Expose is still an underrated and underused (design wise) ability. It has been said in a few podcasts and articles that many high level players are starting to include just a single Infiltration in their decks - a single expose can make the difference late game from running on a server when it isn’t needed, saving the money and not opening up a scoring window for the corp next turn. Satellite Uplink could conceivably help in that - if there was ever a need to expose two cards.

Early game it can help against the ICE that has yet to be rezzed, later game it can help if there are multiple upgrades in a server that need to be dealt with, such as with Drive By - a Satellite Uplink first can make sure the Drive By hits the right card to make the run on the final click successful - but that is very combo heavy and click intensive.

Blackguard is a natural combo with Satellite Uplink however, and if there was some way to reliably run a Blackguard deck without the huge temp hit that the eleven cost console generates to install it, it would be a powerful economic warfare card. Yet, like most expose cards, until that mechanic becomes more needed or “powerful” (in general met a terms), Satellite Uplink is not likely to be very impactful.

A card that works well with many criminal directions, and a card that helps illustrate the strategy criminal’s sometimes follow: A successful criminal doesn’t need breakers. Emergency shutdown can be a brutal economic hit to a corp, especially when following Account Siphon. In combination with a lot of the other HQ focused cards that Criminal possess, it is not hard to make use of it.

It is always going to cost the corp something when this card is used, but the problem may become that it may only cost a few credits. Some corp archetypes have very cheap ICE and that is possibly why Emergency Shutdown hasn’t seen a solid spotlight. Not that it hasn’t been seen - It certainly works well, especially with ICE like Tollbooth being extremely popular.

She simply has not seen a lot of use yet, and that is probably because prickly ICE or even threatening ICE simply isn’t common enough yet to really make her powerful. Having to rez that piece of ICE is an additional cost as well, but at least Midori is free to rez. What she does do extraordinarily well is advance the shell game. That ICE could be anything. It could a simple trap that just is dealt with, or it could be a piece of ICE the runner won’t have the breaker or the money to deal with, leading to a very tough decision - does the runner jack out? (Her ability triggers during 2.0, the approach - meaning she has to already be rezzed before the run starts if it's the first piece of ICE, or she can only affect the second piece onward - and the runner can choose to jack out at 2.2) That insecurity of what is there ahead of them can be the key to bluffing away a lot of runners.

Hokusai is starting to see some use in Jinteki decks that tax more than just clicks and credits. It is expensive to trash, and with some prickly assets like Hostile Infrastructure and ICE that is dangerous to pass through, it can lead to a critical mass of pricks that makes it very dangerous for the runner to run. Seen most often on Archives in Industrial Genomics, that is a perfect example of its use - protecting those face down cards, and adding another bite to the Shock!s that are going to be in there already.

This is the Jinteki Fast Advance card, and it is only good if there is a place to bank those advancement tokens. Advanceable ICE for instance, is a great place to put them, and it helps relieve some of the tempo sting of advancing agendas. Scoring an agenda naturally requires time and money (clicks and credits), which means that every time the corp does so, tempo is being lost. Nothing is being done on that turn except setting up the chance to score, and if it is not fast advanced, then setting up the chance for the runner to steal as well.

Trick of Light alleviates some of that. Not only is it a Fast Advance strategy, allowing a three for two to be scored out in one turn (even a four for two), the process of putting tokens on advanceable ICE to save them for later spreads the tempo hit out over multiple turns to score an agenda, instead of all at once. It may not be the strongest of the Fast Advance core strategy cards, but it still has some uses and will still see play.