When first looking at this card, I thought, "who cares? Its a resource version of "emergency shutdown" that has to be used on a remote server. Then I started playing it in my Leela deck, and now I understand. The fact that the derez ability is a trash effect and not click based or an event effect means that if Maxwell James is already installed, it can be used during any paid ability window. Including between when a run is considered sucessful and when Leela's "bounce an unrezzed card to HQ" ability triggers. Hence, a Leela player should always have a Maxwell James in play, as it allows you to derez a piece of ice on the corps remote server in order to taget it with Leela's "bounce and unrezzed card back to HQ" ability. That means if you have this in play, run HQ, and hit an agenda, you can derez a chosen piece of ice on their remote with maxwell james, and bump it back to HQ when Leela's ability fires.

Combine this with cards like Gangsign and HQ interface, and Leela gets Nasty real quick. It creates a passive threat that if the corp scores, you will access multiple cards from HQ with gangsigns/HQ interfaces, leading to their hessitance to score agendas with others in hand, which just continues to pile up as more agendas filter in as they draw from R+D each turn. Add to that fact that each time you do steal an agenda out of HQ, (or out of anywhere else on a turn you successfully ran HQ on a different click), you create the potential to derez and dismantle their remote server. Leaving the corp even more susceptible to Agenda pileup in HQ. Right where those sketchy ass criminals want them. Do this all early/mid game, then drop a sneakdoor beta first click, and just watch the dominoes fall. With a HQ interface or two, you certainly should be able to pull an agenda out of HQ on click 2, or at most 3. Firing the chain reaction of extra HQ acesses from gangsigns/HQ interfaces, Maxwell james derezing remote ice, leela bouncing it back to HQ, Logos tutoring a card from the runners stack.... often times in a backed up HQ, the gangsigns accesses will hit a second agenda, triggering the entire chain of effects over again.

While this certainly doesnt work every game played, it is consistently effective enough to warrant this card being 3x included in Leela decks, despite the fact that Maxwell james is unique. Because the effect is triggered by a trash ability, drawing additional copies throughout the game doesn't constitute a dead draw, but rather another opportunity to use maxwell james's effect. Say what you will, but this shady MF'er and Leela have dissasembled entire remote servers on my watch.

If anyone needs me, I'll be waiting with a breifcase in the rain....

As my two prestigious colleagues have already pointed out in the above reviews, the closest comparison for Ubax would be Astrolabe. So lets dig into the two a bit and assess the differences.

Astrolabe costs 1 credit and 1 click to install, and provides 1 Additional MU, and a card draw each time the corp creates a new server. Handy against Asset spam decks, but pretty much useless against a deck that shores up their centrals and relies on one strong scoring remote without too many additional assets. In one of these games, you would need to get astrolabe out before they set up a scoring remote in order to even have it fire once. You would need the corp to at least install 1 Asset just to offset Astrolabes install click and break even on the install cost. While most corp decks may satisfy these conditions, it takes a corp playing multiple assets in order for Astrolabe to be ecconomically effective. Making it in essence, a conditional console. Effective against some matchups, but near useless against others.

Now compare this to Ubax. Five credits and a click to install, which is a much bigger cost upfront, but I'm going to attempt to convince any impressionable young runners that it's well worth it. Ubax provides the same 1 additional memory unit as astrolabe, and guarentees a clickless, conditionless card draw each turn. Assuming that drawing cards is a necessity for all decks, this is in essence a fifth click, albeit one that does have to be used for card draw. That is incredibly powerful. A runner using Ubax has essentially increased their click efficiency by 25%. Thats a huge advantage. The comparative cards that come to mind with similar effects are beth kilrain chiang, which while only 2 credits to install, needs the corp to have over 10 credits in order to provide free card draw. Otherwise its just a free credit each turn. The additonal fact that shes a resource makes her vulnerable to trashing if the runner is tagged. The other example that comes to mind would be the absolute beast that is Rachel Beakman. More expensive to install at 8 credits and a click, but it provides an additional conditionless click each turn to do what you want with. The downside being the additional caveat of her being automatically trashed if the runner is tagged. But seeing as card draw is necessary in order to advance your game, theres a very strong chance that at least one of those clicks each turn would be spent on card draw anyways.

So if you look at Ubax in this context, if you have Ubax installed for 6 turns, it has already paid off/offset its installation costs in additional card draws. Anything longer than 6 turns, and you start to hit scary efficiency. Considering the average game lasts around 25 turns, this leaves a large window open to exploit the efficiency of this luminous little orchid to the corps dismay. Keeping your grip filled so you can use those precious clicks to rack money off of magnum opus and run the newly nervous corps servers. A 25% increase in click efficiency for five credits and a click. Thats a beast, considering the average deck generates around 50 credits in a game through events/resources/etc, you're spending 10% of the additional credits your deck produces for a 25% increase in click efficiency. Notable archetypes that benefit from this would be the obvious owner of this console, Ayla "Bios" Rahim, who essentially has a starting hand of 9, without the first turn rush that Andromeda suffers. This highly increases the chances of pulling ubax early, and allowing it a maximum number of turns in play to utilize maximum efficiency. (You can even include the in faction Levy AR acess if you're worried about drawing through your whole deck.) Ubax is equally effective with ID's that have only 40 card decks like chaos theory or Ele "Smoke" Skovak. The consistency of card draw from a 40 card deck with an automatic draw each turn is nothing to be underestimated. And at three influence, Ubax could be splashable into decks that lack a good card draw mechanism, like Leela or Sunny Lebeau. Move over stupid toy dinosaur, theres a new shaper console in town.