Guard basically has all the problems of Rototurret being a low strength sentry without the very useful Trash 1 Program subroutine.

Although Guard will stop Inside Job you still can't reliably rush an early Agenda behind it because Self-modifying Code, any Killer or an AI breaker will eat it for breakfast.

The worst part about Guard's 'anti-bypass' ability (which also 'stops' Femme Fatale, Feint or Security Nexus) is that it doesn't stop the most common type of runner bypass! I'm talking about Blackmail, DDoS and Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist bounce.

Guard is over-priced and under powered. Every faction except have better Sentry Ice that can End the run. and Jinteki would rather use their sentry ice to end the runner.

493
I think it is fair to say that if the card didn't exist, printing bypass cards would be trouble. While Security Nexus was only popular for a small time, cards like this allowed them to make that card and not worry that it would dominate and unbalance the game. —

Rainbow can be broken by any Icebreaker in the game except for Mimic, Yog.0, D4v1d (technically not an icebreaker) or Grappling Hook (also technically not an icebreaker).

Mimic and Yog.0 can easily get through Rainbow with the help of their friends Datasucker and Net-Ready Eyes.

I suppose Gingerbread, Deus X and Sharpshooter also count but they will often be accompanised by Panchatantra.

Quetzal: Free Spirit can walk right through (once per turn). Depending on the positioning Rielle "Kit" Peddler: Transhuman might be quite happy too.

With a weaknesses like this Rainbow would need some major upsides or strengths to warrant inclusion in anyone's deck.

  1. 3 to rez for a Str 4 'hard' End the run.
  2. As the outmost piece of Ice on a server it will 'take the bullet' from Forked, Knifed or Spooned, protecting your better ice from destruction.
  3. Str 4 also means it either takes 3/4 turns or a number of Datasucker counters to trash with Parasite.
  4. Against decks using an AI breaker like Eater or Faust it is no weaker than a Bastion.
  5. Zero influence.

So we can say that Rainbow is kind of 'strong' against Ice Destruction and okay against AI breakers. But if you don't like Ice destruction you've got Architect and Lotus Field. If you don't like AI breakers you could use Swordsman, Turing or Wraparound.

Does it combo with anything?

  1. Superior Cyberwalls counts it as a barrier
  2. Encrypted Portals counts it as a code gate
  3. Unorthodox Predictions makes it unbreakable for a turn

Not an impressive selection in terms of combos either.

The only circumstances where Rainbow will outperform other ice is if your local meta is full of Anarchists who use AI breakers and ice destruction but don't have a lot of Mimic/Yog.0/Datasucker. If this is the case, go ahead and make them taste the Rainbow. Otherwise it's hard to have much pride in this piece of Ice.

493
This is a universal early game taxing ice. Most cases it cost 3 rez, 3 to break and ETR, only few pieces of ice can say the same. Compare it to (overpowered) Eli and you'll see it doesn't fall far behind. —
More or less agree with chom. It'll always be possible to break this ICE, but at a higher taxing rate than usual for 3-credit ICE. Essentially you trade the possibility of actually keeping the Runner out for some extra tax. Which oddly makes it a piece of ICE with only hard ETR subroutines that is still porous! —
If you use it on a central you'll need to have an answer to run effects/run events (Crisium Grid maybe?) On remotes it's probably best for assets since it's unreliable for protecting agendas. It's not a bad tax at str 4, just that the runner can use his or her most efficient breaker for it. —

A not particularly impactful piece of trap Ice for any corps apart from Chronos Protocol: Selective Mind-mapping, which will get good value by trashing a card of choice from the runner's hand. While it is free to rez it does take up a card slot and a to play + installation costs. Analysing the economic side of Data Mine we see the corp invests a card and installation costs in order to either tax a runner with an AI breaker or to take out one random card from the runners hand. Unless the corp was lucky to hit a particularly valuable card, the runner has only lost a to replace the card. It is unlikely that Data Mine will lead to a flatline outside of Jinteki: Personal Evolution and that is only if the runner is taking dangerous risks.

This card sits in a faction that already has a wide selection of high quality cheap Ice such as Pup, Yagura, Cortex Lock, Himitsu-Bako, Lockdown and possibly Harvester or Chum. Often in you will not have a lot of spare slots (especially not Ice slots) in your deck so this Ice will not see much play outside of Chronos Protocol.

