The dream:

• Import this into Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center
• Make infinite money via asset spam
• Install-advance-advance a Vlads Grid behind Tollbooth(s)
• Score a Project Beale with 7 advancement counters from hand

This is going to be a must-have for the classic shell-game Jinteki: Personal Evolution decks I predict.

Previously, the highest tempo move that can be made by such a deck is, installing 3 cards.

• If the 3 cards are, say, Urtica Cipher, Snare!, and an agenda, and the runner runs all three, they will take 6 net damage.
• If the runner didn't start with 5 cards in hand then they don't have enough clicks to draw up to 6 before running.
• If the runner gets lucky and hits the agenda first, they may stop running, but they won't know if the others are agendas (or Ronin's) which could kill them later.
• The existence of Sting! also compounds the difficulty. Also throw in False Lead -- if False Lead has already been scored, then this turn the runner could hit the Snare first and then lose the rest of their turn, and then die to the Sting that they didn't run. etc. etc.

Now, the highest tempo move will be play Mitosis, then install a third card.

• If Urtica Cipher is under the Mitosis, then it's now 4 net damage if you hit it, significantly amping up the threat of running even one of the cards. If you run both cards then you may sustain 8 net damage. You might survive if you started with 5 cards and Earthrise Hotel on the board and you drew once before running, or if you have tricks like Steelskin Scarring, but lacking such a trick most runners won't survive. So the corp will know if that Urtica cipher is one of the cards under Mitosis, the runner most likely cannot afford to run the second card.
• Sometimes the runner may be able to reason that both cards cannot be Urtica cipher, because two are in the bin. Or, they see one in the bin, and think it's unlikely that the corp already drew all three. However, it is also possible that the corp played Mitosis on Urtica cipher and Snare. Normally Snare cannot be advanced but the text of Mitosis allows you to play cards that cannot be advanced with it and put advancement counters anyways. So sometimes, a runner may see 2 Urticas in the bin, decide that the other card cannot be Urtica cipher and reason that it probably can't do more than 2 damage to them, and run it, and then die to Snare. (It may feel bad to put advancement counters on Snare, but you can also use them with Trick of Light later)
• If the corp uses Mitosis and one of the cards is Cerebral Overwriter, and you run it, this will cripple your ability to contest Mitosis plays in the future. Using Cerebral Overwriter with Mitosis is obviously much higher tempo than just IAA'ing it normally, and that weaker move was already considered viable.
• If the corp uses Mitosis on Ronin and Clearinghouse, and you don't run either, then the corp can do 2 meat and 3 net damage on their next turn.
• If the corp uses Mitosis and one of the cards is a 3 pointer, then the corp can make a lot of progress towards scoring out, and force you into bad decision making.

If False Lead has been scored, then you may not be able to safely contest the Mitosis play at all (!).

• If one of the Mitosis cards is Urtica cipher, you have a 50% chance to hit it and take 4 net damage. If you started your turn by drawing up to 6 on first click, then you now have 2 cards in hand after you hit it.
• If the corp uses False lead after you initiated the run, then they could kill you on their turn if, for example, the other Mitosis card was Clearinghouse, and the 3rd card they installed was any 3/1 agenda. Or, if the other Mitosis card was Ronin.

All this analysis speaks only to the pressure the card creates on the runner (because the card allows the corp to essentially get 4 clickless advancement actions). But even from a credit point of view it's favorable to the corp -- you only pay 3 credits and get 4 advancement tokens. This would probably be a great card even if it cost 5 or 6 credits to play.

The most distinctive feature of this card is that it is an end-the-run Sentry -- and the only hard end-the-run sentry that Weyland has in startup. It's also fairly splashable at 2 inf.

However it has a bunch of drawbacks:

• Rez to break ratio varies a lot depending on exactly what killer the runner is on. But 5 to rez is not that cheap. Bukhgalter will break it for 2 with the discount, and Mimic + one leech counter or ice carver breaks it for 1.
• Only one sub. This means it is broken once per turn by a Botulus. This makes this not such a great card to play vs. Loup for instance.

In startup format, Weyland decks often prefer to play sentries like Winchester and Colossus.

Colossus costs one more and gives you an extra sub, so they can only break it every other turn with Botulus. (But still porous to Boomerang.) And it gains strength, so it may give Anarchs on mimic a much harder time.

Winchester costs one less to rez and gives you 3 subs when over HQ, so it is more expensive for killers across the board, and isn't completely broken by Boomerang.

