Runners, I fear for you. Be persuaded by its power or suffer the consequences. This identity will force the meta to adapt. Exactly how remains an open question but every deck design will have to at least consider the question, "How will I respond to Skorpios?"

Clearly one response is Employee Strike given that it is already a great answer to so many other questions. Frankly, I suspect that 3 becomes the minimum number of currents that Skorpios runs to counter this. Housekeeping and potentially Door to Door play well with their game plan. And 1 of each breaker builds become probably far too risky. Jack that up to 2 or even 3.

Without EStrike, a whole swath of runner cards and archetypes that thrive by trashing their own cards. (particularly if they take place on the runner's turn, enabling another Skorpios activation) are greatly disincentivized if not rendered outright useless.

Shapers will have to suck back a huge gulp of 'Nope': Scavenge, Self-modifying Code, Aesop's Pawnshop, Sharpshooter, Deus X. Removing from game also makes their recursion options considerably weaker later on, looking at you Levy AR Lab Access and Clone Chip. Film Critic in faction will help against Hunter Seeker at least and Sacrificial Construct may help keep your programs on the table longer.

Anarchs are perhaps getting unduly painful payback for Salsette Slums and Archives Interface: Frantic Coding becomes a buffet of options.

Armand "Geist" Walker: Tech Lord. Back to the binder. Don't call us we'll call you. MaxX: Maximum Punk Rock, ouch town population you. Exile: Streethawk, uh, you're still here? Anyway get lost.

Probably Criminals hate Skorpios the least. They don't play much recursion so they've been living this life for a while.

For Skorpios Hunter Seeker seems like an obvious auto include, Power Shutdown will do work. I'm not even going into all the damage cards that can ruin your day. Apparently there are a few? I've heard ICE can trash things sometimes, so there's that as well. Corporate Troubleshooter and Marcus Batty help that happen.

Pay careful attention to the 'from any location' text. This really puts Runners in a tough spot. Sit back and watch some TV while we do some renovation on your deck. Hint, renovation means crippling.

I try to avoid prognostications of doom or yelling things like 'broken'. I still love you Netrunner. I will say this though, I have reservations about the power level of this card given how prevalent trashing mechanics are in the game.

I'm certain I'm not alone in thinking that Ayla is in many senses Andromeda: Dispossessed Ristie out of Shaper.

Mathematically there are similarities. Let's take the simple example of trying to find at least 1 of 3 copies of a card in a 45 card deck on round 1.

Andromeda: Draw 9/45. This gives you a 50.3% chance of having at least one of your desired card, hence a 100% - 50.3% = 49.7% chance of not having it. So, including your mulligan you have a 49.7% x 49.7% = 24.7 % chance on not drawing at least one of your desired card which is a 75.3% chance of at least one copy.

Ayla: Draw 6/45. 64.4% of not having your card. Form NVRAM. Draw 5/41. 67% chance of not having your card. So, with mulligan you have have a 64.4% x 67% x 67% = 28.9% chance of not having or 71.1% chance of having at least one copy.

Of course, Andy also has a 4 tempo advantage here since her cards don't need to be drawn. On the other side of the coin, Ayla doesn't suffer the risk of having to potentially discard cards or pay for later game pieces early. And Shapers have options to go fast later. Ayla nicely embodies the thematic differences between Shaper and Criminal: Slowly build the perfect tools vs. early aggression.

There are some obvious cards you love to see round 1: Mopus, ProCo, or perhaps the new Laguna Velasco District, (LaguV?).

Beyond single cards combinations are also obviously accelerated. Early Personal Workshops, Aesop's Pawnshop, or Fan Site are important for some deck archetypes. I'll stop here but the pattern is clear. Any combo focused deck that was played out of Chaos Theory: Wünderkind for the 40 card deck size is strictly superior out of "Bios".

NVRAM is an interesting new mechanic as well. Although slower, it's worth noting that at time of printing nothing interacts with NVRAM except Ayla. Those cards therefore are completely safe from damage or being removed from the game. But, make sure you retrieve any cards you want before being tempted to play Rebirth. And of course Cerebral Static blocks access to these cards. That's one motivation to play currents.

NVRAM as a holding tank has some interesting properties. It holds any type of card. So you can save Events (which only Logos can currently tutor and only on a score by the corp) for later retrieval at just the right time. Don't save all your currents there of course if you fear Cerebral Static. But high impact events like "Freedom Through Equality" or Levy AR Lab Access come to mind.

Hardware and/or program pairings that need to be played in order are natural fits for NVRAM which reduces the need for scavenging, uninstalling, or just trashing and replacing later: Live the Dinosaurus/Sage/Adept/Savant/Yog.0 delusion. I mean dream. NetChips are more likely to land in there if you play a few and so on.

NVRAM can also hold your late game rig cards or tech cards that aren't relevant now, or in the current match up at all.

I think this is a great addition to the card pool. Offers some interesting and well balanced options that perfectly embody the Shaper ethos. The art is also spot on. The hopeful wonder in her face really epitomizes the Shaper brand of transhumanism for me.

Evoking imagery of conjuring something unseen from a digital hat, this magical card links thematically with Ele "Smoke" Scovak: Cynosure of the Net. It also has some interesting thematic and mechanical interactions with several other cards.

Of course, this card pairs nicely with anything that gives you information about the cards in R&D. See the top card using Woman in the Red Dress, Spy Camera, or Globalsec Security Clearance then bypass it if you want to keep digging. Do this as many times as you can run R&D in a turn for an additional unique access each time (barring additional shenanigans).

As the number of successful R&D runs increases, there are other interesting interactions.

