Susanoo-No-Mikoto is a hard sell for the corp. 9 to rez a piece of ice with only one subroutine? Why bother when Tollbooth, which costs 1 less, has more utility with a very taxing non-subroutine effect?

The answer lies in what SNM is supposed to do. And I'm convinced this is there to do one thing—to flatline the runner. Jinteki may have more ambush assets than you can shake a stick at, but it's usually impossible to steer a runner into them. Most runners will just avoid an archives with several face-down cards, especially if they see a deck with little ice and laden with traps. SNM, however, can force them into the spider's web, but has to be used carefully to get the intended effect.

The key to SNM is patience, along with its wording—"...until after he or she encounters a piece of ice." This means, if you have no rezzed ice on your archives, they must access archives! Or, you can drop some ice with net damage (e.g. Komainu, Cortex Lock, or even Neural Katana) with a nasty Whirlpool to ensnare runners without AI breakers. And, for the most part, SNM becomes more dangerous over time, as your archives fills up with Shock! or other ambush cards usable from archives. Lastly, putting an unrezzed Hokusai Grid on archives, or a House of Knives with counters available, provide other options for the final coup de grâce.

Rezzed at the wrong time, though, it may do nothing more than hurt your wallet. It's most effective with the element of surprise, before Femme Fatale can latch on and make it nothing more than a joke. Speaking of downsides, expose can throw a wrench in your plans, unless you have Zaibatsu Loyalty handy. And, there are several cards than can make SNM a liability, namely Forged Activation Orders. Finally, a usable Switchblade laughs in its face, Snitch can make it cry, and Faerie is found in more than a few decks and can easily limit available rez windows where it could otherwise do heavy damage. Oh, and how could I forget Hades Shard...

Even if the surprise factor is lost, a 7 strength sentry is nothing to sneeze at if the runner doesn't have a Femme or a usable Switchblade handy. And, while I don't see ever having three copies of this in a deck (and not just because it's unique), it sure is fun to drop a single one in a Jinteki deck every now and then—it might just win you the game.

Ice Analyzer is basically Compromised Employee for Shapers. However, there are a few differences between the two, some obvious, some more subtle. They are, from most obvious to least (in my opinion):

• Compromised Employee costs 2 to install, while IA is free. However, Compromised Employee can potentially be worth more in the long run, with its 1 for traces, especially against NBN.
• IA's credits can only be spent on installing programs, while Compromised Employee's can be spent for anything, as they're just added to your credit pool.
• IA is virtual so it can survive Sacrificial Clone (as if it matters), while Compromised Employee is a connection and link. Thus, CE is more vulnerable to things like Snatch and Grab, but is also more useful for things like Calling in Favors.
• IA's credits are stored on IA.

That last one can be both good and bad. On the one hand, if it's trashed by, say, Corporate Town, you'll lose all your credits in IA's bank. On the other hand, if you get hit with Closed Accounts, the corp would also have to pay a and 2 per copy of IA with credits on them to completely drain you of your cash available for installs.

Ultimately, I think both cards have their place. In either case, getting them out early is everything. For the most part, I'd just expect IA to be chosen over Compromised Employee for Shapers, and vice-versa for Criminals. Anarachs get their pick between the two, if they really want either, but usually they'd rather spend their influence elsewhere.

When Creation and Control first came out, this card seemed mediocre. However, with the release of "The Source," I feel that this has gone from just a decent agenda to a very good one. Why? Well, Self-destruct, of course! As others have pointed out, Self-destruct really more of a safety net or "escape pod" than anything, at least when considering the powerful executives.

Each deluxe expansion has featured a different 5-influence executive (Director Haas, Chairman Hiro, The Board, and Victoria Jenkins), all with the same caveat—if trashed while being accessed, they're a 2-point agenda as far as the runner is concerned. 'Trashed' is the key word here, as cards from archives cannot be trashed. So, Self-destruct neatly patches this hole, with an added bonus of potential net damage, but has its own problem—all the valuable ice you had protecting your even-more-valuable executive was trashed along with the executive, and the executive's safety net.

