Gutsy Diagnostics

On the face of it gaining some 's to be able to play 0-3 random operations at the cost of potentially losing the game in archives makes Accelerated Diagnostics look like a high-risk low reward card, however played judiciously with some powerful combos can really make it more of a sure gamble.

Stack R&D for one final push: With Jackson Howard installed (or at least in hand might still work) with 1st Power Shutdown is a quick and efficient way to get a your ENTIRE R&D moved into archives. (the fact that the runner is going to lose a program is merely a side benefit) then follow up with Jackson Howard's paid ability to remove him from the game getting any 3 cards (preferably operations like Biotic Labor and 2x Shipment from SanSan etc) out of archives, shuffle them well and place onto your now empty R&D pile. 2nd to play Accelerated Diagnostics to pull and play those three cards to score a previously installed agenda. Particularly if in hand already, play a Subliminal Messaging whenever possible for that extra 1 (really though with any 3 operations of your choice there are dozens of very elaborate & powerful chains that can be pulled off)

Poison Archives A casual use of Accelerated Diagnostics is going to inevitably result in agendas going into archives. One method to mitigate this in combo with Haarpsichord Studios: Entertainment Unleashed is to stall the runner who is trying to score agendas from archives meanwhile giving the corp an opportunity to score elsewhere and/or build up some traps inside of archives such as Cyberdex Virus Suite, Shock! Shi.Kyū, News Team Space Camp, TGTBT, Quantum Predictive Model Franchise City etc making scoring out of archives more cost that it's worth.

Know before you draw In combo with Precognition provides the corp with knowledge before taking the plunge with Accelerated Diagnostics, it may also provide the corp with the opportunity to shift agendas further down into R&D to avoid putting them needlessly into archives

Modify Archives Archived Memories, Jackson Howard, Reclamation Order, Interns etc can help mitigate the accidental trashing of agendas (and other cards) by Accelerated Diagnostics

(Did I miss something obvious, I'd appreciate suggestions in the comments below, I may add it to this review)

Pros

Basically gain up to net 2x 's and play to play up to 3 operations

Near infinite combo of up to 3 operations can be game ending in many circumstances

Influence cost of 1 makes card rather inexpensive to splash

Cons

Inadvertent trashing of agendas and other important cards can possibly hand the win to the runner

Summary

This card can do more harm than good in many decks, still for those specifically built around powerful operation chaining & possibly archive mitigation would do well to consider this card (flatline or fast advance for example). See Haarpsichord-doomsday for a fun example of Accelerated Diagnostics at work.

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Red Queen of the IRS

Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter (NOTE: Reina Roja in Spanish it means the "Red Queen") reigns supreme as the most directly corp-taxing ID currently available. As an Anarch she has quite a few tools at her disposal (perhaps with some help from the criminals) to mess with the corps servers and credit pool. Let's take a look!

Combos

Tax by using corp's ice with Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter's ability adding 1 to an ice-rez each turn, with a strategy to bankrupt the corp, the cost of each rez-ing ice in itself is a combo that bears note

Tag-Me Tax: Account Siphon (borrowed from Criminals) combos are commonly included in many Anarch decks because it helps in two important ways: 1 it taxes the corp up to 5 each time it is used, secondly it can provide significant economy to the runner which is often an Anarch weakness anyway. Such synergy often comes at a price, in this case it comes in the form of tags. Putting pressure on the runner to pursue a tag-me strategy, where the gamble is to keep the corp poor so as to minimize whatever damage the tags can cause. One option to turn that tag into a benefit is to Data Leak Reversal where a poor corp may feel the pressure to trash Data Leak Reversal rather than pursue other options with such limited & resources.

Lamprey tax: make those runs on HQ punish the corp even more

Chess Tax: What's better than a 1 tax? Even more! With 3 copies of Rook installed on a server in combo with Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter can potentially tax the corp 7 extra in a single run on top of the stated rez cost for each of the 3 pieces of ice. One strategy is to run on remotes encouraging the corp to rez such ice at a greater cost bankrupting the corp, then having free reign in the central servers protected by un-rezzed ice pumping up Medium Datasucker Nerve Agent, and/or using Keyhole & Imp etc etc.

