At 3 creds this is far too expensive to throw out and hope for the best; that's a whole Museum of History you could have killed!

It needs a setup to ensure it recoups that expense. I can think of one-

Film Critic host an agenda, then at the start of the next turn Aesop's Pawnshop your Film critic.

The Agenda goes to archives.

Then play this click 1,..

Hit archives click 2... score your agenda and score this

Hope you cleared out Jackson first...

Pure and simple glacier hate.

For me this thing is a card 45; I don't know about you, but when I build a runner deck I like to include a tiny janky trick to help throw the opponent off balance and gain momentum. This card is that sort of trick. Not a game plan but a destabilizer.

Detonate it before you encounter the first ICE of a 4 deep glacier and well your Faust will probably take you through the one ice they are able to rez. Keep in mind they can rez 1 ice AFTER you blow this, so you need to pop it upfront to get maximum exposure.

If they only put 1 ice on a server like those Gagarin Deep Space: Expanding the Horizon kids well... this does nothing

What this card is doing mechanically is preventing the corp leveraging their assets. They can have 30 creds more than you, but say you have this and Film Critic around, there will be very few ways for the corp to leverage their 30 credit advantage to touch you while you can run on a wing and a Faust with only a fistful of creds around to detag if need be/pop that one ice you'll be facing.

I see 2 potential use cases:

1. Keep it hidden in hand, harass their centrals, let them think they have a scoring window behind their glacier, then pop the bomb down on click 1 detonate and run click 2, loling as your Faust gets you through the 1 ice of their glacier they are able to rez. Crescentus that 1 ice after breaking for bonus points.

2. Put it down early. Make them panic, keep their agendas in hand, or stuffed in archives- Hades Shard or Legwork for the win.

I think use case 1 is more likely to lead to your scoring. This card is an example of when the runner needs to keep their rig secret right up until the moment its used. Revealing this early may cause them to spread more thinly and be less blaze about installing agendas, which will decrease the usefulness of this bomb. (although to be fair that secrecy should go for every piece of your rig... The runner has as many secrets as the corp, its just harder to keep them...)

As of writing ( 30/03 in the year of our lord 2016) this card isn’t particularly relevant as net-runner’s meta is more horizontal than a limbo contest in a brothel.

No, right now my utility pick is not this card.

Still, its powerful, cheap and hardware. As its hardware they probably wont have an answer (hai Taurus!) It is great vs glacier... if only they hadn’t all melted...

Opening moves gave us a card that is fundamental to the dynamic of net runner; that has seen play in nearly every game since… Alongside Jackson Howard It also gave us this card: False Echo. A card that has seen ‘trace amounts’ of play since and no particularly strong use case.

I suppose the intention was that this card would cause a corp playing expensive ice to lose a click every now and again- when they couldn’t afford to rez a piece and it moved back to their hand? Or perhaps to reveal a planned flatline surprise early? (Like that Komainu which you were saving for a house of knives score... Mind you Komainu was still a pup back then not to be released into the hunting grounds for some time.)

How often do these situations occur though? Really? Most ice is cheap enough just to rez when threatened by this. Including a card to counter an edge case against some jank deck hardly seems justified. -and the memory units could otherwise be occupied by something useful in situations that actually occur during games of netrunner.

So this didn’t see play.

That was until late 2015 when DDoS was released.

Now there is a fairly amusing combo where DDOS forces the corp to not rez their outermost ice, and then this card sends it back to the hand. If you have multiple of these installed, you can pull down an unrezzed glacier as each subsequent ice becomes the outermost. However the combo isn’t that great, being slow to come out and not especially painful considering the investment time to set up. -and frankly Blackmail Valencia is just easier. Its something though, and on occasion it comes together to win the game.

Still this wins the hipster card of 2015 award. It’s a retro card, its unpopular and its a pretty cool looking if not all that functional combo to pull off. Probably the corp won by the time you managed though…

What I actually like about this whole tale- this card proves how the design space of netrunner allows even terribad cards like this to become useful when the right support is released. Netrunner provides us with a constantly evolving puzzle on how to wring every piece of value out of the components we’ve been given. It’s nice to see this card have its 15 minutes- knowing that even if briefly- it got its time in the sun because of a great game and a great community.

