This is a good ice. I'd price fair market value for this card is around $5 and I'd guess that this will generally cost something like $5-6 when rezzed. You can reasonably slot (at least) 5 code gates in Jinteki without feeling like you're scraping the barrel. Aiki is one of the most efficient ice in the game, Thimblerig is a cheap end-the-run with positional flexibility, Mind Game is cost-effective against server-specific run cards.

It's not as good as Kakugo was, but it's still Jinteki's best option for forcing the runner to invest $4 into installing Paperclip. Alternately you might slot some combination of Ice Wall, Sandstone or Bran 1.0. Bran has more long-term efficiency than Ivaak, and it's much easier to come up with Bran's $6 to protect a turn 1 Rashida than Ivaak's $7. On the plus side, Ivaak can't be clicked through and the 2 net damage is probably a more useful early face-check than installing an ice.

I think this card is very shrewd. Derezzing doesn't create a lot of value, and this card is priced accordingly. Bifurcation is a 2/1 agenda very playable even if you don't plan on using the derez effect. In contrast, a card like Hakarl is completely unplayable unless you value derez effects highly.

If you were going to print HB's first 2/1 agenda this is probably the best way to test the waters. A blank 2/1 will probably be better than a low-impact 3/1 like Hyperloop Extension, and those are either currently (or at least recently) tournament-viable in Sportsmetal.

(If an operation was printed for derezzing a single card, I think a $0 card "Derez an installed card and gain $2" is fairly priced).

Divert Power

This is a click-grinder card which heavily punishes the runner for not spending clicks/funds running archives. So far, it interacts in an unfun way with Jinteki cards which make it hard to check Archives repeatedly (Bathynomus) or add or remove cards to Archives on the runner's turn (Anemone or Anoetic Void or Spin Doctor). Turning a 1-point agenda into potentially 3-4 points is pretty out there. It doesn't feel like the economics are thought out well, or that this is a good way to work on the general crappiness of the Jinteki cardpool. Calling back to Industrial Genomics, the last card which pushed for frequent runs on archives, this card is kinda a slog. Unlike Industrial Genomics, Regenesis makes archives potentially dangerous with only a single face-down card in Archives.

I imagine that this card was probably an emergency valve in case sabotage gets too strong. But... hardware like Gachopon can install a virus to trigger an Augustina sabotage, which kills this agenda's scoring ability ("if no Corp cards have been added to Archives this turn"). I think everybody else's gameplay will be more affected by this card more tediously.

That archived O/protocol can now be scored!

> But... hardware like Gachopon can install a virus to trigger an Augustina sabotage, which kills this agenda's scoring ability ("if no Corp cards have been added to Archives this turn").

How would this work in practice?

There is a facedown jinteki card, and on the corp uses two clicks to advance it twice. At this moment the runner decides to trigger gachapon? But isn't this a thing jinteki does all the time, on cards like Urtica cipher or Ronin?

If they have a facedown card in archives and haven't already added a card to archives, I think the second advancement is a reasonable time to consider triggering Gachapon.

This won't completely remove the need to check archives against Jinteki, but it'll give you some turns where you can safely not check.

I dunno, Regenesis seems absolutely brutal to sabotage decks.

This is powerful, but won't be as crazy-strong as its early gameplay looks. Yes, Ob can rez an Envelopment for $5, cause the Runner to pay $4 to break/trash it, and then tutor/install/rez a Border Control for free. Later on, they can trash the Border Control to end a run and tutor/install/rez a $3 ice for free. Their $5 ended up paying for 3 ice (2 installed from R+D clicklessly), BUT in a funky series of pawnings where only one was ever on the table and in the exact opposite order I'd usually want to play these cards. This is an unusual economic flow with lots of on-paper income but I think runners might find reasonable counterplay over time. It might not be much harder to deal with than Blue Sun turning each Oversight AI or Building Blocks into a quick $7-14. But... Blue Sun made $7-14 by playing a bunch of inefficient cards that are not by themselves very good. Few, if any, of Ob's cards are inherently bad and the value they get from the Ob ability is not the easiest to play around.

It may be too much ID value.

