When I first saw this spoiled, I was excited, as Mirāju looked like it was bound to be how Jinteki decks would mitigate agenda flood; but with some testing and the UFAQ, this potential really hasn't been met.


Problem 1 - The runner won't run

Mirāju, as a piece of ice, only triggers if the runner actually runs it, which means if you draw into too many agendas, you need to hold onto them until the runner runs into it, which still leaves you stuck with the several turns of operating at minimal efficiency, as you are forced to do things in the wrong order, or just accept that you'll be discarding valuable cards.

Problem 2 - The shuffle isn't optional

Mirāju looks like it was written to give the corp the choice of drawing and shuffling, or doing nothing; but the UFAQ says the corp doesn't need to draw to shuffle a card away, so you have to do so, no matter what.

This is a pretty severe downside, as it if the runner has some multi-access, such as with Medium, or R&D Interfaces, an easily accessible Mirāju is a death sentence, as the runner can easily run into it to force a shuffle for fresh accesses.

Problem 3 - Low value on other servers

Primarily as a result of the shuffle not being optional, Mirāju is pretty low value on servers other than HQ.

  • On Archives, the runner can happily break Mirāju, and laugh at you for even rezzing it, unless they are stuck with Black Orchestra, or you have a Crick or something in front of it.
  • On R&D, Mirāju provides a way for the runner to get fresh accesses, especially if they have multi-access.
  • On remote servers, you really want ice that can help you score your agendas, and this does nothing to help with that.

Problem 4 - Mirāju doesn't help against Account Siphon

Miraju doesn't do anything to stop the runner siphoning you into the ground, so you either need additional, normal ice on HQ, or you need other cards to help protect you from siphon, like Crisium Grid.

Problem 5 - Install costs add up.

Miraju is not as cheap as it appears, 2 credits sounds cheap, but it's not the whole story.

Miraju, purely by being a piece of ice, adds to the install cost of other ice you install; which if you want 2 or 3 other ice on HQ, it will easily cost you an extra 2-3 credits.


Miraju is pretty good for keeping you from losing agendas out of HQ, but it's value is so narrow that it's simply not practical to use for much else, and even for protecting HQ, some normal taxing ice is often going to be similarly helpful.

This is further made worse by the fact that Miraju is the kind of ice you want to see early, but with only one good place to put it, including 3 of them is bound to result in not drawing suitable ice for other servers, or drawing them late game with more than enough ice on HQ already.

You could probably run a couple of them in most Jinteki decks, but most of the time, two or three triggers of it won't be a real game-changer; and that's probably the best you are going to get.

Maybe if Jinteki gets some kind of reasonably efficient ice-tutoring operation, then the situational downsides could be mitigated, but until then, maybe you'd rather just have a few copies of Mind Game, or something else taxing?

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As of now, I just won a game off this ppiece of ICE - while playing Sunny against AgInfusion. —

Himitsu Bako was relevant for Jinteki for quite a while, since it was the cheapest influence free gearcheck barrier for them for a long time; and though it's ability and stats beyond being 1 to break with corroder were rarely relevant, it was the simplest way to force the runner to get their fracter.

However, this is no-longer relevant, besides some kind of jank use, as Vanilla is an impressive 0 to rez, which is basically impossible to beat. And sure, Vanilla dies immediately to Parasite, but if they are spending a parasite on a Vanilla, you are the one who is coming out ahead.


Himitsu Bako; I miss when we had reason to run cards like you beyond in draft; maybe one day another interesting Jinteki barrier that can be repositioned with ease will come along; and maybe they will be given their chance in the lime-light too.

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Himitsu-Bako is the perfect barrier for Jinteki rigshooter decks; them killing your Vanilla with Parasite is less appealing when you've removed every possible way for them to break barriers. Bako is also immune to Knifed, and Femme Fatale can only get past it for one turn before it's recalled and reinstalled. On top of that, you can use it for protection before they find their Paperclip, then (if it's your only barrier) add it to HQ to prevent them from reinstalling the Paperclip for the heap. It's a perfect fit for rigshooter; its main downside is that Skorpios has taken up the mantle as the best rigshooter identity and it doesn't need the ability (Weyland has plenty of barriers, and Skorpios stops Paperclip recursion). But Bako is much more than just a cheap gearcheck; I will genuinely miss its ability. —

So, you're saying that if I have more subroutines than the runner has cards, they can't get in?

And that if they happen to come across an ice with a nasty face-check with a large number of subroutines, they will need to spend their hand to deal with it?

And that if they have no cards in hand they can't just jack out to get out?

Count me in!


Komainu is only 4 influence a piece, and with Mausolus,Cobra, and Prisec all being good cards that also happen to do damage, it's entirely possible to set up a kill server for the runner to fall into with this.

And if you are playing this in Titan Transnational, you get a free bonus counter, as well as influence to pay for a couple copies of Friends in High Places to help you get your ice the right way around.

