I was a big fan of this card for a long time, but having played it a lot recently I think I have come around to think it is too fair to be good. By this I mean that there are so many conditions attached to it that make it a less-than-effective card. These include:

• Runner needing to have trashed a card of yours last turn
• It can only hit non-virtual resources (mostly fine, you want this to hit Hardware)
• Choice between trashing the card or taking 4 meat
• It RFGs from the game

Combined, they present a critical mass of things that can go awry. Props to Bridgeman for finding the right meta and decklist to make it shine nonetheless. But I think it is too fair a card to be really strong. Still cool tho. :)

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Anarch Turning Wheel? Seems like a reasonable replacement with slightly greater deckbuilding constraints, influence limits and higher cost. I expect it in some Hoshiko / companion and Cezve builds.

EDIT: As of early Autumn 2023, this has turned out to be true and valid.

Mushin no Shin is my favourite card.

This card essentially allows you to play a Mushin no Shin every turn.

I am in love.

Realistically, this is an agenda that is better the earlier you score it. The question becomes, how do you enable an early score?

Two cool tricks I've found are:

• IAA, then Seamless Launch next turn.

• Use Lady Liberty with a 2nd counter.

Neither strategy is perfect, but together the score becomes somewhat realistic. The value this agenda gives once scored may make it worth it.

EDIT:

And, the most likely intention, IAAA'ing it with Saraswati Mnemonics. That works too.

This card requires a re-evaluation now that [[Cyberdex Sandbox]] is a thing. Before, it was a hate-card first and foremost. Now, it is a powerful economic tool that is arguably the most extreme example of Code Gates Rez-to-Break ratios. Macrophage is positional, Macrophage is phenomenal.

Assume you play glacier, and the runner has spent 8-ish credits breaking two pieces of ice in front of it, they now sit opposite of an ice that costs either 5+ credits to break with a powerful breaker like Engolo, or will encounter two pivotal traces - Trace 4, or the corp gains 0-12 credits, and Trace 1, or the Corp ends the run. Sine the first sub will often feed into the 2nd, runners can't expect to be able to get away with paying low sums.

[[Thimblerig]] helps move Macrophage to the innermost position of each server, and that's where it should be - after all, the subs are most punishing post breakage of other subs. One way to counter this power a little bit is to understand that [[Cyberdex Sandbox]] only gives money the first time the corp purges viruses. This means that repeat fires of the first sub don't do much beyond removing virus counters.

There's also the problem of the Sandbox score being a requirement to turn Macrophage "on". This means that the ice is particularly suited to AGinfusion builds, that have a relative ice flexbility meaning that if not yet active, Macrophage can be used as a boop too.

Given the relatively prevalence of the NWE's new Maxx build, Macropage stock can be expected to rise up and up.