At the time of this writing, you'll notice there's a loooooot of corp cards coming out that essentially do what Jackson Howard does, but weaker. The reason being of course that our beloved Toy Boy, the Howard himself, will soon be gone, and corps need a way to survive without his infuriating strong (and painfully necessary) effect. This is one of those cards.

It does the job well enough. Find a way to overdraw, or trash agendas from HQ, and then this turn or the next play Preemptive Action, making them safe again. It may not have the ability to bait that an asset like Jackson may have, but this card can't be trashed (at least, not easily) and doesn't cost any influence either, so its got that going for it.

Which isn't to say it doesn't have its negatives. Remember how I said "this turn or the next" up there? Well, if you've really got no way to get the flood out of your hand besides overdrawing, then you have no choice--You have to let those agendas sit in archives for an entire runner's turn, a dangerous prospect. It gets even more dangerous if the runner runs on HQ after you do so and sees this card in your hand. They'll know exactly what to do next. Finally, if you do want to use it the same turn you trash those agendas, you not only need at least one more card to make the combo work, but that's gonna be most of your turn to boot. Not an attractive prospect.

Still, what can you do? I'll tell you what you can do. You can stick three of these and three Jacksons in your deck while he's still legal and have recursion strength that up until now was reserved for those scumbags, the runners. So slot these cards and a crapton of operations in your deck and GO WILD WHILE YOU CAN FOLKS.

Another ice destruction card for Anarch, nice! That wasn't sarcasm by the way, I genuinely love that that's one of the big Anarch "things," and I think this card is an excellent iteration of said thing. Because of the conditions necessary for its use, it costs zero creds, which is wild, considering those conditions are not hard to fulfill. You need to make a successful run this turn to use it? Big deal, you're a runner. You don't really have a choice. The only difficulty is making sure ice stay unrezzed, and there's plenty of ways to do that:

DDoS, installed the turn before, allows you to trash two, TWO ice for a three credit buy in. And you got some successful runs out of it to boot. Good stuff.

Run Amok and En Passant is a hilarious combo. Run Amok into their one iced server for free access (or the ice kill, either way is a win for you), and next click kill that same ice they were so keen on keeping installed. Talk about a one-two punch.

Emergency Shutdown and En Passant. Not the most graceful combo, but in case there's a big piece of ice you really need to destroy, this does the job very well. If said ice is installed on HQ, it gets even better, and requires one less run. I could definitely see some runners who don't care about tags using Account Siphon, then Emergency Shutdown, and then En Passant, which is a one-two punch with a sucker punch to the groin thrown in for good measure (the true Anarch way).

One thing to note, which only makes this card even stronger, is that the successful run you have to make DOES NOT need to be the same run in which you passed the unrezzed ice you want to destroy. So you can definitely get a free, easy run on Archives, then pass an ice on R&D, bounce off the ETR ice after that, and then En Passant. There's a lot of cool possibilities with this card.

This and Enhanced Login Protocol are pretty similar, right? They both tax the runner's first click, they're both currents, etc. So, which one is worth using? Let's see if we can figure that out by looking at how ELP is normally used, and how they're different:

1. ELP is used for the same thing all corp currents are used for: turning off runner currents. ELP is Haas, SO is NBN. This may seem like a "Duh, who cares" kind of point, but it's important when considering what currents those corps already have access to. NBN, now that this card is out, has a whopping six currents in faction. Haas has only two, and one of those two is worthless (outside of an incredibly specific type of deck). So when NBN or Haas needs a current, there's a huge disparity in their influence free selection. Haas really only has access to ELP (and one neutral current (this card is not worth mentioning), while NBN has tons of great stuff. Targeted Marketing, Media Blitz, and Manhunt are all incredibly powerful, with TarMar having the advantage of being useful in literally any kind of corp deck and being free to play on top of it. What this means then, I think, is even if usage of ELP is rare, it'll still be a lot less rare than SO will be. Haas has access to little else after all, while NBN has access to a lot (and better).