And the only ways the runner could possibly survive this are:

100% totally infallible!


Anyway, enough combo theorisation, the best comparison here is that it's the Weyland version of Nisei MK II, if popped at the start of a run on your scoring server, it's quite likely the runner won't be able to get in, but they can reasonably bounce off an ETR ice, and run again.

So, clearly, it's best if you pop it as the runner approaches an ice with a punishing face-check, as then they are forced to break it, paying the cards, pay the card to jack out, and then run again, at which point it might not be practical for them to run again.

But them running again is still quite feasible, so clearly, you need to make use of the 3-4 cards the runner will have spent on the first run to make it worth it, be it another counter from Titan, or a Snare!, or even just making use of the runner having used up another click, potentially leaving them tagged, and probably without the cards to survive a Scorched Earth.


This agenda seems entirely playable, though it does require some deck-building decisions to really make it worth it outside of Titan, I can see it getting played in Titan once Weyland's other problems compared to other factions are addressed.

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And when they FINALLY make it through your horrific FC3, DNA Trcker, etc. death server, nuke it with Self-Destruct! FiHP to do it all over again! —
The Komainu combo is fantastic and combos very well with Ben Musashi. They cant jack out and cant steal agendas because they will die, works great in titan but also doable in argus. —

It is not literally made of diamonds, but it is worth several times its weight in them.

Funny thing... diamond's arn't actually worth much, that's just the result of De Beers having a monopoly so they can shrink their supply, and they are seen as valuable because of a ridiculous marketing push to make people use diamond engagement rings.


So, why bring this up? Lets just have a look at this card...

It might see some play in decks that might have otherwise played Dyson Mem Chip, which for one less credit, and being a 0 influence neutral card, provides you with the MU and the link, but not the bonus hand size.

Furthermore, this being in Shaper rather than neutral, like Dyson Mem Chip, basically just limits the decks it will be played in. (Dyson mostly having seen play in slower Criminal decks unless I'm mistaken) and I don't see the +1 hand size being worth enough to make anyone flock to it anyway.

The only place I can see myself using this, is in the Terminal Directive campaign, playing MU stacking Ayla, where it's another mem chip you can fit in your deck after all of your Akamatsu Mem Chips and Dhegdheers.


Just like diamonds in real life, the LLDS Memory diamond really isn't worth much.

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Addional Note: The Usage of the 'Link' subtype gets more and more inconsistent... Just like 'Mod' and, well, a lot of others... —
Nice review. In fairness though your assessment of a diamonds value applies equally to everything in a market economy. —
While I do not doubt that you are correct this is still a card I'll end up playing because like Dyson it saves me from having to make too many difficult choices regarding MU and it lets me have that sweet extra link that will turn out to be completely useless in practice. And extra hand size lets me avoid too many difficult decisions about which card to discard. —
I do like that LLDS Diamond comes in the same set as Dean Lister, who can boost the heck out of your breaker strength based on how many cards you have in your hand. —
I think they HAD to put this card in. It's alluded to waaay back in the core set, on the flavor text of shadow, of all things... —

This feels like it's a Criminal or maybe Anarch card that's been put into the wrong faction.

Regardless, lets look at this from a purely economic standpoint; credits in, to credit differential out.

Cost:

  • spent installing
  • 2 install cost.
  • The card itself.

  • Approximate Total Cost: 4-6 of value, depending on card to credit, and click to credit efficiency.

Output:

  • 1 per non-innermost ice.

So, in theory, the Corp needs to install at least 5 non-innermost ice over the game for this to "break even".

Then, this becomes a decent effect from 8 non-innermost ice and upwards; which I'm sure you'll agree, is not particularly practical; especially if you don't have ice-destruction tools to help you with it.

Furthermore, this is assuming you get to install this early in the game, which certainly isn't a guaruntee; and can cost you resources you desperately need for other purposes, so you are unlikely to get full value out of this anyway.

However, these are stackable, and forcing credit loss is often far more valuable than credit gain; especially as the Runner, so despite it's bad stat-line for what it is, it may well be entirely playable, even if the best support is in other factions.

At the very least, we can be glad this isn't some insane monster of a card that totally kills glacier, only an interesting card that might just slow it down a little.

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Use it with Ankusa to troll Weyland glacier decks, maybe? —
Perhaps not just Ankusa, but Inversificator and this show off a new side to Shaper which is about messing with the corp's math, just to watch them lose chill. —
...oh hey, I just figured out why Inversificator is in the same pack as Adjusted Matrix...that's fun —
This works well out of Kit to help keep servers short —
This is the text that should have been on Unscheduled Maintenance, the only crim current. —
I've also seen people stack 5, 6, 7, or more ice on a single remote against Smoke. So a pair of these would hurt them pretty bad. I just wish it was in the same faction as Vamp or Siphon. Maybe this is a Jesminder card? —
I feel like this card with Leela Patel's ability would be fun to mess around with. —