This may be an interesting card to splash into corps that don't have strong sentries. For instance, this might find home in an NBN deck, because for many startup NBN decks, the only sentry they run is F2P, which can be broken without a killer. Runners that decide to skip installing their killer may run straight into Ballista, and then lose a program. That may be attractive to Reality+ decks that already want to destroy programs. In this way, this ice affects the meta when running against Reality+, whether or not the corp actually runs Ballista.

The main risk with running this ice is that it's going to weaken your corp against Anarchs generally, whether they are on botulus or not, since you will pay 5 to rez it but they may break it for a lot less than 5, resulting in a significant tempo hit.

The question you have to ask yourself before putting this card in your deck is, why not just play another ice instead?

If I simply draw another ice, instead of this card, I can install it for one click, and whatever the install cost is. There are some benefits:

• I can install the ice in a remote if I want
• The runner doesn't know what ice it is

With this card, you get to tutor exactly the ice you want, so e.g. if you really want an Afshar on HQ at the beginning, this is like a 4th Afshar.

The "paying 3 less" aspect of this card seems less interesting. If you are playing this as your 4th card that can become an Afshar, then the install cost is probably very low. You are also paying 1 to play this card, and a click. So this is not very much of an economy card at all in terms of saving on install costs -- efficient economy cards are giving you at least 3 credits for your click reliably.

So, the only reason to play this card is if your deck really needs to have particular ice in particular places on HQ, R&D, etc. in order for your strategy to work, and you want 4th, 5th copies of this ice to ensure you can get it there early. At 3 influence this also can't really be splashed outside of Weyland.

This seems like a niche-enough effect that I don't expect this to see a lot of play.

Ansel 1.0 is an attractive, if expensive, sentry with fairly high strength and a nasty facecheck.

For this review we will focus on the startup format, which is my preferred format right now.

Points in favor:

• 3 impactful subs, so even if the runner Boomerang's it, they likely have to spend a click as well.
• Similarly, resists Botulus for the same reason
• 4 STR is a sweetspot for sentry strength right now, putting it just out of range of Mimic, and forcing Odore to pay 6 to raise strength to match.
• Runners using Echelon likely also need to pay to raise strength, costing 6 to break total
• Runners using Bukhgalter need to pay 6 outright, and 4 net if they get the bonus
• Runners using Afterimage need to pay 1 stealth to raise strength and 2 credits to break
• Because this is a bioroid, it makes Ravana 1.0 much nastier once it is rezzed. In a Haas-Bioroid: Architects of Tomorrow deck you are almost certainly going to play Ansel 1.0.

Points against:

• Costs 6 to rez. For 6 credits, you could also rez Brân 1.0. Brân 1.0 also has 3 impactful subs and ends the run. It will usually cost the runner more credits to break this ice, whether they are on Corroder or Cleaver, or at least, they will need a lot of Leech counters or something. This leads into the next point.
• A runner with Ice Carver, which is many Anarchs and some Criminals nowadays, reduces STR to 3, and now it is in range of Mimic, substantially cheaper to break with Odore, or Echelon. At this point the rez-to-break ratio doesn't look so good anymore.
• Because it costs so much to rez, this ice has a tendency to get Chisel Charm'ed, or Tranquilized, or Shutdown. That can be a significant tempo hit to the corp.

As a result, this ice falls into sort of an odd niche:

• It isn't quite as nasty of a facecheck as something like Hagen, which can't be clicked through, but it is substantially more expensive
• It doesn't fall off in strength quite as badly as Hagen does, but it is very likely that a runner will be able to break this for relatively cheap in the late game
• In particular, it doesn't really have the staying power of Brân 1.0, or nastier sentries like Archer.

My take is this:

Most runners won't facecheck ice unless, they have a killer out, or they can Boomerang it or put a Botulus on it with two counters, or they have no cards on the board to trash yet. Against HB, they also usually won't run last click.

Because of this, the first subroutine will almost never fire, and then it is a toss-up whether the second or third will fire, if either.

Therefore, I tend to view this card sort of like a very big Drafter.

If you are running a deck with

• Lots of impactful assets
• Fast advance assets like Bass CH1R180G4
• Defensive upgrades like Crisium Grid or Manegarm Skunkworks which are likely to get trashed and which you would then like to recur

then Ansel 1.0 may do a lot of work. E.g. a runner doing a Khusyuk run really must break not only the third sub but also the second sub, or you will re-install Crisium Grid just in time before they reach R&D.

If your deck already has 3 Drafter it might make sense to run an Ansel 1.0 or two, particularly because stacking Ansel 1.0 and Drafter makes Bukhgalter less efficient.

If the second sub isn't likely to do very much in your deck, you might want to consider a different ice IMO.