This card looks like it's going to do a lot of work in this tag-heavy meta, but the card draw ability means he'll almost never be a dead draw in other matchups. Great addition to Criminal, along with stuff like On the Lam they're really being given a ton of tools to deal with the increasing amount of tag & kill options for Corp.

Some of the neat stuff you can do with this card:

• Hard counters Breaking News: as soon as they score it you get 2 counters, use them to clear the tags and draw up! Breaking News + Exchange/BOOM! is one of the most potent combos in the game so anything that can straight up deal with that is fantastic. However you won't get counters when 24/7 News Cycle is played, and this doesn't help against the Power Shutdown/Accelerated Diagnostics combo as you don't have a paid ability window to clear tags.
• For each agenda scored/stolen, you can clear Account Siphon tags for free and draw 2 cards without spending a click, almost like a free Lawyer Up.
• If you make an unsuccessful run with John Masanori, you can clear the tag with a counter (and get the draw you wanted anyway!)
• Clickless draw is very useful vs Jinteki decks that aim to kill you with some combo of Ronin/Bio-Ethics Association/Chairman Hiro. Getting a large amount of counters can be a bit tricky vs decks like IG that don't ever really score out, but the possibility is there.
• Hard-Hitting News becomes much less taxing. Even with only one or two counters on Aaron you have a much better chance of making it through the huge tempo hit HHN can be.

All that aside, even against a non-kill no-tag deck Aaron can still provide you with somewhere between 5-15 clickless card draws across a game for only 2 credits! Criminal is generally considered the weakest runner faction when it comes to card draw so I think Aaron will give them a great boost in speed and survivability.

NEH is extremely powerful for two reasons:

1. Its ability makes any deck better regardless of build - it allows you to draw into your Biotic Labor, Scorched Earth or AstroScript Pilot Program even faster. Like EtF or Kate, it rewards you for doing something you were going to do anyway.
2. 17 influence is great but in NBN it's crazy good because every corp deck is running 3 x Jackson Howard, so you're basically playing with 5 more influence than your standard 15-influence non-NBN corp deck. 3 x Scorched/Biotic and Jackson with 5 influence to spare is fantastic.

Making News, TWIY and Haarpsichord all have their merits but it's hard to compete with the speed, consistency and flexibility that NEH offers. The new NBN IDs in Data and Destiny look really interesting, but I think it's a fair guess that NEH will still be the king through the next cycles unless the conventional fast advance and Scorched builds get nerfed hard.

Eli is probably the most taxing ICE in the game relative to its very low rez cost. Everyone's favourite fracter Corroder takes 4 to get through this, as do Breach and Eater. Currently the best ways to deal with it are:

• Cerberus "Lady" H1 (4 to install, 1 to break up to 4 times)
• Atman at 4 strength (7 to install, 2 to break)
• Knifed (1 and 2 to trash)

As a bioroid, the Runner can spend 2 to break it, but this isn't really a downside as getting the Runner to spend half their turn's clicks on one cheap ICE is a huge tax. This kind of ICE is not really meant for defending scoring remotes, but rather to prevent the Runner repeatedly running R&D or HQ.

At only 1 influence, Eli is included in just about every taxing Corp deck. Even when you aren't focusing on taxing the Runner it can be a value include to prevent central server abuse from cards like Keyhole.

Valencia packs a powerful ability, powerful enough that she is the first Runner to have the downside of a larger minimum deck size, 50 instead of the usual 45.

Cards that give the Corp BP are usually difficult to use; Frame Job requires you forfeit an agenda, Tallie Perrault only works when the Corp plays specific cards and Activist Support is easily trashed. Valencia's ability to give the Corp a BP at the start of the game enables a number of powerful effects without the need to use these cards, and will save you a ton of credits over the course of the game.

Pros

• One free credit each and every time you run. This is a huge boost to your economy on par with (or even better than) Kate.
• Makes one of the most popular agendas, NAPD Contract, worse for the Corp. Not only does the advancement requirement increase but the BP saves you one of the 4 needed to steal it.

Cons

• If the Corp has some way of removing BP in the early game (e.g. Elizabeth Mills or Clone Retirement) then your ability (and many of the cards in your deck) become useless. Investigative Journalism helps to deal with this, though it is rarely useful in the mid-late game.
• Minimum deck size of 50. Makes your deck less consistent - for example, as Valencia you draw 10% of your deck for your opening hand, while as Andromeda you draw 20%. Anarchs have few tutors in-faction so you will need to splash for them or have some way of getting through your deck quickly, such as Inject, Earthrise Hotel or Duggar's.

Combos

• Enables Blackmail to be used without any setup. This is a very powerful card that Corps will have trouble dealing with unless they run cards like Executive Boot Camp or Caprice Nisei.
• Enables Itinerant Protesters, arguably the best Runner current in the game at the moment, to be used without any setup.
• Many Valencia decks splash for Self-modifying Code, Clone Chip or Personal Workshop to use BP credits to install cards. These cards are useful regardless - SMC helps deal with the lack of general tutors in Anarch, while CC lets you get Injected programs out or throw Parasites on ice mid-run.
• Can easily pile on more BP with Investigative Journalism. Spending your whole turn doing this is a big investment, but applying extra BP has a few benefits:
  • Gives you even more credits during runs.
  • Makes Itinerant Protesters even better, and with Vigil you are almost guaranteed a free card every turn.
  • Makes Raymond Flint playable.