  • Any time you detonate a Urban Renewal, you can clicklessly install Drago Ivanov. If you already have End of the Line, this will probably be fatal unless they have counterplay. UPDATE: This was strong enough that Drago got banned.
  • I suspect this card will eventually get removed not because it's overwhelmingly powerful (although it certainly is quite strong), but because it adds more complications to designing/balancing cards than any other identity I can think of. Ob has to be checked on basically every self-trashing card (particularly those that can trash during a run), any cheap cards which can uninteractively cause damage, and any cards which would cause unanticipated problems if a major identity could readily install them during a run, and any cards which would benefit unusually much from early tutoring (Urban Renewal). Hell, at this point, I'd check for Ob problems on any installable card printed at $0 or $3.
  • Border Control is already one of the strongest ices ever printed and giving it the ability to also find/install/rez a $3 card pushes it into the stratosphere. Envelopment was one of the only ices good against Endurance and nobody but Ob could feasibly play it. (Endurance has since been banned, but before March 2023, Endurance was absolutely everywhere).
  • Even average assets jump a tier or two when they gain 2-3 basic clicks worth of value. Even a mere Marilyn Campaign or Launch Campaign becomes a well-compensated tutor card. Ob has an unusually wide array of assets that have much more upside than normal if not killed. (Regolith Mining License, Marilyn Campaign, Nico Campaign, Launch Campaign, MCA Austerity Policy, etc). It's a Weyland ID with an unusually strong pool of $3-5 ice and much stronger-than-normal $1-2 assets, and a life-changing amount of tutoring flexibility/consistency. This looks like more ID value than most top IDs get, and its card pool is surprisingly flexible. Update: Ob got restricted in Eternal. It's pretty good.
  • Even with Drago banned, you have the ability to reach kill/pain cards so quickly and reliably that negligible cards like Urban Renewal are probably harder to respond to than they were intended/meant to be.

Obstacles:

  • Your Ob chains run from most expensive to least expensive. A couple of problems with this. A lot of your funds could be tied up for up to 4 turns in an Envelopment which the runner doesn't HAVE to trash. Ob chains will probably delay your cheaper ice, which usually would have been most cost-effective in the early game. Maskirovka looks like a good ice! But when you're trashing a Border Control on like turn 5 it's probably not the ice you'd love to have then.
  • You're building around an ID ability which can only be triggered once per turn. Runners can easily force a trash on Envelopment and it is only good at all while your ID ability is still available and a liability otherwise.
  • Pre-rezzed ice make it much easier for runners to budget and aim Boomerangs/etc.
  • Besides Border Control and (far less so) Stavka, most of Weyland's "trash a card" cards are not inherently great, and very few self-trashing cards are printed at $3, so Ob chains will probably mostly be limited to $5-4-3 (Envelopment -> Border Control -> any $3 card) or 2-1-0 (economic asset -> Urban Renewal -> Gaslighting or Rashida).
  • The runner has a lot of influence over when the self-trashing ice are allowed to fire (or forced to fire). Architects of Tomorrow would be a really good ID if runners triggered it every turn, but they don't and it sucks. Svyatogor Excavator and self-trashing economic assets are harder to work around, however.
  • In timed play, the amount of shuffling and deck-searching will probably be ridiculous. Tutoring is not a fast process. Thinking through which card to tutor takes some time too.

Card reference (*asterisk on cards which prematurely end the Ob chain unless you have some other effect to trash them).

  • $0 - Drago, Gaslight, Rashida, Spin Doctor, Svyatogor Excavator, Sandburg, Angelique, Snare
  • $1 - Urban Renewal, Reconstruction Campaign, Launch Campaign, MCA Austerity Policy, Wall to Wall*, Bladderwort*
  • $2 - Regolith, Marilyn Campaign, Drudge Work, Nico Campaign
  • $3 - Mavirus, Bass Chiriyoga, Reaper Function, Crisium Grid*, Afshar*, Akhet*
  • $4 - Border Control, Mausolus*
  • $5 - Envelopment

Reduced Service is a normally fairly weak card which has interesting synergy possibilities. Being able to clicklessly tutor it makes it a lot stronger. Of course, if you can shell out the influence for Anoetic Void there's probably some comedy opportunities to ruin someone's run mid-run.

Installing Anoetic Void mid-run would be hilarious. You could use Stavka to trash a $1 card, or use Alexa Belsky to trash herself.

You can also use it to manipulate server content (HQ and Archives) mid-run. For instance, you can have an Anvil protecting Archives, and use it to trash a 1-cred, fetch a Spin Doctor, and remove agendas as the run is closing in. Alternatively, you can have a Stavka protecting HQ, trash a 3-cred, install Hafrùn, disable their Killer, trash 2 programs, then let them through, only to find that your HQ agenda got trashed by Hafrun. It's truly a lot of fun.

@Mppqlmd that is WILD -- I love it

You might be able to score this easily after the runner pays to score Obokata or hits a Snare late on their turn, or if low-hand-size decks become viable. This wacky card was not limited to 1 per deck, and I love the boldness there. An agenda-scoring window triggered by anything besides credits is interesting game space.

This is the most inspired Jinteki card from a set which has been a disappointment.

Also, the art is beautiful.

Lol so if runner has zero cards in grip, u cud score 3 of these with no money in a turn ! Quality!

Those are two big ifs which I think a competent player should usually be able to play around. I think playing conservatively on hand size against Jinteki is usually a good idea even if the card pool doesn't include a Neural EMP which immediately kills you on zero cards.