Vamp tax: Having an ice-breaker suite that can reliably get through HQ in combo with Vamp provides yet more opportunities for the runner to keep the corps economy at or near 0

Additional Taxing via rezzing: Additionally there are many other cards that give the runner the opportunity to provide taxing opportunities to the corp at will: Forged Activation Orders, Running Interference, Cortez Chip Xanadu, Blackguard Muertos Gang Member Bribery Forged Activation Orders

Taxing by trashing/de-rezzing ice: similarly once the corp has invested in a piece of ice it hurts tempo & economy to subsequently loose that investment through trashing or de-rezing. The following are examples of cards that offer such an opportunity: Parasite, Emergency Shutdown, Immolation Script, Crescentus etc

Other noteworthy misc tax: The following could provide some important synergy to a Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter deck: Wireless Net Pavilion, Hacktivist Meeting, False Echo

Tax assisted by ice-breakers A number of the combos above depend on the runner being able to get through ice when the corp is able to rez it (albeit at a higher price), for this reason AI ice-breakers like Eater for example, making a successful run can sometimes be more important (for virus pumping or enabling taxing combos) than accessing cards. (Note: many other AI icebreakers can potentially be useful too like Knight, Crypsis, Overmind etc)

Recursion assisted tax: many of the combos above can have even more life when assisted by recursion events such as Déjà Vu or Same Old Thing etc

(Did I miss something obvious, I'd appreciate suggestions in the comments below, I may add it to this review)

Pros

Can potentially allow runner to tax corp from turn 1 and each turn for the rest of the game throwing off the corp off financially potentially giving Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter free reign through servers

Many corp taxing combos available including

Anarch virus suite available that can potentially swing momentum towards runner

+1 also taxes corp during each trace

Cons

Focusing on taxing the corp can possible incur tags which in turn open the runner up to a host of trouble chiefly Closed Accounts, Scorched Earth & Psychographics etc.

Unlike some ID's which concur a clear economic edge, adding to corp rez-cost doesn't necessarily add anything to the runner's bottom line. As an Anarch Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter has a bit more of a challenge putting an economy together.

Summary

I like Reina Roja: Freedom Fighter, putting her in a deck that taxes the corp mercilessly can certainly be fun, but with fun there is always risk! See Anatomy of Anarchy for a really nice write-up on how to build a heavy-corp tax deck that has seen success.

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Service with a smile

Ah yes, and here are The Cleaners, these are the units that take care of the funny smells, hard to clean body fluids stains and the occasional nosy busy body so that we can focus on getting things done... The Cleaners while cleaning Weyland's dirty laundry, like many other 5/3 agendas it provides a significant benefit to the corp player. Let's take a look at the details:

Combos

The following cards all cause meat damage any of which can combo with The Cleaners to cause even more damage:

Agendas: a second copy of The Cleaners adds yet another damage to whatever the original meat damage cause is, a total of 3 damage each time Vulcan Coverup is scored, and my personal favorite: each on Private Security Force becomes 2 for a total of 6 possible meat damage per turn! (not too many runner decks are built to withstand losing 6 cards a turn for very long!)

Assets: a total of 3 damage with Contract Killer or Dedicated Response Team.

Ice: a total of 3 damage with Flare and a total 4 damage with Checkpoint.

Operations: a net 5 meat damage with Scorched Earth, 3 with Traffic Accident and with Punitive Counterstrike 2+ damage (likely 4 damage, possibly 7 damage if runner was unlucky enough to not win after stealing Government Takeover) depending on the agenda that was stolen.

(Did I miss something obvious, I'd appreciate suggestions in the comments below, I may add it to this review)

Pros

Can really boost flat-line deck increasing likelihood of flat-lining runner

Compounds tempo hit on the runner whenever meat damage is dealt

5/3 agenda helps with agenda compression when constructing a deck and minimizes the likelihood the runner can access an agenda on a random access.

Helps quickly chew through Plascrete Carapace or side-line other meat damage mitigating cards

Cons

5 advancement cost makes it difficult to score

3 agenda points provides significant boost to runner if stolen

Many meat-damage causing combos require tags or other conditions that can sometimes be difficult to line up.

Summary

The Cleaners can certainly be a fun part of an overall flat-line deck strategy as 1-2 scored copies of can be nearly impossible for a runner to overcome. Thankfully since Weyland has a number of meat-damage inducing options making The Cleaners certainly worth considering in such cases.

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Dog Bites Owner

Grim the evil nocturnal apparition that haunted the British Isles is no puppy, it can take quite a bite out of the runner but any corp admin should take care lest it turn on the owner in the form of bad publicity

Remove/avoid Bad publicity: Elizabeth Mills (perhaps along with Blue Sun: Powering the Future to recycle E.M as many times as needed), Exposé, Rex Campaign, Clone Retirement, Restoring Face, Broadcast Square, The All-Seeing I & Veterans Program all make it possible for the corp to avoid or remove bad publicity which may some of the bite out of rezzing Grim. NOTE: Ireress in most cases basically negates bad publicity on a server IF it isn't broken.

