What is there, really to say about this card? This isn't like Jackson Howard, where a new player can look at him, scratch their heads and move on, with no understanding. Anyone who has played a game of Netrunner will instantly see the power of this card.

Netrunner, as a game, conceptually (enormously simplified): The corp earns money through assets and operations and spends that money rezzing ice (once) and advancing agendas. The runner earns money through resources and events and spends that money trashing assets, breaking ice (over and over) and installing new things.

Resources help the runner more than assets help the corp because the runner can access and trash the assets while the Corp can do nothing about the resources unless the runner is tagged. Data Folding and Underworld Contact will generally provide their income all game, while PAD Campaign is frequently trashed. This is balanced by the fact that the Corp only has to rez its assets once, while the runner must break them over and over.

If the Corp manages a tag, they can start burning resources, however this process is laborious, at one click and 2 creds per resource, preventable by Fall Guy Expensive with Wireless Net Pavilion, and as soon as the Runner gets a turn they can remove the tags and get their resources safety back.

Not anymore. With this card, the world has changed. Runners lose every one of their resources for 1 click and 1 card, cards that took them a click and however many creds each are instantly gone. 1 click, 1 cred, and you kill potentially a third of the runner's deck. Mostly, you kill their entire passive economy. Back to clicking for creds for them.

What this means is that the runner can't really afford to get tagged anymore. It used to be that you could put up a Plascrete Carapace clear them as soon as possible and you'd be alright. Closed Accounts hurt, but you still had whatever gave you those creds. Wyldcakes was still running, your engine still in place even if the gas was suddenly gone.

There was already a movement away from plascrete and towards NACH (New Angeles City Hall ). This pretty much forces the switch. This card is 1 influence, no reason it can't be everywhere. Get tagged, lose a third of your installed cards. Womp Womp.

As for the Tagme plan? Well... that isn't as affected. If you are floating tags anyway you aren't relying on your resources. Who cares if they more efficiently trash them if you don't rely on them in the first place? Closed Accounts remains the main threat to that archetype.

One thing that is card is a silver bullet to is the Fall Guy, Pavilion, Data Leak Reversal flavor of decks, but I can't imagine anyone will mourn a blow to no-run netrunner (wait, save it by running Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe ). Good riddance.

Ok, so I've installed this card a bunch of times, but I've only actually used it to trash anything on 2 occasions. It is frankly, a bit unwieldy.

In order to fire its ability, the corp must have rezzed a legal target (hat tip other review for list of targets), AND you must have run HQ AND you have to spend 2 clicks. That's 3 conditions, each individually burdensome.

The first is most important. The targets that are worth shooting in the current meta are Ash, Caprice and Batty. The corp generally doesn't want to rez any of them before you are running the server in question. Look how cumbersome it is.

Click 1: Run target server with advanced thing, Ash/Caprice rezzes, shuts you down. Click 2: Run HQ Clicks 3+4: Shoot target with Unregistered S&W '35.

Corp turn, finish scoring out agenda.

Unless you have Rachel lending a hand, this card doesn't actually get you past one of the problem upgrades, despite that being its whole deal. Its maddening.

The times I've fired it have been due to using it in concert with Drive By. If every time the corp puts down an upgrade it gets Drive By'd, they may start pre rezzing to avoid it. When the upgrade starts pre rezzed, this card can actually work. Click 1 hit HQ, 2&3 shoot, click 4 go get the agenda. Its still not great, but its at least a little bit workable.

What else....hmm, well, as a cheap piece of hardware this can protect your breakers and plascretes from Power Shutdown? Victoria Jenkins looks like an executive that might actually see play. If they are using her and Enhanced Login Protocol and Off The Grid to strangle your clicks you could, uh....Inside Job HQ and then shoot her (gaining no agenda points because Howard forbid this card be of any actual use) and get your click back?

There's a decent play with this where you just run HQ when Jackson is on the table. If they pop him he's trashed without you spending a click running archives, if they don't (say, because they don't know what this card does), shoot him in the head and go check archives.

Its infuriating, because the need this card is trying to fill is real. Runners really do need a way to get rid of problem upgrades, and this card is SO CLOSE to being that way. If it installed on a run into HQ and could be fired any time thereafter like a shard. If it didn't cost 2 clicks to use. If it could reveal the target. Ah well.

At the end of the day, I think this card is just not quite there. Its too cumbersome, and that's a real shame, because I desperately want to like it.

This card is extremely cheap (1 click to install, 0 credits to rez) and it prevents entirely 2 uncommon categories of runner behavior, exposing and bypassing. In any given game, this card will tend to be either amazing or useless.

