I was trying to build a deck with her and just looking at the programs list and I came across some cards that seem interesting with her that I think nobody has mentioned so far.

Kyuban might be fine to search and let get RFGd if you are about to do multiple runs on R&D in the same turn (Indexing + going back in for the agendas, perhaps). That could reimburse a fair bit of money for the one turn you need it. Can potentially get two of them, then Indexing, then run and get 1 agenda out of the top 5. That would be worth $8 for two clicks, or $4 per click.

Somebody commented on a Kabonesa Wu deck that they have done a 3x Nyashia drop and then ran at R&D for a +9 dig for $3. Can potentially combine this with previously mentioned Indexing and Kyuban profitably.

I mentioned in the Flame-out card that using Kabonesa to drop Misdirection on it is a good play. Misdirection is still a good card for her even if she is just pulling it out for one turn to clear HHN tags and then letting it get RFGd.

Hyperdriver is a good search early game for sure. Honestly, this seems totally busted to me. I could totally see myself searching it on turns 1, 2, and 3 every game, using free clicks to search for yet more hyperdrivers. Now that I figured out this is legal, I feel like I have to find a way to take out 3 cards and put in 3 of these in my Kabonesa Wu deck. For some reason, I thought this was banned until I just tried to add it to a deck on JNet. It's not.

I think time has been very favorable to this card and it deserves another look in 2021.

The same old benefits still apply. It's 5 for 2 MUs, which isn't great but it also comes with recurring credits which help make up for that expensive cost.

The old review compared this to Desperado, which is probably the better console. Desperado has rotated out, however. Now a fair comparison would be against Paragon, Desperado's replacement.

Paragon is a fair bit nerfed compared to Desperado, IMHO, so I would say this comparison only gets more favorable for Maui.

Recurring credits are worth a lot if you can maximize them and seeing how this is a Criminal console there is a lot of in faction synergy with it. Pheromones does a similar thing while using up an MU. MUs are pretty hard to come by in Criminal, so being able to save 1 from moving your program onto your Console AND to have another one built into the Console is a pretty good deal. That gives you effectively 2 more MUs to work with. Pheromones is also rotated out, so there is that, too.

A particularly good feature of this card is that if the corp is trying to counter your HQ attacks, they generally do it by playing ICE. This console has a built in way to punish that, by giving you more credits every turn.

Also, as a side note, I think HQ is under appreciated as server for one to attack.

With a remote, you often kinda have a good idea if your run is going to hit an agenda or not. With R&D, you know you are seeing new cards. If there is an agenda on top of the deck, you are pretty much guaranteed to get it from an R&D run.

HQ is different because they could have 4 out of 5 cards in hand be agendas and you could still fail to hit one. The more random nature of attacking HQ causes people to focus on it less, I think. More often than not in my games, HQ is the least ICEd server between R&D, HQ, and the scoring remote.

That potentially leaves more space for HQ attacking decks and potentially improves the effectiveness overall of this console.

Lastly, under another review, someone responded that Desperado has an advantage because it helps against asset spam. As of the time I write this, Miss Bones is legal and is a much more powerful counter to asset spam than what Desperado was doing in that regard. It is also in faction for Criminals. That means there is less need to rely on the 1 per run from the console as a counter to asset spam. Anyone worried about asset spam should probably be playing Miss Bones and freeing up their console slot for something else instead.

What this should be compared to is Forked, Knifed, and Spooned.

Those cards are type restricted, which Hippo is not. If you just know you want smaller servers no matter what, then Hippo might be the way to go. If you are playing Quetzal with E3, then you might not want to use a barrier breaker at all and you need to ensure barriers don't get stacked, then perhaps play the cards that are barrier restricted instead, so they hit barriers no matter how deep you have to go to hit them.

I think most people are now of the opinion that 3x Hippo is more or less an auto-include in Anarch. Those other cards I mentioned are far from auto-include, though a lot of people still put 1-3 of them in their decks anyway so they only have to break a Chiyashi once or twice per game or something.

The best part about Hippo is how little thinking there is to be done. It only triggers in very specific instances, you just broke all subs on the outermost ice. That reduces the mental effort required to pilot such decks considerably. Anyone that has ever played a long and exhausting tournament can attest to how nice it is to devote less mental effort to each game with a more straightforward deck.

FWIW, I kinda agree with the design philosophy that led to Hippo, as in "These cuttlery cards aren't good enough. Type restricting is too much of a drawback.".

Five influence is the right number, because IMHO we don't want a situation where you can play the same deck no matter what ID you choose. I prefer a world where it feels different to play against an Anarch deck than it feels to play against a Criminal deck, and powerful 5 influence cards like these (and, for example, Diversion of Funds) helps the factions feel different from each other. Thumbs up on that influence call. Hippo is a really well designed card all around.

I am not the world's best Akiko player or anything, but I wanted to offer a different take on her than that in the other reviews.

By using her, you are kinda sorta pre-installing a R&D interface with all that entails. You don't have to put 3 of them in your deck in order to make sure you can R&D multi-access. That frees you up deck space for other stuff.

Rather than doubling down on R&D pressure, like with adding multiple R&D Interfaces when you are already playing Akiko, I suggest not trying to go for the deep dives on R&D. Play a few indexings, maybe, because you probably won't hit more than 2 agendas in 5 cards anyway, and just let the corp overcommit resources to defending R&D while you focus on other things like ensuring that you can get into the scoring remote when needed. Maybe play some legworks and run against HQ.

The more they spend trying to turn off your ID, the better for you because that makes other stuff less well defended.

If your ID triggers, bid zero 66% of the time and bid one 33% of the time. That should encourage the corp to spend a fair number of turns bidding 2 and go a long way toward preventing yourself from bidding higher than them. They should have to pay if they want to turn your ID off.

Also, don't shuffle up without including 1 or 2 copies of Psych Mike in your Akiko decks.

DO play Equivocation with her. That's a great cheap way to make the R&D runs you do go a lot farther. Make them draw whatever is not an agenda every time so your 1/2 accesses are a lot more likely to hit agendas. It's worth it.

Casual "fun deck" card.

Opponents are always trying to maximize their value, at every decision step.

Cards that give your opponents choices always entail your opponent choosing whatever is the worst option for you unless you are able to surprise punish the choice that appears to be the worst for you.

If you try to be sneaky and you spring some trap that makes the opponent wish they had chosen the other option, well then you are just playing a bad combo deck.

Speaking as the opponent here, when you play this, you are using 5 resources units (draw, 2 credits, 2 clicks) to give me 4 free clicks (draw x4). At face value, that's a 9 resource swing in the wrong direction for the runner. Why would you play that, do you want me to win the game?

Whatever tricky thing you are doing with this card, it's probably not worth putting yourself at a 9 resource disadvantage by playing it.

IMHO, just play good cards instead of this.