2. What about Jinteki: Replicating Perfection? ELP isn't in every RP deck, but it's great if you have the room and inf to spare. Forcing the runner to spend not one, not two, but three clicks to get a shot at your scoring server is the equivalent of a game crime, and it gets all the more disgusting when you've got a nisei token on top of that. So would SO be favorable to ELP in this situation? Well, firstly, SO is one inf, while ELP is two. This doesn't seem like a lot, but it's big. This means two SOs can be slotted for the inf of one ELP, giving better consistency and defense against runners countering it. SO is also impossible to ignore, unlike ELP. ELP doesn't do anything if the runner is using run events or certain Anarch stuff to make their runs, while SO will always tax one cred no matter what. SO also costs only one cred to use, as opposed to ELP's two cred cost (which in Jinteki decks, is important). Yet even with all that I don't see SO edging out ELP for RP decks. One cred, especially taxed several times over the course of a game, can be brutal, but it still doesn't compare to the cost of a few clicks. Let's assume both currents were to fire off an equal amount of times on average for this kind of deck, around two or three times. With SO, you've spent one cred to deprive them of two to three credits. Assuming this isn't a trash runner deck, a click is typically worth at least two creds, which means ELP costs them about four to six creds for your two. Similar ratios, but it's pretty much always true that bigger credit losses for the runner are worth the bigger investments from the corp. This gives ELP a distinct advantage of paying of significantly better significantly faster. Plus there's the added bonus in the versatility that a click provides, and what taking that away does. Sure, you're depriving them of more potential money, but you're also taking away the ability for them to threaten R&D, HQ, and your scoring server on the same turn. Or making Notoriety outright impossible. Or a bunch of other crippling possibilities, because you stole a whole click and not just one cred.

tl;dr this card isn't great. In faction it's edged out by a plethora of other options, and out of faction there's a less consistent but much more powerful current to use. It may see use in horizontal taxing decks (Perhaps CTM just found a fun new tool for being even more oppressive?), but outside of that I doubt you'll see it at all.

If you're expecting to see a lot of Brainstorms, Flares, and Janus 1.0s in your local meta, then maybe this card is worth it. But for a five credit install cost, and more than likely at least six more credits to derez (Not even destroy, just derez!) that beastly killer, you're almost paying as much as the corp did to rez the dang thing. Maybe more. Sure Khan's ability turns that average cost of 11 credits into 10, but that still begs the question--Why aren't you just using Faerie and Emergency Shutdown, or something similar?

This is a Criminal card that somehow ended up the color orange. Let me explain.

Imp, Wanton Destruction, Scrubber, Edward Kim: Humanity's Hammer, and Whizzard: Master Gamer. These are all orange cards that do one very important thing: they trash stuff. That's only a few of the Anarch options available for doing so too; there's many more. Some of those cards do it outright, and some give you the resources you need to do it. Either way, when they help you destroy something, it is a guaranteed destruction. Credit Crash is not.

With Credit Crash, you can't just rush into a server guns blazing and wreck whatever you like, as is often the Anarch way. Unlike the cards mentioned up above, Credit Crash is a bit harder to use, and requires some planning. Some set-up first. It requires you to either have a lockdown on the corps credit pool, or for you to be using Credit Crash to do that exact thing, and have a follow-up strike on the ready. And which faction loves to have their hands in the corp's bank, with cards such as Account Siphon, Forged Activation Orders, and High-Stakes Job, just to name a few? Criminals, that's who.

Account Siphon and then use Credit Crash to destroy their SanSan City Grid for free. Or Emergency Shutdown an ice protecting an Eve Campaign, and make the corp choose between re-rezzing that ice to stop you, or having the money to keep their asset alive. There's plenty of possibilities, and Crims are the ones with them most readily at their fingertips. The card is also only one influence, and one credit to use, so splashing a copy or two into a crim deck built to use it is a pretty good deal.

Just be careful about using this card in a run on R&D or HQ. Unless you're 100% sure about what you're about to access, you could hit something like a Subliminal Messaging, or Jackson Howard. What a waste.