At first I was skeptical of its potential, since a high-link runner can completely negate its ability. But then I realized that Whizzard doesn't run link, ever, and most runners don't run both link and trash-assist. So effectively, either the trash costs matter, or the traces matter. Either way, it protects your assets and upgrades.

The best part is that you barely need to change your deck at all for it to be effective. You're NBN, you were going to run tag-punishment anyway. You don't need any credits for it to fire. You don't need to dump cards into Archives like IG. You have an approximate 3 credit tax, instead of Gagarin's 1.

The political assets (Sensie Actors Union, Commercial Bankers Group, Clone Suffrage Movement, and Bio-Ethics Association) obviously benefit the most from this tax. Bio-Ethics is weak, because you're probably not focused on damage, but the other three are fantastic. Sensie is practically mandatory since it costs no influence.

Playing against it, three of the best cards are Salsette Slums, Employee Strike, and Apocalypse. Slums bypasses the "trash" part of trashing cards, so the ID's ability doesn't trigger. ES nullifies the ability (although a Breaking News can end the current easily.) Apocalypse blows everything up, only triggering the ability once.

Turing is an interesting piece of ice. It's sort of a Bioroid, but not completely. It's AI hate, but they can still make it through by clicking without punishment (similar to Wraparound just being really expensive.) It has an end the run subroutine that's technically not "End the run." (Take that, Endless Hunger!) It has variable strength, depending on placement.

The obvious move is to put it on a remote, where it's potentially very taxing, at 5 strength or 3 to get through. Combined with any Bioroid (or stacked with itself) they have to break something.

However, the (currently) most popular AI breakers are Faust, Eater, and Atman, with Brahman potentially joining the club (plus occasionally Knight). Faust/Eater/Knight decks are likely running D4v1d/Parasite, leaving it vulnerable to one or the other, depending on placement. Atman is rarely used at 5 or 2, and certainly not exclusively, while Shaper specializes in Code Gate breaking. Brahman has yet to be definitively proven, but likely packs Cyber-Cypher and Chameleon. Even Apex: Invasive Predator can get around it by using Prey, clicking through, then trashing it.

So no matter what, Turing isn't there to stop the runner. It's there to tax the runner, to slow them down. The upside is that while it seems designed solely to hurt AI, it actually has a decent cost/effectiveness ratio. Viktor 2.0 costs 1 more, and has 1 more subroutine, but costs 1 fewer click to click through. Enigma saves 1, has 1 more subroutine, but either ties in strength or is dwarfed at 2 vs. 5. This is why it's included. It's a code gate that's strong vs AI, and that's useful in other matchups, whereas Swordsman is a pathetic 1 net damage, 2 strength sentry, and Wraparound withers upon sight of a fracter. It costs the classic ZU.13 Key Master 5 to get through on a remote, which is non-negligible. And all this in a relative dearth of midrange HB code gates.

Sure, it's not reliable for keeping the runner out. But if you're either playing a no-advance strategy (HB has 2 effective 3/2 agendas and plenty of assets and upgrades to bluff with), or stacking the server with Ash 2X3ZB9CY/Caprice Nisei, spending an entire turn on a single run is not feasible for long.

It's difficult to justify the splash out of faction compared to Swordsman and Wraparound, at 3 influence, which is a shame.

As the flavor text mentions, Turing is a reference to the "Turing test," posthumously named after the pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing who proposed it, which is a test to differentiate between Human and Artificial Intelligence. Hence, AI breakers "fail" the "Turing" test.

Project Ares is usually quite bad. As tiedyedvortex explains, a blank 4/2 is absolutely terrible given lots of other options, a 5/2 with 1 trash effect is still very bad, and Mandatory Upgrades is better as a 6/2. It starts becoming playable if you expect to take it up to at least 8, though.

Generally that means traps and Mandatory Upgrades in the deck as well. HB has two great advanceable ambushes in faction, and can easily import a third if it wants. The key is that these agendas are worth a mere 2 points when stolen, but when scored for ridiculous values they have a massive impact on the board state. That asymmetry is the reason to play them. You can expand this by also including Project Vitruvius as another over-advance target. Your deck could easily include 9 overadvance agendas and 9 ambushes. Project Ares means that when you take it to 8 counters and pass the turn, they consider the possibility of losing the game from flatline, or losing their rig. And in a deck built on ambushes, the single bad publicity pales in comparison to wiping their rig. The real cost here is having the resources and patience to advance it that many times, and the deck's commitment to a particular style of play.

Compare it to Government Takeover and Vanity Project, where the gain from the steal is basically the same as the gain from the score. You're risking a lot more by putting them out there. Granted, Project Beale would be amazing if overadvanced to 11 (then worth a full 6 points), but its the only agenda available to the faction to overadvance, and it only has Ghost Branch as a native advanceable trap.

So, no, I don't think it's the worst agenda in the game. It's just very niche, with only a very specific deck type that can pull it off.

Industrial Genomics: Growing Solutions + Mumbad City Hall + Mumba Temple + Museum of History + Product Recall.

Every turn, shuffle Product Recall back into the deck, install anything worth trashing - either an alliance asset or not - use the temples to rez it, and then use City Hall to trash it with Product Recall. At worst that's, say, 5 for 2 (Mumbad Virtual Tour). At best, you're gaining an insane number of credits from all those cards in archives and trashing an alliance asset. Every turn you want to, because Product Recall is an alliance card, and Museum is too.

For a long time, this was a bad card. I mean, sure, you could hit a Jackson Howard that you trashed, or maybe Subliminal Messaging, or make it a lot harder for Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers to combo off. Or limit Architect/Team Sponsorship options. Or avoid some ambush, like Cyberdex Virus Suite or News Team or Space Camp in there. Nice, but not particularly important.

And you had the occasional Industrial Genomics: Growing Solutions matchup, but who techs against that? Only that one guy played IG, and it was pure jank. No need to spend a whole card slot on that one theoretical matchup.

But then Museum of History and Mumba Temple were printed. And then Bio-Ethics Association/Mumbad City Hall, and suddenly everyone's playing Industrial Genomics: Growing Solutions/Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon. What's a runner to do? Sure you can run archives vs IG, but then you eat net damage from Shock! and/or Hokusai Grid. You can trash the assets, but they're expensive, you can't trash all of them, and Museum of History just gets them back into the deck, plus Hostile Infrastructure makes you take net damage for trashing them.

Archives Interface puts you back in the driver's seat. Avoid and eliminate all those pesky Shock!'s in archives. Get rid of cards forever, before Museum of History brings them back. Trash stuff and then REMOVE THEM FROM THE GAME. Stop the recursion cycle.

Ideally, you're already playing anarch (which at least half of players are, right now), and already have a way of trashing things, like Whizzard: Master Gamer or Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire (two already very popular ID's right now.) Just slot one of these in, and suddenly that matchup is so much easier. You already dig through your deck at a prodigious rate with Wyldside that I can only assume you're running, so you'll get that singleton fast enough to matter. And when it's a dead card, toss it to Faust. Or, if you're that concerned about the matchup playing Shaper (pretty much everyone else,) you can use Artist Colony to grab this. When the metagame changes, adapt.

Wake up, Archives Interface, wake up and smell the ashes.