My first impression of this card was negative, it didn't seem worth it to pay 2 and a card from HQ in order to boost the strength of ICE just a little bit for one run. And an annoying upgrade should only be counted on to last for one run in my book since the runner will generally want to trash it.

However then I figured out one little detail: you can trash multiple cards from HQ to boost strength multiple times. Why is this so important? Because it allows you to set up a server with extremely nasty ice where the runner thinks they know what the ice is and think they have a safe plan to break all the nastiness only to be confronted with much stronger ice.

Yes, the runner can jack out (unless Whirlpool and An Offer You Can't Refuse are used) but some ice can simply bring the runner very close to death on their own such as the normally very weak Komainu. It would only take a little extra nudge (e.g. House of Knives) to flatline the runner.

It's a good thing that influence on Helheim Servers is only 1 since as all the cards just mentioned are Jinteki. That's not to say that HB can't profit from Helheim either, just look at Brainstorm. Throwing away all the cards in your hand and 9 in order to reduce the runner's handsize to 0 is a good deal in almost any situation.

Helheim Servers can be used in a more straight plan as well, if the runner doesn't have too much credits it can boost the ice of a server high enough to keep the runner out for the remainder of a turn and score an agenda. That's generally a bit of a panic play but it could make the difference between win and loss. Whether the possibility of using it in that way is worth including it... I'm skeptical.

Because Helheim seems to work best in a trap situation I expect it to be mostly used in decks built around it, but in such decks it could be very nasty indeed.

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Edit note: added Brainstorm as it combo's really well with Helheim. —
I recently heard that Helheim server security has installed big, flashing "Panic Button"s everywhere... —
Am I incorrect to assume that you can boost Architect with this, then fire the sub and install your trashed cards right away? Also this combined with woompo means you can never steal agenda in hand? —
snake: if Architect fires, yes you'd be able to reinstall the trashed card. This doesn't do anything special in combo with Whampoa since it already lets you discard a card in real-time. —
I'm not sure with the timing structure of this card. When can I use it? I guess only BEFORE the runner uses his breakers, not after he pumped the icebereakers strength, correct? So Runner approaches, I decide to use Helheim, then he uses his breakers? And if theres more than one ice, while approaching the next ice i can use Helheim again? —

The last opportunity you have to use this at a time when it'll actually affect the icebreaking is during the timing window that's normally used to rez ICE (i.e. after the runner is committed to the encounter, but before the encounter actually starts and thus before icebreakers are usable). So the Runner knows how much Helheiming you're going to do before choosing whether to break. You can use it again on either the same piece of ICE or a later piece of ICE (and it lasts all run).

A 0 1 event that lets you get potentially a lot of credits and lets you draw some cards to boot is always interesting, to say the least.

Obviously there has to be a downside. That downside is that tags are generally considered to be bad for you (BOOM!, The All-Seeing I, Psychographics, etc). It takes a special kind of deck and a special kind of player to put up a big neon sign saying "I'm here, come and get me" and survive, nay win even. And yet that's exactly what the Mars clans like to do,

Let's take a look at the thematic support cast (from the perspective of Free Mars):

  • Clan Vengeance - Clan card, doesn't do anything with tags.
  • Counter Surveillance - Clan card, uses tags to access potentially a lot of cards.
  • Jarogniew Mercs - Clan card, prevents damage based on tags. Hard to get rid of for the corp. Anti-synergy with Clan Vengeance.
  • God of War - Not a clan card but gives you up to 1 tag per turn and can be installed multiple times.

The obvious combination of these cards is to use God of War to draw a lot of tags. Use Jarogniew Mercs to prevent damage (possibly replacing it with a new one once you have more tags). When the time arrives to go digging install Counter Surveillance, play Mars for Martians and pop Counter Surveillance. Mars for Martians gives you exactly the number of credits you need to pay for access with Counter Surveillance and lets you draw two cards so you can run with 5 cards in hand. If you have 10 tags or so there's a good chance that a run on R&D will win you the game.

Another useful card is Data Leak Reversal. In particular DLR can be used to waste clicks on making the corp bleed cards, frustrating their game plan while you gain tags for a big run.

Of course there are other tricks as well that I can't think of right now (note: I'm skipping the soon-to-rotate cards on purpose). Be sure to read the comments.

Overall Mars for Martians is a VERY powerful card if you're going tag-me. Obviously it's a pretty useless card if you don't.

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Another anarch card that thrives on tags is Obelus. It also has a little synergy with Clan Vengeance (hand size helps you survive damage) and Counter Surveillance (turning the multi access into a draw engine). Although it's not from the mars-themed cycle ;) —

Biased Reporting is a good economy option. It only costs 2 to fire, doesn't have any extra costs like paying extra clicks and can potentially give you a lot of money.

