I've loved this card from the moment it was first spoiled. It's big and dumb and silly, and I love it.

All of it's numbers (both the good ones and the bad ones) are huge and ridiculous. But it's also astonishingly good at what it does, if you can land it on the table.

As a rule, shapers are the worst faction at breaking sentries. Usually this manifests as simply having terrible break costs. Pipeline and Creeper were the original awful shaper killers. Things have gotten a little better since then, but even so, most shaper killers are highly specialized, and only really good in particular situations. There are several that require stealth credits (Dagger, Fawkes, etc), several that have other weird limitations (Ika), and the usual run of ones that are just plain inefficient. (Echelon, Na'Not'K, etc.)

In general, if you want to break sentries as a shaper, you just pay the influence cost, and import the latest hotness from criminal.

Well, there's a new sentry breaker in town. And it has a slightly different approach to its limitations. It's actually got good break numbers. Great numbers, even! Breaking all subs for 2 is actually pretty nice, since sentries often have multiple subs. And base strength of 3 is actually really amazing. As of this writing, there are 13 sentries available in startup, and 9 of them are strength 3 or less, with only 4 requiring you to boost Orca to break. (Okay, really 5, since Stavka really should be on that list.)

AND it givers you free power counters for your power-counter-powered shenanigans!

So where's the downside? It has two big ones. One is that it costs 2 which is a little steep, although manageable. (Shapers have plenty of good ways to boost their memory after all. Endurance, in particular, has very nice synergy with the charge mechanic, and gives +2 by itself!) But the real downside is, of course, the eye-watering 10 install cost.

For reference, consider Carmen, a solid criminal killer in its own right. To get through, say, Archer, Carmen requires 8. (Archers are no joke, you guys!) Orca gets through impressively for half that, 4. But Carmen also probably only cost 3 to install, which means you have to break that Archer three times with your Orca before the improved break costs start saving you money, vs. just using Carmen.

And that's against Archer, which is one of the best-case scenarios for Orca. If you're facing smaller sentries like Rototurret, then Carmen has equal break costs, and if you start hitting single-sub sentries like Anemone or Vasilisa, then Carmen is actually cheaper, and Orca will never catch up!

But hey. Orca is a program. And we're shapers! "Tricky nonsense with programs" is practically the unofficial motto of the faction! So obviously if you're planning on including Orca in a deck, you're likely to have some way to cheat it out for significantly less than full price.

In standard, this is pretty straightforward. Good old Test Run plus Rejig puts it on the board for a total of 3. (And two card plays.) In startup, our options are a bit more limited, but we still have access to the classic Retrieval Run.

There's also this new card, Spark of Inspiration, which seems designed to pair with Orca. You can use Test Run to make sure Orca is on top, but at that point you're using a 2-card combo to save 4, which doesn't seem quite as worth it. (I've had good luck just using Spark of Inspiration without knowing, and fishing for it though!)

I've been using this breaker in my startup deck with Captain Padma Isbister, and I have to say, I am really impressed. I put it in at first for fun, thinking it was not going to be practical, but I've managed to get it on the table every game, and I don't think I've paid full price for it once yet. And once it's on the table, you really don't have to worry about sentries ever again. Heck, most of the weak ones might as well just read "pay 2, charge up the boat!"