When Will-o'-the-Wisp was first released, it did not get much attention; however I believe the evolution of the meta game and runner deckbuilding now merits it a second look.

Many runner have limited tutors, typically used to accelerate rig building alongside card draw and recursion from the heap to recover any programs lost to fairly common Corp program trashing. Will-o'-the-Wisp does not trash programs, but puts them on the bottom of the runner's stack. This means that Sacrificial Construct and Fall Guy cannot prevent the effect. Given the infrequent use of Will-o'-the-Wisp, few runners are prepared to combats its effects.

As an upgrade, Will-o'-the-Wisp can punish the runner like a trap would when running on a scoring server, but unlike a trap Will-o'-the-Wisp fires for free.

Finally, Will-o'-the-Wisp synergizes well with Ash 2X3ZB9CY, which will allow a successful run with the program-burying effects, but without the opportunity to trash. Architect and Crick allow an opportunity to rescue a trashed Will-o'-the.Wisp from archives to bury once again.

I keep sticking Will-o'-the-wisp into all sorts of decks, with varying amounts of success. It worked really well when Eater/Keyhole decks were everywhere because I could stick it on R&D and wait to fire it until I could actually afford it --- when the runner isn't using Eater, you have to use it the first time they make a successful run on that server because the low trash cost means they get rid of it immediately. Given that it costs 4 to rez, I've had to let runners trash them because I couldn't afford 4 credits after I had rezzed ICE on the server.

Which brings me to the latest combo-wombo jank I've been tweaking: Breaker Bay Grid with Will-o'-the-Wisp. Living the dream is a server with The Root, rezzed with Breaker Bay Grid and protected by Will-o'-the-Wisp to rez everything else on the board for cheap.

Will-o'-the-Wisp's greatest strength is against Anarchs (who currently rule the meta), who have only a handful of in-faction shuffle abilities (Djinn, Paige Piper and Trope), all of which are not commonly seen in the most popular decks. You will very likely see a Levy in Anarch decks but using it just to get a chance of returning a breaker is quite a sacrifice for Anarchs.

This is a lot less effective against both Criminals (Special Order, Hostage, Planned Assault, Express Delivery) and almost useless against Shapers (Artist Colony, Self-modifying Code, Test Run and many more).

Many Anarch decks run 2-3 copies of an AI breaker such as Eater or Faust so the corp might need up to 3 copies of Will-o'-the-Wisp to lock them out.

The timing structure of the run matters when using Wisp as well, especially with the introduction of Political Operative and Councilman with Democracy and Dogma. In step 4.2 the runner decides whether to continue the run after passing all the Ice. Then in step 4.3 paid abilities may be triggered and cards may be rezzed. Wisp only triggered upon a successful run in step 4.4, so it must remain 'survive' anything the runner can throw at it during step 4.3.

It may be worthwhile to note that Wisp is not unique, so you can use multiple copies in a server to either take out multiple breakers or to work around Pol-Op and Councilman.

If you want the effect of Wisp there are also some other cards to consider:

• Aggressive Secretary - an Ambush Asset that must be advanced
• Marcus Batty - need to win a psi game
• Keegan Lane - need to tag the runner
• Corporate Troubleshooter - expensive and needs a program trashing Ice that can be pumped beyond the runner's ability to respond

For four credits, you are not getting a lot of utility out of this card. Yes, if your opponent has only one copy of a certain breaker, then sending it to the bottom of his stack could be useful, but then you are still spending four credits and precious card slots on a card that does not have a big impact on the game.

Since the run has to be successful for the effect to go off, you cannot afford to put it in a server with an agenda. It is best used on the centrals or as never advance bait in a scoring server that might create a window for you to score in your next turn as your opponent searches for his lost breaker.