Against Shaper or Anarch this is usually a dead card. On the other hand against Criminal it interferes with Femme Fatale Drive By and most importantly Inside Job. A quick glance down the "popular" page shows no criminal decks that don't have 1 or more of those (typically 2 Inside Jobs, 1 Drive By), except for one which is a Silhouette: Stealth Operative deck, who obviously doesn't love this card.

So, a card that is useless roughly 2/3 of the time (figure people export bypassers or exposers from criminal about as often as criminal players decide to forgo their signature events.), but is very useful indeed when it works. Is it worth slotting one? I guess that depends on how well your deck is doing vs. criminals, and whether or not you can make use of a card that is basically a blank asset vs. non criminals. I suspect most decks will give this card a pass. Decks that make heavy use of ambushes may consider it, as well as decks that include brutal sentry ice that they don't want anyone to bypass.

One factor that will soon argue in this card's favor, however, is Sunny's Security Nexus which can be disarmed by this card. If Sunny ends up being a popular identity, or the Nexus is simply good enough to be farmed to other identities out this card's stock will rise.

Drive by has been impressing me lately, this is a very powerful and versatile card. It serves several real needs for the criminal runner.

1. First and most obviously, It gets the runner out of the Mushin No Shin trap. Even in the endgame, when the runner's rig is powerful enough to get in everywhere the Corp can still try and turn the tide with ambushes. IAA behind ice, and the runner has to ask himself, is that really an agenda, or is it an ambush? Many corp come from behinds have come about because the runner has paid through the nose to break ice and stepped right into an Aggressive Secretary or Project Junebug. Spending the first 2 clicks on a Drive By ensures that you only go if the card in question is actually a agenda, and warns you of anything specific about the Agenda you need to fix to steal it. (NAPD Contract etc.)

2. Even if the corp isn't running ambushes, the Drive By can make its slots back by smashing upgrades. When the corp IAA's a card in a server with an agenda, the runner must ask themselves if that is Caprice Nisei or Ash 2X3ZB9CY, or even Marcus Batty. Any of these can make the run into a misery. But with a drive by, all of a sudden you just have to fight the ice to make the steal.

3. If the corp isn't doing ambushes or upgrades, perhaps they are using an asset based economy? It is important to remember that the trashing effect of Drive By happens with no cost. The corp usually waits till the appropriate time to rez their assets. Preempt that with a Drive By and you can save yourself a lot of money on that SanSan City Grid or other expensive to trash asset.

Obviously, the Corp can render 2 and 3 less viable by rezzing their assets or upgrades immediately, but the runner is not unhappy if they go down that route. Knowing exactly what's out there is an advantage that it is tough to put a price on, and since the corp is spending money to rez these assets/upgrades, they will be less able to rez their ice.

This is a card that competes strongly with the other fantastic criminal run events. Many decks will benefit from including Drive By.

While initially this card seems underwhelming it has a variety of uses.

First off, like all ambushes, it is improved by the existence of Mushin No Shin and Back Channels. Mushin reduces the clicks/credits necessary to set the arrangement up. Back Channels retroactively makes all of your "click to advance" clicks into "click for 2 credits" by giving you 3 credits per advancement counter.

Next up it fires for just 1, like junebug. This isn't a matter of needing 4 like snare or 3 like overwriter. Firing off a shattered remains is a casual decision, you'll be back at capacity after clicking for credits once.

The actual effect of this card is where it seems like a letdown at first. Blowing up their hardware doesn't turn off their icebreakers or flatline them. The key thing to remember is that the runner put those hardware cards into their deck for a reason, and that they probably don't have a plan for them getting destroyed.

Killing a Clone Chip keeps dead whatever it would have cloned. Killing a console can deny them turns worth of tempo, whether from lost credits from desperado or lost virus counters that would have come from Grimoire. Popping their chips may make their underworld contacts stop sending money. There isn't a paid ability window between access and the ability firing, so they can't get their stuff off of personal workshop if you are living the dream. R&D and HQ interfaces exploding is a big deal. Plascrete suddenly being gone can be the game.

Traps have seasons though. This isn't a start of game trap. Its dead in your opening hand, who wants to blow up the hardware of someone who hasn't installed any yet? Its an autumn trap, after the game has assumed its shape. Put it down and advance it twice behind ice you suspect the runner can get through. Like aggsec it is effective with just a counter or two on it, so if the runner suspects a trap and draws out of junebug range before accesses it won't save them.

Ultimately, I think this card won't be fundamental to a corps strategy, but with a cheap 1 to fire, no influence and an effect that only really needs 1 or 2 counters to get off its an easy splash.