Inside Man is a card I want to like, as some of my decks have a significant amount of hardware. But, sadly, the play cost is so high, I almost never include it. You need enough hardware to justify Replicator and then some to warrant including IM, as it takes a minimum of two uses to pay for itself. Add on top of that the opportunity cost of not drawing something that would probably be more useful to you at the time, and the click to install, and you'll see why this card rarely sees the artificial light of your local game store.

Okay, to be fair, it's not all bad. If you have loads of hardware, and you get this out early, it can easily pay for itself and then some. But therein lies the problem—getting it out early. Usually one of these, maybe two in some special circumstances, are all you want in play, but to be effective it really has to be out in those crucial first few turns. So naturally, you'd throw three of these in, to increase the chances you get one early. But then, when you draw the other few later on, you realize how myopic your plan was, and you give up altogether.

So why not tutor for it? Well, cards that tutor for resources are slim, but Hostage works here. Though, honestly, if you're going to go through the trouble of tutoring for a connection, this probably won't be at the top of your list. Maybe a specialized deck with Paige Piper can take advantage of it, but that's another animal entirely, and not often seen. So, an oddball deck here and there may find this attractive, but most will pass it by—and be better off for it. If only it cost just 1 less...

SDP is a great example of a card that could be quite good in the right circumstance, but is way too conditional to ever be used. Due to its "at least" wording, it does not combo well with cards like Cerebral Overwriter—you only get 1 net damage extra. While that's not completely horrible, it certainly doesn't justify throwing this in your deck. So, what is it supposed to work with?

I'm convinced the only thing that could warrant putting this in a deck is Janus 1.0. SDP will double the damage of any executed routines from Janus 1.0, albeit in the weaker net damage form. This will easily flatline an unprepared runner, especially one who runs with their last click. But there are several problems with this strategy.

The first and most obvious one is economic. Janus 1.0 is arguably the most expensive piece of ice in the game right now, if one considers that Orion has a built-in way to lower its own cost. Keeping 15 credits in your pool at all times might as well tell the runner, "Hey, I've got an unrezzed Janus 1.0 on the board, and feel free to Account Siphon me at any time."

So, there must be better ways to get Janus 1.0 into play—and there are. Bioroid Efficiency Research, Accelerated Beta Test, Priority Requisition, or out of faction Mutate / Oversight AI are the most blatant, but it's pre-rezzed so you lose any hope of flatlining. Isn't there any way to make this work?

Howler seems to come to the rescue, but it too has a problem—the runner can simply jack out instead of encountering the Janus 1.0 you threw down, unless you had them already resolve a Whirlpool, or they were daft enough to walk into your An Offer You Can't Refuse while you already had SDP scored. There are too many pieces involved to ever put this puzzle together.

Of course, all of these options assume you already have SDP scored, which by itself screams "It's a trap!" louder than Admiral Ackbar. Quite simply, if you really want to flatline a runner, there are just too many easier ways.

This is the crummiest card printed since AstroScript Pilot Program. First off, it's limited to pulling cards from archives or HQ; R&D is out of the question. On top of that, you have to score an agenda to even use it's ability! I mean, give me a break, I don't want to put a bunch of 1-pointers in my deck that I can fast advance to take advantage of this every turn. That would require big agenda density, and with it's 1 influence cost, it's not even worth putting into Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center or Haarpsichord Studios.

Turtlebacks almost makes this worthwhile, but it's not even in faction. Plus, it's trash cost is only 4, so Whizzard: Master Gamer can shut this down no-problem. Maybe if the trash cost were upped to be on par with SanSan City Grid, and it let me pull cards from R&D or it said 'and' instead of 'or', and instead of just negating install cost it gave me credits equal to the install cost, it might be worth playing. But as written, this probably won't end up in any half decent deck.

Diversified Portfolio is definitely not for every deck, mostly because of its 1 cost. Let's compare it to what I feel are its closes neighbors, Beanstalk Royalties and Sweeps Week.