I salute you all- and this card is evidence why I should.

At 0 cost to install 1 click to drop, 1 click to cash in, technical writer will start making you a profit after your third install of hardware/software.

So clearly this is very deck dependent- If you run a lot of programs or hardware then technical writer can make you a nice stack of cash. If you don't then its going to sit there doing jack...

Technical writer loves Replicator as this things just keeps sending more install able cards and it loves Consumer Electronics, as they are cheap to install and push up the hardware density of your deck. I'm not sure that we love consumer electronics yet though... so I'll leave you to judge whether or not you think the writer is worth it because of these cards.

Technical writer also loves being stacked. A lot. Give me piles of technical writers and I'l shove them in a room and throw Bookmarks at them to make notes. Imagine a situation where you have 3 technical writers and install a bookmark; You just clicked once, installed a hardware and made 3 credits. Of course you need to click 3 times to retrieve those credits so i hope you have installed more than 1 bookmark before you tried to cash in....

As such technical writer is a card that not only requires the right deck, but the right timing. You need to install the thing early; before you install your programs and hardware. A Sure Gamble is a sure gamble at the start or the end of the game, a technical writer is glittering gold at the start and boring bronze at the end. Draw one or two towards the start of the match and you can swing 20 credits in 2 clicks. If your writers are sat the bottom of your stack, they are dead cards.

For this reason I think you need to include 3 writers in your deck if you go for them; just to make sure they turn up in time.

Caveat Levy AR Lab Access can save the late writer-i f you plan to install your stack then levy and do it all over again a late writer can give you a second wind.

An issue with the writer- because of the timing constraint on the writer (it has to come down early) if there is ever a widely accepted technical writer strategy.... the early install will telegraph your plans to your opponent.....

Final consideration is that you need to protect your writers as they accrue cash. Not much is bleaker than a 15 cred writer getting trashed....

IDs that might like technical writer:

Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: Digital Tinker- she wants to install programs and hardware at least once a turn; perfect. Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire- he wantsto install as many programs as possible Armand "Geist" Walker: Tech Lord- The breaking and entering suite means a lot of program installs over the course of the game Exile: Streethawk-Probably, I guess? I cant play him but it looks like a good fit

Overall I think its worth including in an install heavy deck, Those 20-30 credit 2 click swings midway through a match are incredibly powerful. -And of course a technically correct win is certainly the best kind of win... because you know... if not... you were cheating...

I like it in Shaper with Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: Digital Tinker

TLDR you can replicate and sell them to thin your deck and get an Easy Mark each turn. Actually its better than an easy mark because you dont need to click to draw. Or you can use them to prevent damage, then user shaper recursion to get the cards you want back...

Full use case-

5 copies are included in my deck which features a lot of other cheap hardware and 3x Replicator + Aesop's Pawnshop

I sell one each turn for 3 profit using kates ability to install for -1 and replicate the next one in. Alternatively i keep them and use them to counter net damage/brain damage against Jinteki: Personal Evolution and in this instance just sell the rest of my economy.

The reasons Ramujan is good for this are:-

• Its cheap to install so i can maximize Aesop profit.
• I can include up to 6 so i can reliably keep replicating them in and getting an easy mark every turn for 6 turns. All the while thinning my deck without a need to click to draw. Just a click to install (so actually 1 click more efficient than easy mark after economic engine is set up)
• They work well in Shaper because clone chip and levy ar lab access enable their damage preventing abilities. That lightspeed sharper recursion means that taking damage on your stack isn't such a risk. So i can use them as a net and brain damage counter if required

EDIT- Technical Writer has great synergy with these consumer electronics as well, frequently netting up to around 10-12 creds on a writer if installed early.

EDIT 2- This thing absolutely defangs Cerebral Overwriter #ronin and Snare! (remember to take the tag off) and makes Project Junebug much less fatal. However its use is very much enabled by Replicator and Kate "Mac" McCaffrey: Digital Tinker and having the backup plan of making it Aesop's Pawnshop and Technical Writer food if its function is unneeded in the matchup.

I look forward to seeing if anyone else fits it into other decks.