This plays very well with any deck that has small agendas and/or negative-point agendas like News Team and Nightmare Archive. When the runner has at least 2 agendas and/or fake agendas, which will probably be most of the game, this is cheaper than a Hedge Fund and has more upside.

It's most obviously useful in Thule/Sportsmetal and PE. HB has Nightmare Archives and cards like Djupstad Grid and Big Deal which you might slot in rich builds. PE is cash-poor and can win long games. It has many cards that can convert cash into damage (Anemone, Snare, Reaper Function) or taxing ice or into forcing runs that the runner cannot afford yet (Dr. Keeling).

It's less useful in Weyland which has efficient and fast cards but generally not great cards or ID support for winning a long game.

Most corps can recur ~4-6 cards depending on how many Spin Doctors they find. This is a much better target for recursion than most economic cards. A 4th copy of Hedge Fund only adds $2-3 to your deck's economic potential. An additional copy of Stock Buyback adds something like $6-10 (assuming the runner will probably have 3-4 agendas in their score area by the time you can find the recurred copy).

It's a terminal, which makes it harder to combo with Hard-Hitting News (or Big Deal) but otherwise is not too awkward. Most of the decks that need this card do not need a huge spike to do something this turn but rather need a huge amount of money floating around.

The art is beautiful. The most obvious approach to this card would have been more boring (a bunch of investors hashing out a business deal).

"A stock dropping sharply is bad for shareholders, but not necessarily bad for the company." The only way a company is generating money from a dropping stock price is if it is secretly shorting itself. Cons to secretly shorting yourself: your shareholders didn't become The Board by NOT setting people on fire that tried to rob them. Pros: robbing your shareholders seems less likely to get you murdered from orbit than drowning millions of Californians for the insurance money? It's not uncharted territory for Weyland.

This is a high-impact deck slot. 7 clicks to net $13 adds roughly +$6 to your economy more than you would have gotten clicking for credits. In contrast, Hedge Fund is ~2 clicks to net $4, which adds roughly +$2 to your economy more than clicking. If your gameplay can spare a lot of clicks for earning money, this is a really really good card.

You could have this card take your scoring server a few turns, but the trash card on this card is high enough that it does a reasonable job protecting a naked install in a new server. If you install this card naked and they run on it, you're probably winning on the exchange. (You've spent a click and a card, and they've lost $3 and a click). If you install it naked and immediately collect $6 from it, you're definitely winning on the exchange against an unassisted run. (You spend 3 clicks and a card to net +$4, and they lose a click and -$3... spending 2 net clicks and a card to cause a credit swing of $7 is fantastic, this is better than a Diversion of Funds/Boomerang play).

Even if the runner has a Dirty Laundry, installing this card naked breaks even on the play (both players spend 1 click and a card, and no money changes hands) if no other card support is available.

A $2 rez cost makes it one of the easiest options for bouncing back from a cash crunch.

This is mainly for people that want to trash their own cards, but don't need this as a recurring effect. If you're in Ob, Svyatogor Excavator is probably more reliable long-term value.

Some situations for Extract:

1. You're on Regenesis and need to get a stale agenda into Archives without making them suspicious enough to check archives. Convince yourself that it's really a Snare you're putting back in Archives so you can recur it later. It's more believable if it had been in a server with upgrades. It just looks like you want that server open for an eventual agenda.
2. You have gearcheck ice or rez-effect ice or other ice which produce short-term value but relatively little long-term value. Once they've found a fracter, an ice like Wraparound only costs $1 to break. If you were thinking of installing over it anyway, you might as well get paid to get rid of it.
3. You're on Ob and you may need to immediately search the deck for a card rather than install an Excavator and wait a turn, or can't count on an Excavator surviving the turn.
4. You're on Nanisibirisk Grid and need to get an ice facedown into Archives without making them suspicious enough to check archives. Hansei Review is usually better for this (HR doesn't announce what kind of card gets discarded, doesn't require an install, and costs less influence).

Drago is the most reliable way to land a tag on the corp's turn. The runner's cards for surviving tags on the corp's turn like No Free Lunch help temporarily but the runner still needs a plan to immediately deal with him. Drago is probably the highest-priority target for emergency tools like Pinhole Threading.

In Reality+, he's a cashflow-neutral way to drip tags. With La Costa Grid, a Reality Plus player gains money giving the runner a tag each turn. In Ob, an Urban Renewal does 4 meat damage and trashes itself at the start of the corp's turn, allowing an Ob player to clicklessly install Drago. The turn typically ends in the runner's fiery death.

If a NBN or Weyland player is suspiciously light on central ice and slow to score agendas, a heavily guarded remote server suggests Drago is coming. Along with Dr. Keeling, Drago is probably the leading tool for decks that don't plan on scoring out.

A demon in yoga pants

The art is genius and wildly fitting. Everything's slightly off. The lady's wrist and arm appear to be melting, nobody holds their arms that high except screaming hostages, Drago's right shoe might be a sock and his spandex pants have so little slack they will explode crotch-first if he attempts a jumping jack. Ivanov's job is to induce terror and break minds. He has no use for comforting bourgeois illusions like "objective reality" and "human anatomy" and "not wearing like six sets of underwear to yoga class". This isn't an office, it's an eldritch cult, and everyone's invited.

Update: Drago is banned in Standard as of March 2023. No more yoga pants, no more cult, for now.

"Expensive? Not when you're protecting a fortune as large as ours."

I don't care who you are or what you're protecting, hiring Rick Sanchez and Sagat for your rolling hitsquad is not cheap. Plus whatever tag support they need.