Versus Beanstalk Royalties:

• BR is 0 to play, and can be played right after an Account Siphon drains you of your final credit.
• To give an equal net credit profit to BR, you need to have 4 remote servers, and then it's still worse than BR due to the point above.
• DP does cost less influence to use outside of Weyland.
• BR is far more useful early game, as you won't have that many remotes up until later on, if ever.

Versus Sweeps Week:

• Both are contingent credit gain, though they have very different criteria. The big difference is, you often have a more control over how many remote servers you have, and less control over the number of cards in a runner's grip.
• DP synergizes with Building a Better World while SW doesn't, for several reasons. First, DP is a transaction, and SW isn't; but frequently more important is the fact that this doesn't cost Weyland any influence to use.
• SW gives you a massive 4 boost if the runner has a full default grip of 5 cards. To match that you need a whopping 5 remotes (unless playing BaBW).
• DP's influence cost is significantly lower at 0, for non-NBN decks.
• SW is amazing on the first turn, while the best DP can usually hope for on the first turn is a measly 1 net gain.
• SW frequently causes runners to keep no more than 4 cards in their grip, and can really hurt those who take advantage of Public Sympathy.
• SW doesn't work well if you do significant brain damage, while DP can still be useful in that situation.

So, what does this all boil down to? Basically, if you're playing Weyland, always take up to 3 Beanstalks before even considering DP. NBN will usually want Sweeps Week over this, especially for its fear factor (including the ability to annoy Public Sympathy runners), and early-game utility. Even in HB, if I can spare any influence, I'd take BR over DP in a heartbeat. So, all that leaves is Jinteki...

Oh, Jinteki! Finally, a faction that can really make use of DP. This definitely isn't for every Jinteki deck, but there is one place this can clean house, and that is shell game white tree. With 5+ remotes not uncommon in those circumstances, this becomes a powerhouse. If you're ballsy enough to leave agendas on the board (even fully advanced), this can become a quick trip to credit heaven late game, and flush out your credit pool when you're still busy piling credits on Shell Corporation, letting you delay grabbing credits off of it for a few turns, which makes it even more efficient! And, finally, it gives runners an incentive to trash exposed traps in remotes, letting you shuffle them back into R&D with Jackson Howard.

That said, this will never shine in the early game, so frequently you'll only drop a single copy in a deck. But, I feel like DP is to shell game RP what Mark Yale is to Titan Transnational—an almost mandatory inclusion, yet used sparsely.

This card is almost as puzzling to me as Record Reconstructor. Without a Sweeps Week equivalent for runners, it seems to do nothing but help the corp. And in the few cases where it might be useful, namely vs an Accelerated Diagnostics + Power Shutdown, there are better options that cost the same, or less (if playing Shaper) influence: Sacrificial Construct.

Unlike ES, Sacrificial Construct can always be installed for the low price of one , whereas to make ES worthwhile you almost always have to make a successful run on R&D, which costs you a anyway and potentially a lot of credits. Sacrificial Construct is a nice safety net for all sorts of situations, while ES's utility is extremely niche. Finally, Sacrificial Construct isn't limited to a single copy per deck, and if nothing else each copy can be sold to Aesop's Pawnshop / Chop Bot 3000 if it's not needed. Oh, and Sacrificial Construct can combo with Paige Piper while this cannot, and is more useful with Chop Bot 3000 / Aesop's Pawnshop.

So clearly this must be useful some place where Sacrificial Construct isn't, and that has to be due to the fact that it forces a draw. Maybe in a Data Leak Reversal deck, but it's not needed there. It can increase the rez cost of IQ, but also its strength. Presumably one could use this after the corp's final , and if they were at their maximum hand size, they now have to discard 2 cards. But they get to choose which 2, and a corp deck without 3 copies of Jackson Howard is about as rare as unicorns are in real life—that is to say, quite rare. But, I think we'll succeed in getting a narwhal to interbreed with a horse before this will see play.