The elephant in the room is that the runner first gets to trash cards to deny you money. I don't think that will be a problem in practice. Cards that have little value to the runner should be obvious so you can take those into account when choosing a type. Cards that have substantial value to the runner are generally worth you getting 2 to the runner, unless they really feel that they have to cut off their nose to spite their face.

Depending on the kind of deck you play against the gain of Biased Reporting can be big. Against a runner with just a fracter, killer and decoder a Biased Reporting gives you a 4 net gain for a 2 activation cost. That's better than Hedge Fund due to the lower activation cost.

If there are four cards left the gain is 6. That's better than IPO. The chance of pulling this off sooner or later in a game is pretty high.

I think Biased Reporting is designed to be a replacement for Sweeps Week and it's a good replacement. However Sweeps Week is often used on turn 1 and Biased Reporting is useless on turn 1. So decks that run Biased Reporting need some alternative early game economy option.

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I think this card is more than just good, it's extremely powerful. Late game, the runner will want to at least keep theri full breaker suite + main support program (Medium or Mopus), so gaining 8c from programs should be common. But against some builds, gaining even 10 or 20 creds should be totally possible. Especially when choosing Resource. Oh, and this would be SO good turn 1 against Adam - like 6 Hedge Funds in the deck! —
Definitely powerful, but only potentially so. I think I'd only include one or two in a deck, not three. Sucks getting flooded at the beginning of a round with a great card that does nothing at the moment. —
In that respect it is similar to peak efficiency, diversified portfolio, and Mass commercialization. —
This against DLR MaxX? :D —

Yes, the pumping cost is awkward. But this is a killer for the big servers. Against shapers corps often put 3 pieces of ice, if not more, on R&D. In such a situation the base strength is 4, enough to break plenty of ice cheaply. And if you look at the list of 5+ strength sentries few of them are actually encountered in the wild on a regular basis.

But let's face it, there will always be situations where you need more power, either because a server hasn't been iced enough yet to boost the strength enough or because you run into a rare 5+ strength sentry. For such cases shapers have some existing tools such as The Personal Touch, Net-Ready Eyes and Dinosaurus and there are events such as Lean and Mean and Injection Attack.

If you do need to boost manually however it's pretty likely that you'll only need 1 extra strength, in which case paying 3 is pretty gosh darn inefficient.

A useful side-effect of playing Na'Not'K may be that the corp will be wary of creating too high stacks of ice, though glacier play isn't so popular that this will actually happen all that often.

Overall I think Na'Not'K is an interesting breaker, with proper support in a deck it is a solid in-faction alternative to criminal breakers.

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Na'Not'K also works well if you can encourage the corp to build taller servers. Kit or DDoS could help in that regard. —

Sensie Actors Union for Weyland. Compared to SAU:

  1. Open Forum has 1 rez cost vs 0 for SAU.
  2. Open Forum has 1 extra trash cost.
  3. Open Forum is way cheaper to splash. SAU is 2 influence + 3 from MWL , so Open Forum is 2 influence cheaper even in NBN.
  4. Open Forum isn't political, you can ice its server.
  5. Open Forum is unconditional where SAU is a "you may" effect.
  6. Open Forum only draws 1 compared to SAU's 3.
  7. Open Forum puts the card you add back on top of R&D where SAU puts it on the bottom.
  8. Open Forum reveals the card you've drawn, SAU doesn't.

So aside from some relatively inconsequential differences (1-4) Open Forum is strictly worse than SAU. Considering FFG had to put SAU on the super-MWL (TLA anyone?) because it's so utterly overpowered it's good that Open Forum is less powerful. The big question is just whether it's not underpowered instead.

I think not. Open Forum isn't a great card but I see potential for it in the right decks.

The big thing is that Open Forum puts a card on top of R&D, meaning you can control what's on top of R&D for as long as Open Forum is on the table. Obviously the runner will have a pretty good idea due to all the cards they see and if you use this trick you'll show the runner every single card that goes into your hand (mandatory draw will be the card you've put back so Open Forum will show what would otherwise be the top card) but there's absolutely value in controlling the top of R&D.

That value of course is in ambush cards like Snare!. If the runner knows or suspects you have a Snare! at the top of R&D they'll think twice about a digging trip.

Other than this trick I don't really see much value in Open Forum though. While it gives you more control it doesn't actually let you draw more cards, unlike SAU. And the cost of showing the drawn cards to the runner can easily outweigh any other benefits.

I do see a potential in use in Jinteki however, given that Snare! and Celebrity Gift are in-faction there.

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There's a bit more to this than trap. Open Forum lets you play with a Mutate engine in Weyland, without having to import more. Tithonium is just godly if all you paid for it was the install&rezz of an Ice Wall + Mutate. —
It would be pretty good in adding things like Sapper and Archangel to the top of R&D rather than having them in your hand —

I think this should be compared rather to Daily Business Show. It has the same net draw (0), but business show puts the cards to the top rather than to the bottom and doesn´t reveal the cards, so I think we all know the winner here