Go ahead and bite me!: What good is bad publicity to a runner if there are no ice-breakers in the rig? GRNDL: Power Unleashed along with ice like Grim and an operation like Power Shutdown is one example of such a strategy

Buff strength: Combined with strength buffing options such as Chum, Corporate Troubleshooter Experiential Data, IT Department, Lag Time, Patch etc all can improve Grim making it more taxing especially for ice like Ninja who's 3: +5 strength range forces the runner to spend yet another 3

Recycle: In certain circumstances the corp may want to actually trash Grim (get rid of Knight or a Femme Fatale token for example), if so having Blue Sun: Powering the Future could help recover some sunk costs. Corp will still have to deal with bad publicity when re-rezing Grim.

(Did I miss something obvious, I'd appreciate suggestions in the comments below, I may add it to this review)

Pros

Even though Grim has no End the run , surprising the runner and trashing judiciously may effectively end the run anyway and perhaps many future runs while the runner scrambles to repair a gaping hole in the rig.

At 5 Grim's Trash 1 program is ready to do it's work without any other preparations (unlike Swarm for example)

As a 5 strength Sentry it has some sticking power

The threat of messing with the runner rig or causing a meaningful tax, on the runner to break Grim may pressure the runner to make less than optimal decisions (considering how killers tend to be the least efficient ice breakers).

Cons

Without an End the run the corp may still need to rely on other ice to keep the runner out.

Bad publicity undermines economic taxing for runner throughout corps servers

As a Destroyer ice, Grim is susceptible to Sharpshooter or other anti-Destroyer ice

sometimes not very taxing: As a Sentry Switchblade or Dagger gut Grim for only 2 stealth-based s. Likewise at strength of 5 Grim is easy target for Ninja for only 4 non-stealth

Forked and (with a few more variables) Forged Activation Orders Parasite etc can trash Grim taking the 5 rez cost with it while possibly keeping the bad publicity to add further insult.

Summary

At 0 influence cost it makes sense that Grim has been featured on a variety of very successful decks. Usually this includes some combo of bad publicity mitigation. Rig trashing decks can be fun to pilot, however given Grim's owner biting potential, unless your deck is built to withstand some bad publicity, I recommend you invest in a a good muzzle, otherwise you'd be safer considering a pit-bull!

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Sometimes the Trial Version is all you need

Ever install a limited trial program to do one thing which you only ever needed to do once anyway negating the need to buy the full version? As an operation Cyberdex Trial is kind of like that, only it differs from it's full-version brother Cyberdex Virus Suite in significant ways not all of which make it the lesser of the two.

Combos

When facing a virus-heavy the corp would benefit greatly to be able to play Cyberdex Trial when needed and more often if any of the following are also in the deck this may be possible (albeit often with some significant strings attached): Archived Memories, Reclamation Order, Jackson Howard Lily Lockwell Aggressive Negotiation, The Future is Now, Jinteki Biotech: Life Imagined, Project Vitruvius Allele Repression

Install agenda, purge viruses & score an agenda in the same turn! If the runner has some tags the following combo is possible: to Purge virus counters with Cyberdex Trial (particularly useful to trash Clot), to install agenda then to run Psychographics, score said agenda, finally check expression on runners face. (Note: Other fast-advance variations are possible here too besides relying on tags & Psychographics)

Trial Vs Virus Suite

Trial is better: As an operation Cyberdex Trial gives the corp more control over when to purge, whereas with Cyberdex Virus Suite the runner can access and trash it when it's not needed.
Also Like any good trial version Cyberdex Trial costs 0 whereas Cyberdex Virus Suite costs 3

Virus Suite is better: Cyberdex Virus Suite doesn't even have to be installed or rez-ed to fire as it can fire when accessed in archives, HQ or R&D too. Additionally when Cyberdex Virus Suite is installed on a server the corp can surprise the runner by rezzing Cyberdex Virus Suite just as a runner is accessing a nasty piece of ice (even if on another server), but only now with no virus counters the runner was depending on, the s are more likely to stick.

(Did I miss something obvious, I'd appreciate suggestions in the comments below, I may add it to this review)

Pros

Cyberdex Trial provides 2 savings compared with standard corp action of to Purge virus tokens leaving those 's for other priorities

With a possibility of 3 copies of Cyberdex Trial potentially being tutored or recurred with combos, a virus-based runner's virus synergy could be thrown off losing so much tempo that winning would take a miracle.

At no influence point, Cyberdex Trial can be splashed into any deck to give hard-counter to virus-based runner decks only for the cost of a deck slot.

Cons

Completely worthless against against runners not using viruses

Summary

Another Meta question: How likely am I going to face virus-based runners? Perhaps someday a combo giving an additional benefit to the corp when virus counters are purged could help get the dust off of this card. Until then unless the answer to the question is "Very, very likely" then Cyberdex Trial will probably not see much use.

--It just saddens me when I see cards with no reviews. If you appreciated this review, please give a heart and I'll be encouraged to write more.