493
Data Mine - not impactful? Can't hear you over the sound of Tori Hanzō. —
Faust Says "Yum!, an Ice I can break for one" and then the runner breaks in and trashes Tori. Tori is sad because she wanted to be paired with Hokusai Grid or House of Knives, which are much more reliable and work more than once. —
Fausting a Data Mine? Sure, no problem, in this variant Runner trashes a card and you get to keep your ICE. I ain't even mad. —
Tori is 3 to rez and 2 to trash, plus the corp had to spend cards, creds and clicks installing the Data Mine/Tori Hanzo combo, is this kind of expenditure worth 'forcing' the runner to discard a redundant card like a 2nd copy of their console or wyldside? —
Just put it in front of R&D, with a "real" ICE behind it. If they run while accessing only 1 card, rez it when you can put the below 3 cards and you win if they hit a snare. Or put them down TO three cards if they are using their last click since the tag is stuck. If they are capable of acessing three cards (Maker's Eye, or something else), putting them down to 3 cards is enough even if they have a click. Smacking Snare means they are unable to safely score an agenda without taking a 4th net damage, flatlining them. Since they probably won't continue to run, they will jack out, essentially wasting a click. Also, how come other people can link to other cards? —

Is this card nothing but a problem looking for a solution or is it actually a useful strategic tool?

Lets look at what corps typically spend doing:

  1. Melange Mining Corp. - Preventing this is annoying, but won't cause them to shed any tears.

  2. Purging Viruses - Now we are talking - lets say you've Parasited a big piece of Ice and they've let it tick down to 1 strength, thinking they would purge next turn, what about if you have built up a huge Medium and want to keep hammering them next turn. Even to keep a pair of Imps locked and loaded to wreck their HQ next turn. You can do a bit of damage with this card, assuming they don't have a Cyberdex Virus Suite on hand. What kind of seedy cards can you use to trigger Populist Rally? How about Wyldside, Scrubber or Street Peddler? Sadly Aesop's Pawnshop is too classy to be involved in this populist hoo-ha.

  3. Triple Advancing a 3/2 Agenda they just installed in their scoring server. Another interesting situation where you might wish to delay them one turn until you can make your big play for the scoring remote. However Populist Rally will set you back 2, a card and a to delay them one turn. Keep in mind that this is wasted resources if they only installed a Caprice Nisei or Adonis Campaign in that server.

So it looks like there isn't that much that you can do to mess up the corp's plans with Populist Rally. Is it useless?

  1. Fisk Investment Seminar then put some more cards in their hand with Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist or Laramy Fisk: Savvy Investor. Now cut them down to only having on thier turn to deal with being 5 cards over their maximum hand size. They are going to be praying for Jackson Howard. This would be a good time to activate an Eden Shard too.

  2. Speaking of the corp's maximum hand size, how about Valencia Estevez: The Angel of Cayambe, Investigative Journalism/Activist Support etc. and Itinerant Protesters? For even more fun you could combine this with Fisk Investment Seminar to really ruin their day.

EDIT for Salsette Island: Taking away a will also prevent the corp from using Jeeves in a lot of cases.

493
I've been running a Fisk deck on Jinteki.net with some success recently. It's got the 3 shards, the seminars, and even a couple Scrubbers. I'd been planning on putting this card in when it was released. It'd be loads of fun to stick the corp with 12 cards and only 2 clicks. But looking at it again, I don't think I can justify its deck space or play cost. —
I wish this was playable with ANY seedy cards installed, not just Runner's. —
There's another big thing this locks out: Fast Advance. It prevents Biotic Labor + score a 3/2, it prevents scoring 2/1s out of hand. —

Prey has an incredibly useful effect and is far more general than Forked, Knifed Spooned and Run Amok which all have restrictions and conditions regarding which Ice you can target. Unfortunately Prey asks you to trash installed cards, which is typically undesirable outside of Apex: Invasive Predator or maybe Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire decks. It is already clear that Datasucker or Ice Carver will not help you lower the strength of Ice for Prey and using Scrubbed could be considered a little excessive. So how do we lower the strength of Ice outside of an encounter?

Bishop is the only option apart from Parasite to lower strength outside of runs.

Wyrm: One of the most derided and disliked AI breakers has finally found a purpose. It is time for this ugly duckling to find a place in the sun. Since Apex will already have e3 Feedback Implants as well it might even potentially be used as a backup breaker, although Wyrm is still hideously expensive for that purpose. Maybe a backup breaker for the backup breaker? You will need an extra 1 for that however.

493
As far as I know, Wyrm can only be used during the encounter. And it has to be the same strange as that ICE, so you need to pump it up. —
When passed ice occurs at the same time as the end of the encounter, so the ice may retain its low strength for prey? —
I looked up the rules and you are right. I'll fix the review thanks. —
Null: Whistleblower and Scrubbed both lower the strength of ice for the remainder of the run - so they will work in conjunction with Prey. —