DHPP, on the other hand, turns that frown upside-down. Presuming that you're taking advantage of the in-faction Director Haas, her pet project has the ability to raise not only herself from the dead, but her safety net, and a piece of ice to protect them as well! And, if you've got lots of influence to spare, you could even throw in one of the other executives for additional fun.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's discuss the drawbacks of DHPP:

• Is a single point agenda, and as such is liable to be stolen and will likely increase the number of agenda cards in your deck.
• If used to revive Director Haas from archives, you won't have the fourth to fast advance DHPP itself, so without SanSan City Grid, Biotic Labor, etc., you can't play and score it in a single turn.
• All cards are installed unrezzed (unless they state otherwise), so you'll likely have to pay up to get things back to their former states.
• Any face-up cards pulled from archives can be figured out by a runner with a good memory of what was in there. Remember, the runner can look at face-up cards in archives at any time, and DHPP installs cards "one at a time."
• Limit of 1 per deck, though this isn't as big a deal thanks to Bifrost Array / Fast Track

So, DHPP is by no means a silver bullet. But, I would hate to build a deck with Director Haas without Self-destruct (or something similar), and I'd loathe to include Self-destruct in a HB deck without a copy of DHPP also in the deck.

No matter how you look at it, Inti is almost never a good choice. Sure, the strength buff, like Gordian Blade's, lasts for the entirety of the run, and yes, it's free to install. But 2 for a single strength is just too much, more often than not, and there are much better options now, just as there were then.

Corroder is, or was, the obvious alternative, and now Shapers have the in-faction option of Cerberus "Lady" H1, which is excellent with their penchant for recursion via either Aesop's Pawnshop plus Clone Chip, Test Run, or simply Scavenge. What is worst of all is, as soon as this hits the mat, the corp will immediately play to its faults.

Instead of stacking barriers, they will spread simply spread them out. Or, for example, against advanceable-ice Weyland, especially one with Constellation Protocol, the corp will simply stack all their advancement tokens on a single barrier, negating much of the benefit of the "...for the remainder of this run" effect. And big barrier ice like Curtain Wall, Hadrian's Wall, Heimdall 1.0, or Heimdall 2.0 will likely bankrupt any runner that tries to break through them with this.

Sure, you could lower the strength of ice you encounter instead of raising Inti's (e.g. via Datasucker), but then why are you playing Inti? Snowball is the way to go then, with its only real disadvantage over Inti being the hefty installation cost. But Shapers have all the tools in the world to negate that: Personal Workshop, Sahasrara, and Cybsoft MacroDrive just to name a few.

As it is, I can't see this being used in any serious deck. But I'd love to be proven wrong, and maybe FFG will one day come out with a card that solves Inti's crippling buff-cost. However, until then, I'll happily avoid using it in my decks, or just using it as a proxy for other, useful cards.

It's impossible to review this card without comparing it to its little brother, Wall of Static. For 1 more, you get 1 extra strength, which at first glance seems like a fair, or even somewhat good, trade-off. However, under a more thorough analysis, I don't think it holds up.

Here's why. Both cards are, for all intents and purposes, trying to fulfill the same role. A cheap, quick defense against face-checking early remotes, or alternatively, an early hurdle for centrals that most runners can't leap over in the first few turns. However, at fulfilling that role, it does a worse job than the all too familiar Wall of Static, for one reason—economy.

Early on, money is tight for the corp, barring a first turn Hedge Fund. And even if you do get an early operation for money, unless you're playing NEXT Design: Guarding the Net, you'd usually rather spend your first few installing ice, or an early drip like PAD Campaign. The earlier you get your drips going, the more they can pay off over the course of the game. Additionally, leaving your centrals undefended for long is often disastrous.

And in these first few turns, which is the only time either of these walls has a chance to be relevant, 1 is a big deal. A very big deal. And 1 extra strength, in those first few turns, usually isn't. If you're forced to rez this on the runner's first turn, it's probably worse for you than it is for them. Your credit pool has likely shrunk so much that most other ice you have out can't be rezzed. You also have to keep an extra 1 on hand at the end of every turn just to have the option of rezzing Bastion.

This, of course, isn't even considering the fact that there are usually better options than Wall of Static too. Weyland has the excellent Ice Wall, Jinteki has Himitsu-Bako, HB has NEXT Bronze, and NBN has Wraparound, and Resistor is coming very soon. Bastion's higher strength usually won't matter much later on either, as it only costs a credit more to be broken by either Corroder or Cerberus "Lady" H1.

In summary, if you want early-game ice, use in-faction stuff first, then WoS or spend a few influence to splash another faction's if you need a few more. This does little more mid-game than other, similar ice, and if it has a place in a deck, I haven't found it yet.