Very powerful, but not very fun for either player. It's low-tempo and tends to push runners into a Turning Wheel farmhouse or an RND game where they'll have (let's say) 10 runs, and if they hit enough agendas on those 10 runs they win and if not they lose. Better card design: I think interacting with the card would be more interesting if Kakugo offered runners the ability to pay an exorbitant amount like $4-5 to avoid the net damage so you still have some theoretical outs for stealing an Obokata after falling to 4 hps.

If you have the ability to throw $4 around without bankrupting yourself, this is amazing long-term value and behavioral engineering for $4. I have found it to be particularly vicious in high-tempo Builder of Nations. Weyland has more money and faster agendas and reliable ways to score agendas out of hand.

Best case scenario, this is a +$2/turn asset which requires $8 in funds on hand and takes 3 turns to even start banking money and maybe 6 turns unattacked to bank enough money to consider triggering it. On an asset with a trash cost this low, this was never close to workable. On the runner side, Algorithmic Trading isn't very good itself even though the enemy can't easily trash it. There's too much downpayment and it takes too long to break even.

If you just want unconditional money every turn, campaigns are much better than this. Eve Campaign produces $2/turn for $5 down and doesn't need to be trashed to collect. Adonis Campaign, similarly strong. If you're okay with conditions being attached to your money, Mumba Temple produces $2/turn each time you need something rezzed and the janky The Root produces $3/turn for $6 down.

This card came out in the early days of Netrunner, when economic assets were generally not as strong and the best assets were like Eve/Adonis Campaign rather than modern juggernauts like Daily Quest and Commercial Bankers Group. Even in the early days, asking the corp for a downpayment for a trash-triggered $2/turn was a nonstarter. In 2022, I think a corp card which banks $2 each turn and can be cashed out one time would be viable on a 3/2 agenda or maybe an upgrade but not much else. This might actually be popular as a 3/2 Jinteki agenda, because Jinteki players tend to have weaker economies, longer games, and fewer viable 3/2 options.

At the time this review is being written (just after the Midnight Sun booster pack has been released), the barrier environment with respect to meta decks could be worse for our friend The Broker. It's worth noting that this partially driven by the ubiquity of Paperclip, which is superior in every single way. To be worth running your barriers must work well as a dirt-cheap gear-check, cost-effective tax, or have some other ability.

So, faction by faction how do Makler and Paperclip stack up against the barriers you are reasonably likely to see? For the purposes of this list, let's assume you fully break and do get the Makler rebate (more on that later).

• NBN
  • IP Block: 3 credits each
  • Ping: 1 credit each
  • Data Ward: 7 credits for Clip and 9 for Makler
• HB
  • Hagen: 4 credits for Clip and 5 for Makler (in the simplest case where it's the only breaker you have down -- in general Clip is even or 1 credit cheaper)
  • Bran 1.0: 5 credits for Clip and 7 credits for Makler
  • Eli 1.0: 3 credits each
• Jinteki
  • Kakugo: 1 credit each
  • Chiyashi: 7 credits for Clip and 9 for Makler
• Weyland
  • Akhet: 1 credit for Makler and 2 credits for Clip (unadvanced) OR 6 credits for Makler and 4 credits for Clip (advanced)
  • Border Control: 1 credit for Makler and 2 credits for Clip
  • Bulwark: 7 credits for Clip and 9 for Makler
• Neutral
  • Vanilla: 1 credit each

So where does this leave us? At a quick glance, it doesn't seem that bad for Makler -- at most 2 credits worse and against the omnipresent Border Control, it's cheaper*.

The problem is Mr. Broker's cost of doing business. 5 credits is no small fee, and unlike Paperclip you also need to keep it around in your grip AND spend a click to install it as well. 3 strikes against compared to the clip; why would I spend ~6 credits to install something worse than I can pay 4 credits for? Moreover, you had better not want to fully break a barrier more than once per turn or all of the sudden Makler goes from even to 2 credits more, to 1-3 credits more, which can add up quickly.

All in all it could be worse. Makler's stats are not so bad as to render it unuseable, but you had better have a really good reason you can't find 3 influence to slot the best fracter ever printed.

Written with StackEdit.

Great value against upgrades, high-trash cost assets, and traps. Trashing a Manegarm normally costs $8, accessing Ganked can be catastrophic, and Anoetic Void can completely shut down some key lines of play, and a lot of grids are costly to trash. Performance Design might have a Manegarm and a Tranquility Grid out on turn 1-2, and if you're not Lighting a Fire Up in This Piece it'll be $12 to trash (plus any ice-breaking) against $3 to rez. You're a punk rocker working at a MegaBuy in Communist Russia, nobody has $12 on turn 2, just grab a molotov and hopefully you'll get there before the Border Control does.

Moderate value against defensive agendas. Trashing a City Works Project makes it much easier to steal. Trashing an Obokata or Bellona at least prevents the Corp from scoring it.

Very good value in reducing uncertainty. Peace of mind against NGO Front, Snare!, Ganked, and Neurospike setups.

Problem: in the PD matchups where this card is probably the most needed, the Border Controls they're already running are a hard counter. If you give up a $1 Light the Fire and a brain damage and they give up a $4 Border Control, they're probably coming out ahead on the exchange.

For a card without any flavour text I love how this is full of flavour. The 6 power counters beautifully represent the 6 bullets in a revolver chamber used to hip fire those sentry subroutines into the dirt. However, the observant among you will notice that Revolver is actually capable of breaking 7 subroutines, the 7th of which would cost trashing the breaker entirely.

I like to think of this as the final last stand of the runner, having run a gauntlet of sentries they find themselves face to face with the) spider god... Bang two legs fly off as the beast writhes in pain... Bang a shot right to the abdomen, only one more shot required to bring it down... Click... Click-click... With sweat pouring down their face the weary runner checks to see that the chamber is empty. They know there's only one thing for it. Flipping the gun around to grab the barrel as if holding an axe, they line up the final "shot". With a visceral scream they launch the revolver directly towards the leering foe.

Thonk The dull, machined metal lodges itself in the arachnid's chelicera, collapsing it to the floor with a fainting hiss.