Many people despise it, but I really like this card. It is basically a Komainu taken trap form, activated with a Psi game, giving you about 67% chance of working. Doesn't work from R&D, neither from HQ or Archives, only installed - so, the usefulness of this there toy is mostly limited. Or is it?

Obvious answer - depends on the meta. If your locals play a lot of exposure gadgetry, this will induce rage and pain harder than an easily countered Junebug. Psychic field doesn't need to be advanced in order to work and has a trashing cost of 2, which may or may not help if accessed from somewhere else than the remote server - depends on circumstances, but it is better than whopping 0 of its rival and somehow justifies that you have to spend additional credits in order to fire it.

Contrary to Junebug, Psychic Field won't flatline a runner, but you can easily do this yourself with a Ronin, Neural EMP. What it will do instead is set him (or her) back a long friggin' way.

If I may make a suggestion? Toss it in, just one copy, if you will. See what it does. Maybe not in the first match, maybe not in the tenth, but at some point, it will fire. And you will laugh. And they will cry.

Now, if there was a card that would let you expose an installed card to the runner... Maybe someday it will - and then Jinteki will break the game to pieces.

EDIT: There you go! 419: The Amoral Scammer hates this card with perfect hatred. You've got a good chance of being just a won psi-game from an easy victory, provided you can follow up with Neural EMP or Ronin.

Score this one somewhere midgame, but not somewhere groundbreaking - along with one little, worthless agenda. Then give them some Shi.Kyū, perhaps a Medical Breakthrough or two, let them score some Chronos Projects or maybe one House of Knives. Make them feel safe and far ahead of you.

Then drop a 24/7 News Cycle.

Simple.

One of my favourite agendas of all times - it actually lets you absolutely turn the tables when everything else seems lost and the runner is winning 6 to 0. And who wouldn't want to?

With this card, you are absolutely crippling about 90% of now and future Runners. If this isn't worth the shot, I don't know what is.

As everything interesting about its mechanics has already been said by those who came here before me, I'd like to add one thing and one thing only:

Ladies and Gentlemen, hats off for a single most awesome reference in a flavor text ever.

Listen up, guys (and gals, if any gals are reading this I'm deeply flattered) - when I wrote this review, I was in kinda dark place. But then I scored me some rent-a-cops as Jinteki and it suddenly became A LOT funnier.

Read the rest of the review if you want. If you don't, just splice this card and watch the sparks fly.

It's a Jinteki card - but not the one Jinteki plays. No, no - tag vs. 1 brain damage is no choice at all for a Runner rising against this japanese biotech megacorporation, as most of the times the tag isn't just as dangerous as reducing your maximum hand size by one. You could try and play it to force the runner to lose some creds, but honestly - you have about 66% chance for it to work.

No. Where Cerebral Cast really shines is when being outsourced to a deck profiting from tagging the runner. Upon realizing that you could, anytime, explode his sorry self to the orbit, rob him blind or just outright murder his extended family and friends, he is much more likely to take this one brain damage instead of exposing himself to the hardships of being tracked. And when he does, it becomes so much easier to murder him later - after all, he's at four cards tops now!

Want more wackiness? Splash a single Scorched Earth into your average Jinteki passive-agressive brain/net damage compound, then watch him choose a tag with that smile of pity on his face... And make him never smile like this again! Now that's a clever ploy - to pretend your deck actually does something else than just simply tagbag, and then do exactly this. This might be the ultimate bluff ever done in Jinteki.

It is three influence a piece. This, by any stretch of the imagnation, is not cheap for a card that might help - or might not help at all, or even worsen things by two credits and still do nothing.

For a card that doesn't even know where does it belong.

Another Kenny-themed piece, next to Express Delivery, Public Terminal and, in a way, Clone Retirement. Is it any good? Let's see!

As a Criminal, you are going to spend quite a lot of time running with event cards. What do you play events for? For starters, to sneak around, to borrow some creds, to eat yoghurt, among many other things. That's what we all know. You rarely get to play these cards on your first click each turn - when you actually use these, you really, really want them to succeed - you take some time to set it up or else waste a good thing and fall behind your opponent.

This card, though, is different. This is a run to be played strictly as your first click. And it is your most genuine, vanillia run without any fireworks. If you succeed, that's cool - you managed to snatch a fifth in your turn and made it count, not exposing yourself to risks of getting a fatal stroke. If you don't succeed, you are back at four (provided the Corp didn't hand you your butt in a disposable bag).

What does this mean? Well, since the former happens rarely and most times you are going to screw this one run up, there is one field in which this Run is exceptional - for 1 (or 0, if you are cool enough), you get a click-free facecheck! And you can facecheck for a number of reasons - to simply get to know what's in the box, to make the Corp lose some creds for rezzing and sometimes even let himself off the guard (possibly clearing the way for other, meaner Run events you've got in store?). With a combination of proper sense and some sheer luck, this card might work similiar to Forged Activation Orders, and who wouldn't like more of this stuff?

But apart from our white-haired driver and his partners in crime, there is one guy in particular who may like this card. Enter Adam and his compulsions - Early Bird might either be a way to save an otherwise wasted click or a way to break any one subroutine for just a click instead of two.

It is two influence a piece, and given the card's specific usefulness I highly doubt we are going to see it outside Ken's own pocket - and even if so, certainly not outside Criminal faction, as it best fits their playstyle - with Adam being a possible exception. But who knows?