9.2.f). See Phase 6.9.2. (Movement):

c. The Runner may choose to jack out, proceeding to step 6.9.6, Run Ends Phase. If the Runner does not, continue to (d).

d. The Runner's position moves to the next position inward, if any.

e. A paid ability window occurs, in which players may use paid abilities and the Corp may rez non-ice cards. (P) (R)

f. If the Runner moved to a new position, return to step 6.9.2, Approach Ice Phase, approaching the piece of ice in their new position.