At time of review, It’s yet to be seen how ubiquitous this card will become. But if my own (admittedly limited) testing is anything to go by, I’d say very. On a sufficiently expensive ICE, it’s essentially a blue Chisel. Who can afford to re-rez a Chiyashi every three turns?

There are some good counter-play options available to the Corp however, that I think will prevent this from becoming oppressive, as some have suggested.

The first and most obvious option is to simply overwrite the affected ICE, trashing the Tranquiliser in the process. Given that recursion isn’t Crim’s strong suit, there’s a good chance you won’t see it again if you do. However, I’d argue that unless the increased ICE install cost is really causing you grief, you’re better off just leaving the affected ICE unrezzed where it is. Chances are the (typically MU poor) Crim will need the MU sooner or later and will over-install it themselves.

Purging really isn’t a viable option given how quickly the virus counters accumulate. Even with something like Cyberdex Sandbox to soften the blow, losing a whole turn is just too much of a tempo loss to repeatedly sustain.

A couple of things to note that might not be immediately obvious to new (or returning) players:

• Unlike Parasite or Chisel, Tranq does not trash itself after de-rezzing the host ICE.
• Likewise, the hosted virus counters do not reset to zero following a derez, meaning that should the Corp choose to re-rez the following turn, the ICE will derez again at the beginning of the Runner’s turn.
• As Runner, keep in mind that just because you’ve managed to derez a nasty, expensive ICE like Archer, it doesn’t mean it’s gone. A smart Corp could let you get complacent then rez it during a crucial run and really ruin your day.

Overall, I think this is a really neat foray by Nisei into the Crim virus design space with a strong derez effect that fits neatly into the blue colour pie. It’s not quite like anything that’s appeared in the game before and I’ve had a blast playing with it so far.

P.S. Do NOT send me screenshots of this review if in 3 months time this card is being blamed for ruining the game.

Out of Spark, if you were to install and rez one of these, then the runner immediately ran and trashed it, you’d have spent 1 to gain 1 and cost the runner 1 and 4. A 5 swing for a click isn’t too shabby, though I’m not sure it’s quite strong enough to make the cut. Slots be tight, as they say.

The obvious comparison for this is Pop-up Window.

The differences are:
• Nets you 3c instead of 1c (if the runner doesn’t beak it)
• The runner also nets 1c is they let the sub fire
• Doesn’t tax the runner if they’re willing to let you gain creds
• 3str instead of 0
• 1c to rez instead of 0
• 2 inf instead of 1
• No conditional ETR

They’re both cheap, mildly annoying NBN Code Gates. Being Advertisements, they both gain extra value out of Spark. So which to include?

So far I’ve yet to see it take over Pop-up as the de facto cheap/annoying NBN ICE. I think they’re pretty evenly matched power-wise but I think the fact that it gifts the runner creds and doesn’t tax if they let it fire are keeping it from seeing play. Out of Spark, it might be worth including a couple of both, but otherwise I think Pop-up still wins out.

Regardless, it’s a well designed Nisei card that boosts a fairly fringe ID. It‘s great to see them releasing cards that have the potential to make underused IDs more viable.

Another intriguing card from Downfall. Clearly meant to be a fairer replacement for Maxwell James, though time will tell whether it actually is.

Seems like a good fit for Geist or maybe tag-me Liza.

An obvious combo is with The Turning Wheel in which runners can repeatedly bounce off ETR ice to build up counters on both until they have enough to derez something nasty/expensive then go for a deep dive. Though I reckon this can be countered fairly easily with careful ICE placement.

The annoying tag that comes with it can be handily dealt with by another Downfall card: Flip Switch. Using this out of Geist with a few Tech Traders installed, you can derez an ice while gaining 2 draws and potentially 6 mid run, which isn’t too shabby at all.

I’m sure someone will find a way to abuse this into NPE hell before long, but until then, I think it’s a solid addition to Geist’s arsenal.