Now here's a real 'push-you-luck' card.

Alix is both a powerful, and a fragile asset. Find Alix and protect her early and every install thereafter will be potential 2 to reap from server building, but her potential for serious profit makes her a high-value target for trashing, and at 2 she needs protection from strong, early ICE. Balanced by the need to to convert the power counters to credits, failing to decide on the right moment to burn her could see a massive loss in a potential credit swings.

The best contenders for utilising Alix effectively are Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future and Blue Sun: Powering the Future. ETF has had major success with the Breaker Bay Grid + Adonis/Eve Campaign combos that Alix will be second fiddle to more reliable economy drips, but Blue Sun has the best potential to utilise her effectively.

Blue Sun's 'pull back and re-install' ability is what keeps it comfortable for rezing high-cost ICE, so the corp will typically be packing Curtain Wall, Hadrian's Wall, and even Janus 1.0. Combine this corp ability with Alix and she can generate a large number of power counters quickly, securing the mid-to-late game, (providing you know when to cash in the chips.)

Do not sacrifice campaigns for the potential of Alix. Use her only if you're confident you have powerful ICE to keep the runner at bay for a number of turns, (but then consider that you could be advancing agendas in that remote instead.) Baiting her into a trap isn't all that viable, but bare in mind she WILL act as a beacon to be trashed on site, so play that to your advantage if you can.

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Not bad, but for one extra influence, you can get GRNDL Refinery. Not only does it give 2 more credits per click-n-trash, it can also be a mind game, since you can advance it facedown. Alix, by contrast, has to be faceup for counters to pile up. Maybe this is just me hoping for Weyland to get competitive again, but I think if you're splashing for Alix in Blue sun, you might be better off with refinery and dedication ceremony, which gets you a net 11 credits in a turn. —
@lightburied. It can't be denied that the Refinery nets good money, and in trap-centric decks I would probably opt for it over Alix, but what makes Alix different is that compared to the Refinery her ability is entirely passive; you're generating potential credits from doing what you would normally be doing. The Refinery's ability requires click and credit investment, so, 'technically' you only reap 2 credits worth of net from the Refinery, but dedication ceremony blows that out of the water. By placing Alix in a tough server while you wait for agendas you feasibly can create a big credit swing, either through taking the credits from Alix or coaxing the Runner to spend their money running your horrible server to get rid of her, pulling back ICE to re-collect the rez cost afterwards. It's worth a play. —

Many Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future decks focus on the appeal of fast-advance and tend to float the odd single-pointer agendas, and since HB's core identity is geared towards generating money Gila Hands Arcology is often ignored and replaced with Chronos Project. So if you're looking for the odd 1-pointer to slot into your deck, why would you chose Director Haas' Pet Project over Chronos Project?

The first thought is to recur the assets and/or upgrades you may have lost to the archives, namely Caprice Nisei, Ash 2X3ZB9CY, Adonis Campaign / Eve Campaign or Breaker Bay Grid.

An alternative thought is to consider how strong your meta is with Apocalypse. Typically your opponent's turn will be spent firing the Apocolypse, with the hopes to reap rewards on the next turn. Using Biotic Labor and Director Haas' Pet Project you can score out this agenda and recover a scoring remote before your opponent can establish a breaker suite; however, this will leave your centrals at the mercy of the Runner, but that's the trade-off.

So consider DHPP if you're in need of board-state acceleration / recovery; if you're shy of Team Sponsorships. Situational, but being able to effectively Interns an Ash, Caprice and Turing off of a single score can be powerful, and if you 'do' have all 3 Team Sponsorships rezed, it gets even better.

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A staple piece of ICE for Weyland, and solid one at that! (Pun intended). A 1 ETR ICE that can't be instakilled by a Grimoireless Parasite is perfect for early game, and sporting a single influence for an added bonus of strength boosting is a rare treat. The 'advance to make stronger' ability rarely gets used, probably because no corp sees value in spending clicks on it. Jinteki users tend to splash Ice Wall, only as a conduit for Trick of Light, and Shipment from Kaguya always fits nicely with advanceable ICE on the table. Despite being one of the weakest ICE about, Ice Wall has great versatility with no inherent weakness, but is overshadowed by Eli 1.0. If money is a problem, consider this piece of ICE instead, as you can always make it stronger when you're back in the cash.

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Now we're playing with fire. If there was any card to advertise a shell game, it'd be this one, and two credits is nothing to be sniffed at when it's combined with other forms of drip economy, such as Adonis Campaign or PAD Campaign. I'm not a fan of the card's flavour, how exactly is the corp raking good money from diagnosing their servers? Either way, a rez cost of 3 is respectably, but a trash cost of 2 is painful, so you'll need to protect...oh wait, you can't. Nothing stops you setting up the server beforehand, but I think your focus is all wrong. Consider this in Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center or Industrial Genomics: Growing Solutions, both with capacities to win without ICE.

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I think the flavour is in efficiency dividends. The corp has a huge amount of general credit throughput going on in the background, and Server Diagnostics reduces costs allowing the corp to cream off some savings over time. It's not PERFECT, but it makes some sense at least (particularly since Restructure follows similar logic). —

Bastion never sees play, and it's a shame because it's a good piece of ICE if you have no influence to sub for an Eli 1.0. As with other reviews, comparing it to Wall of Static, we have to remind ourselves that the 1 extra cost for the rez is a one-time payment, taxing the Runner 1 extra each turn to break. Bastion's biggest weakness however, is it's strength - the 4 strength Atman is still popular in today's play, and Bastion comfortably fits into that range. Bastion is a pretty respectably piece of ICE, but it's going to be sitting on shelves for a while.

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