Well, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, here are all the sysops. They're a janky bunch and four out of the eight (as of The Underway) are in Jinteki.

Recruiting Trip is not an unplayable card. Marcus Batty in particular is a great target. The primary value of RT is that it's an operation and—Imp and Edward Kim aside—that makes it untrashable. Batty has a 1 cost so if he's crucial to your game plan, RT allows you to find him sooner without making RnD porous. Furthermore, RT is only a single influence so it's an appealing choice for decks that splash sysops. In particular, I see a place for it in Haas-Bioroid lists that want the Batty-NEXT Gold combo but can't spare enough influence to run more than 1 or 2 copies of the crazy-haired psychic.

Outside of Batty, there are a few niche uses for the card right now. The Foundry might want to conjure up The Twins for a combotastic double Janus kill. Personal Evolution may want to grab Tori Hanzō. All of these are surprise flatline combos though and revealing the sysop before install reduces their viability. I can't think of many scenarios where you'd want to tutor for multiple sysops but since they're all upgrades you could search for two and install both in the same server.

Overall, I like this card a lot. It's low influence and its playability depends on deck construction and the available card pool. Unlike unqualified tutors that are universally useful, cards like Recruiting Trip encourage inventive and narrow combinations. It definitely doesn't slot into many decks but someone in your meta will find a weird use for it, rest assured.

A modal card in the vein of Infiltration which rewards you for playing it even if you don't find a use for its primary ability (preventing a resource ). Fall Guy hasn't seen a ton of play but can be important in decks that rely heavily on a single resource to execute their game plan. Notable possibilities include:

• most Personal Workshop decks can benefit from a Fall Guy or two if the influence is available
• connections decks that install everything on Off-Campus Apartment
• possibly Supplier builds, though it's more rare to see many cards stacked on Supplier than the two above
• while Kati Jones doesn't host other cards, she does host piles of credits & is commonly the target of assassination attempts via Snatch and Grab & the new Contract Killer

One excellent example of Fall Guy usage is in StarkandTully's combo MaxX list which hosts many viruses on Personal Workshop while building up; Fall Guy protects against the "score Breaking News->trash PW" play.

While Fall Guy is clearly intended to protect resources, the second 2 ability should not be discounted as its real-time nature allows you to obtain credits just when you need them (to steal an NAPD Contract, to trash an asset, beat an Ash trace, etc…). In Geist in particular, Fall Guy becomes playable purely for its second ability as it turns into a better version of Green Level Clearance on the runner side.

krystman's review is great and covers so much of this card. I wanted to touch on one aspect that the other reviews haven't mentioned yet; this card, particularly with multiple copies installed, functions as cheap damage protection with an ulterior benefit. In Geist it's basically equivalent to I've Had Worse since you net two cards, nullifying the SEA Source->2x Scorched Earth combo if you have two on the board and a full hand. Since there's a paid abilities window after each action, you have a chance to pop Muertos Gang Member even if you become tagged on the corporation's turn. Sure, they may get to rez some expensive stuff, but at least you'll live.

A weirder, one-shot Caprice Nisei. Batty's power level is equal to whatever ICE you rez over him. Here's a wishlist of the game's most brutal subroutines:

• Flare shoots off a trace⁶ for unpreventable meat damage, trashes a piece of hardware, & ends the run
• Either NEXT Gold subroutine can win the game, though importing the whole NEXT suite into Jinteki isn't feasible so this means splashing for Batty out of HB
• Heimdall 2.0's second sub does ends the run with brain damage thrown in for fun
• Neural Katana has fallen out of favor due to its meager one-credit cost with Mimic but Batty's ability to land the 3 net damage may bring it back
• Cortex Lock early can be as much or more net damage than Katana

Those are what come to mind but the potential with Batty is pretty crazy. Depending on your deck's needs, there's probably a killer subroutine that makes winning easy (think Data Raven or Gutenberg in Butchershop, Taurus in any Scorched Earth build) & Batty gives you an ≈67% chance of landing it no matter the opponent's icebreakers.

Dreams of brutal subroutines aside, Batty is also a solid Ash 2X3ZB9CY replacement in glacier decks. I'd expect Replicating Perfection players to save 2-4 influence by resorting to Batty.

There are some interesting timing issues with Batty too that I haven't had a chance to fully experience in my few games with him. You can fire his ability during any window, unlike Caprice, so the only holdup is ensuring you get your target ICE rezzed first. In glacier builds where Batty is used for an ETR, he'll function much like Caprice & be triggered after the last ICE is passed. But I can imagine scenarios wherein a runner anticipates a Batty kill & jacks out before you have a chance to fire. There are also probably many edge case scenarios where you'll want to trigger him because of ICE placements, e.g. to trigger a Gutenberg in front of Universal Connectivity Fee, a Chum in front of Neural Katana, etc.

Is Batty broken? Are we all sick of Psi Games? IMO, Batty is actually more balanced than Caprice Nisei. The one-shot nature combined with the ICE rezzed limitation makes it much harder to get value out of him. That said, his upside is enormous & will only continue to climb as more fearsome ICE is released. With a rez cost of 0, you can even circumvent Drive By or anticipate Hacktivist Meeting simply by installing him rezzed.

A solid code gate with a deceptively useful subroutine. At a mere 3 rez cost to its 4 strength, RSVP is efficient and taxing. 4 is a magic strength total in the current meta; just out of Yog.0 range but beneath D4v1d, making it hard for certain decks to deal with. The costs for some common icebreakers:

• ZU.13 Key Master: 4
• Cyber-Cypher: 1
• Refractor: 1 stealth & 1
• Gordian Blade: 3
• Yog: 1 Datasucker token barring the Net-Ready Eyes or Personal Touch combos
• Cerberus "Rex" H2: 3 & 1 power counter

The cheap cost for Cyber-Cypher (and Atman at 4) unfortunately makes RSVP weak against the popular Prepaid Kate archetype which is one of the strongest runner decks at the moment. Many Criminal and Anarch decks splash ZU.13 Key Master however, which RSVP is incredibly taxing against. If Net-Ready Eyes leads to a resurgence of Yog in the meta then the stock of RSVP will go down significantly.

While RSVP doesn't technically end the run, in a surprising number of situations it makes the runner's success unimportant. In particular, it's a great, cheap piece of ICE for protecting assets in both remote and central servers since its subroutine prevents paying trash costs. But there's a long list of defensive upgrades and agendas that require the runner to spend money, notably: NAPD Contract, Predictive Algorithm, Red Herrings, Ash 2X3ZB9CY, Caprice Nisei, Utopia Fragment, and Fetal AI. It also combos with the in-faction Pop-up Window to hard end the run, though ICE defense strategies that rely on ordering are notoriously brittle (e.g. Parasite ruins this plan). While RSVP is good in faction, it synergises really well in a couple of other decks, too:

• The Gagarin Deep Space ability
• The Caprice Nisei psi games of Replicating Perfection and Jinteki decks in general

An underrated piece of ICE that is great in certain builds but can feasibly be a one- or two-of in most NBN decks as well.