This card provides two benefits: it works both as a tutor and an economy card.
As an economy card first. Imagine you have a Daily Casts with only two left on it. Run a server and you can replace this Daily Cast with a fresh one for free. It saves you one credit (the other cast would have earned you two, but you save 3 from installing the new one), the click to draw the next cast, and the click to install. It also thins out your deck, which is generally good. You can use it with any credit making card that is about to dry out (a Liberated Account a Miss Bones with one , a Flame-out), but also with useless cards: you have a Misdirection against Jinteki? Install it and run to get your expansive breaker with a discount! You can also recycle your empty cards: Imp/Pelangi/Cordyceps/Nyashia/Revolver/Propeller. Unfortunately, many recent cards trash themselves when their counters are down to zero.
But the real benefit is its tutoring ability. s have an easy way to get programs: SMC. Even compared to that, WT is legitimate: SMC is a one-use tutor that costs 2 to use and does not include a 3 discount. Use the Tree twice, and you made a profit. Admittedly, World Tree is more cumbersome to use: you must make a successful run, it cannot be used during the Corp's turn, you must trash another program, etc.
What is currently missing for the runner is a tutor for Resource and Hardware. One of my favourite cards of all time, Hostage, has now rotated. The only tutor for Hardware was Trade-In (are we counting Replicator). Artist Colony is also gone. Asmund Pudlat is a fresh addition, but it is very specialised and slow. Emergent Creativity is cool, but high influence. World Tree is a one-card solution to out problem. With World Tree, you can now have, in shaper, one-of stuff guaranteed to touch the table by turn 3: Miss Bones, Obelus/Knobkierie/Maw/Paragon, Caldera, The Class Act, Security Testing, Trickster Taka, The Twinning, Paladin Poemu, Citadel Sanctuary, DreamNet, Buffer Drive, Prognostic Q-Loop; cards that are either very situational or very influence-heavy, so you want only one copy in your deck.
So who should play World Tree? s of course. SMC, Wu, Ayla can guarantee that the tree will appear early. We see it a lot in Adam's decks too, thanks of Emerging Creativity. There's been a lot of decks with 2x Endurance in the recent months; I think it's totally reasonable to replace one of these with a World Tree to save one influence and enjoy some of the other benefits.
Some notable nonbos.
- You want to pair WT with run events such as Dirty Laundry or Bravado to maximise the benefits of the run. But WT encourages you to have many non-event cards in the deck. You may want to pair it with cards such as Red Team, but is that too many eggs in the same basket? Info Bounty, Security Testing maybe, but that's influence heavy. The current solution seems to be 80-size decks.
- s get benefits on the turn they install their breakers (Gauss, Euler, Cybertrooper Talut). But if you use WT to install these, you already made a run.
- If you use WT to trash a card, it is no longer here for Aesop's Pawnshop. If you use WT only for economy, good old Aesop is probably better.
- WT requires memory support. DZMZ Optimizer is the natural solution, but if you use WT to install programs, the discount of the optimizer is probably wasted. Consider Cyberdelia instead; it's also 3, so perfect to fetch with the tree.
Let's refresh review right before World tree will be banned.
— exzo777