An interesting card that could use some clarifying text. Do additional rez costs count as "abilities?" How about "when rezzed" effects? Does Magnet turn it off, or vice-versa? For this review, I'll pretend that it simply blanks all the non-subroutine text, regardless of whether the ICE is rezzed.

I see two uses for this:

1. A silver bullet for the likes of Tollbooth and Funhouse. This sounds a bit iffy to me. If you could relocate Hush mid-run, that'd be quite something, but as is, you're paying 1 to semi-neutralize a single ICE... and that's when it isn't just a dead draw.

2. A preventative measure against "when rezzed" effects. You drop it on an unrezzed ICE you suspect of being a Stavka, then move it to a different ICE after OB reluctantly rezzes it. That's awfully meta-dependent, though, and sometimes you'll be giving the corp a free Archer.

Assuming its main use is case #1, Hush is sort of a more expensive Hunting Grounds that you can tutor. I see that mainly as a one-of in Shaper, where it sort of combos with Endurance. Harder to see it being used in Anarch. From time to time you'll happily drop it on an Anansi or Data Loop, but more often you'll wish you'd drawn a Chisel or Botulus.

This may be bad in standard, but in startup it's simply absurd. Endurance + Rezeki + Pinhole Threading + no strong tag punishment = shaper just wins. The corp can't rush behind gear-checks. They can't slowly bankrupt the runner. They can't create a prohibitively taxing scoring server. They can't tag-n-bag.

It hardly even matters what else is in the shaper deck. Should I replace Stargate with Twinning? Eh... any late game multi-access will do when you can soft-lock the remotes. Should I use Bukhgalter or Revolver? Eh... you've got a boat for whatever ICE is tough for the breakers you choose.

I've been playing Netrunner almost from the start, and I don't think I've ever seen such imbalance between corps and runners.

Diogene notes that this can be used to kill in Jinteki: Personal Evolution. That's exactly right, and I'll go further. In PE, this is not really an agenda. It's an improved Neural EMP.

You don't play Neural when the runner has a full hand. You play it to flatline them. That means Blood in the Water never costs more than Neural. When the runner's at 0 cards, it's free, and when they're at 1 card, it's 1 and 1. You can even score two from hand to kill a runner for 1.

But the real win is that this version of Neural doesn't take a deck slot... not really. It replaces Project Yagi-Uda or whatever other useless agenda your PE deck wasn't planning to score anyway. So you've got an extra non-agenda deck slot to work with.

One downside compared to Neural: the runner can take it from you. But they would have taken the Yagi-Uda too, and you still have that extra non-agenda card.

I take it all back.

Comparing Avgustina to The Nihilist makes her look awfully mispriced. She's better than the nerfed Noise in some ways and worse in others, but pretty close in total power.

She's also just 1 inf, which is odd thematically and interesting strategically. I'd expect Avgustina to be played mostly in faction, where all the other sabotage effects and most of the good viruses are, but maybe the 1 inf means she'll find a role elsewhere too.