With Equivocation the interaction is relevant on your first successful run on R&D. If you don't want to access the card revealed by Equivocation (it's not an agenda or must trash asset for example) you have options. One is to put that card in the corps hand, allowing you to access the second card directly. Another is to not put that in the corps hand, and use Top Hat to access the second card. Or third or fourth or fifth but without additional information these are functionally equivalent. Why choose one over the other? Well obviously on the one hand you are denying the corp a free draw by using Top Hat, usually to be preferred although mill type decks or certain combos may choose to offer the card anyway. As has been noted, in using Top Hat you forgo accessing any cards in the root, allowing you to dodge cards like Prisec, Cyberdex Virus Suite, Mumbad Virtual Tour, Disposable HQ, or Product Placement. That can be good. At the same time, you may want to access and trash any number of upgrades (Caprice Nisei or that Crisium Grid that's blocking your Indexing play, the list goes on) and therefore you may choose not to activate Top Hat.

So, impressive tactical flexibility in this combo that gets you: one access you want or reveals two cards with one blind access and potentially dodges an ambush or mills corp. All for the net price of 0. That compares favourably with the tempo hit of of 4 for R&D Interface. However you are also dedicating 1, which can be tight in stealth decks like Smoke

Now, on the second run things get more interesting. Obviously, your second run can dig past uninteresting reveals from a Find the Truth run elsewhere. Or, you can run R&D with Find the Truth on your first run, either accessing the reveled card or bypassing it as with Equivocation above.

Indexing presents perhaps the most interesting multi-run interactions. Find but can't access 2 agendas? Bury 1 deep and potentially grab it next turn. Or, continue to get unique accesses on subsequent turns while you maintain R&D lock for up to 5 turns.

Obviously, Top Hat will pair will with cards that reward multiple runs. Temüjin Contract, Net Mercur, The Turning Wheel (to gain tokens - you can't combine them), Datasucker. Consoles like Doppelgänger or Mirror. Events like Dirty Laundry or Möbius.

Other interactions (of admittedly limited utility):

Dodge the operation that Seidr Laboratories: Destiny Defined pulls from Archives when you their ICE.

As R&D dwindles, do deep digs against decks that have been using Daily Business Show, Sensie Actors Union, or Shannon Claire

It's not unique. Get consistency and credits by running 3 and feeding additional copies to Aesop's Pawnshop. Great value if you installed it for 0 using Hayley Kaplan: Universal Scholar

Bottom line - is this a tier one tournament card? Not as of this writing and maybe never (Station One). Is it interesting and playable? Yes.

This card is interesting in that it takes tag removal out of its traditional home in Criminal (e.g., Networking, Paper Tripping).

A popular tool for tag clearing right now is Networking which is more efficient than Misdirection for clearing a single tag, as efficient with two, and increasingly less efficient as the number of tags increases (assuming equivalency of and ).

Obviously an important card on everyone's mind right now is Hard-Hitting News. Clearing the resulting 4 tags in one round, or simply avoiding a crippling tempo hit, can be critically important for certain decks. Without Misdirection you are paying 4 and 8 to clear the tags. With Misdirection installed, you are saving 2 and 4, and importantly need only have 2 as opposed to 8 in your pool at the start to recover in one round (->,->, use Misdirection). Note that with Magnum Opus installed, you can clear up to 4 tags in one round from 0, greatly reducing the efficacy of Breaking News/Closed Accounts combos. This compares favorably with Networking which requires 4 and 4 to recover

This card also brings into the realm of possibility recovery from a high value Midseason Replacements without the use of Paper Tripping.

The fact that it is a program is nice because it can be tutored easily out of Shaper (even if you use Self-modifying Code to fetch it you are paying 2 less to clear all tags from Hard-Hitting News which may mess with the Corps math) and it is not susceptible to being trashed if a tag does land. Nonetheless, that's another 1 for your rig. I imagine this card will definitely see some play in Shaper at least considering it also saves 1 influence pip over Networking and doesn't need to be held in hand.

Pros

Efficiency - at 1 you are typically saving at least 1 in addition to 1 of compression - bear in mind that this efficiency increases for each piece of ICE you break with that breaker, making it useful against glacier builds. Obviously this card functions better with breakers that will cost more than 1 per increase in strength (e.g., Study Guide, Pipeline, Femme Fatale, Inti, or Brahman - although Shapers are likely better off with some combination of Net-Ready Eyes or The Personal Touch)

It is particularly valuable when breaking all ICE with one AI breaker, e.g., it could potentially save you several cards on Faust

Some value as a surprise attack, perhaps allowing an unexpected access

Cons

Deckslots will be the biggest drawback - this is not much efficiency for a one time card

Precludes use of other, higher impact, run events

Notable Interactions

This will play well with fixed strength breakers like Mimic, Yog.0, or even Chameleon, all of which are still in regular rotation.

Ken "Express" Tenma's net cost is 0 for his first run and he's making 1 with his oft-time friend Public Terminal

Could be used to get Nfr up to strength.

Could help land a Crescentus or Emergency Shutdown

Saves 1 once in a blue moon on Enhanced Login Protocol

Might offset a lack of stealth credits for Switchblade, Refractor, or Dagger.

Could boost Armand "Geist" Walker's cloud breakers (Shiv, Crowbar, and Spike) while setting up. Note that the single use greatly reduces efficiency, however.

Summary

In summary, this card may see some play in Anarch and Criminal although I don't see this card being used very often in the current meta outside of Ken or perhaps the occasional Null or Faust deck.

Written after release of Blood Money