This card is extremely powerful, but also situational. It is effectively an engine multiplier for run-based effects, which allows you to exploit a limited window where running propels you forward, and hit it two or three times as hard. Because it is situational in when it is good, and because it returns itself to hand when fully utilized (preventing the corp from trashing it along with the hosting ICE) many decks only run one copy to fetch with Self-modifying Code at the right moment.

To take advantage of Pichação, you generally need to run the same server multiple times in a single turn; while you can save a click on your first run, you are often effectively paying a click to install Pichação in the first place, so it takes specific circumstances like being able to use Arissana's clickless install to get any value out of a single run. This line can still be valuable into certain HB and NBN decks that are trying to punish standard four-click turns--hello Oppo Research--or for using Deep Dive, but it's not the upper limit of the card.

So why run the same server multiple times in a turn? Because it can deliver value unlike any other runner economy. Scenario: Arissana has access to R&D for 2 and possesses an installed SMC, along with two installed copies of Aeneas Informant.

Click 1: Slap Kyuban on the R&D ICE.
Click 2: Run R&D. Pop SMC for Conduit. Use Arissana to install Pichação on the R&D ICE. Make back your 2 with Kyuban. Access a trashable card on R&D and make 2 off your Aeneas Informants.
Click 3: Click Conduit. Access 2 from R&D. Both are trashable. +4 total for your run. Pichação returns to the grip during this run, but we still have 3 left to go.
Clicks 4-6: Click Conduit, accessing 3, 4, 5 cards from R&D, making 12+ credits, possibly stealing some agendas...
In this example, without Pichação, clicks 5 and 6 don't exist before the corp can secure R&D. Pichação was worth 2 to 3 new R&D accesses and somewhere between 8 and 18 credits depending on how many trashables we found in R&D (and chose not to trash).

Even just a regular Asa list on Fully Operational is going to have some single-iced remote at some point in the game. If you can access that server cheaply and profit 3 to 4 credits per run, you can make 12+ credits in a turn, with Pichação being responsible for roughly half of it. There is even the option of simply throwing two Kyuban and a Pichação on a single cheap-to-break or unrezzed outermost ICE and jacking out after passing it, but this carries the flaw in that the corp almost certainly will trash that ICE next turn if they have another in hand to get rid of two Kyubans.

This card should cause absolute terror for any corp that sees it appear on the table at the right time, because it usually means the Shaper has achieved their Shaper dreams this turn, and your server is about to be their little playground.

I'm going to review this card since no one else has, I guess. This card is absolutely terrible and has virtually no deck that it will make stronger in any way other than reducing its total agenda count in some weird all-in deck that does not intend to score out, and even that should not be done without first playing all the 5/3 agendas with better tempo or defensive abilities that have not yet rotated, e.g. Ikawah Project and Send a Message.

First of all, this card only has text if you score it while you have less than four agenda points. That's a pretty bad start for a 5/3, as almost all of the actually played 5/3s for the majority of the game's lifespan have had some way to protect them from randomly being ripped out of a central server for a massive swing. Furthermore, the effect having the line "whenever you score an agenda" is incredibly ill-fitting for a 5/3. since that event will generally happen zero to one more times before a victor is declared. No clause for Runner steals to be found, no defensive abilities for this agenda or future ones.

Second, this card simply deals one core damage when scored. That means the runner loses probably 0-3 credits of value most of the time (unless it's Esâ Afontov, who thanks you for the tempo) and the runner is slightly inconvenienced for the rest of the game by a smaller handsize. It turns out that one core damage can generally just be shrugged off, except maybe for Lat. Meanwhile you, the corp, get absolutely no benefit. In fact, you are often left penniless from the cost of spending two turns advancing this card five times and protecting it. Which makes the promise of more core damage when you score your next agenda (that you are now in an absolutely terrible position to score) a bit hollow. Even if you do land two core damage in a game... so what? That's not exactly game-winning levels of tempo. It does allow a kill with End of the Line, should you also land a tag, but kill decks that start with "First, score a 5/3 and a second agenda" kind of have the idea of "multiple win conditions" all wrong.

But what about setting up Ontological Dependence? Sure, this is relevant, but the cost is honestly much too great. Using Salvo Testing to score your core damage still only gets you halfway to making Ontological Dependence a worthwhile card in your deck, unless you score a second agenda afterwards. Meanwhile, playing a 5/3 without forward tempo is going to make it very hard for those juicy potential 2/2 payoffs to not just get ripped out of centrals. Still, this at least resembles a game plan, albeit a clunky, poor one, and this is certainly the closest thing to a valid use case for the card right now. You're better off using either access traps or Djupstad Grid to get your work done; as money-hungry as Djupstad Grid is, it at least won't actively lose you the game as often as Salvo Testing will.

If you think the concept of this card is fun, go ahead, make a jank deck that tries to build around it, play it ten or fifteen times until you actually make this card do literally anything, and get it out of your system. Hopefully you can land three core damage with it somehow and feel like you had a good time. Solidly binder fodder otherwise, though.

Like many green cards that need a tag, this card will probably see play almost exclusively in Weyland and NBN. However, it serves largely different purposes for the two factions.

In Weyland, while this can provide tempo, the easy access to a more direct tag-based win condition. nasty Destroyers, and solid ICE with EtR subroutines makes this more likely to show up in a rigshooter deck. Thanks to the rotation of the bin breakers, this is a viable way to win the game, either by totally locking the runner out, or by slowing them down enough as to create a scoring window as they dig through their deck looking for a lifeline. (Just watch out for Shapers who are happy to just pop a Simulchip and keep your remote locked down.)

In NBN, this card fills the same role as Self-Growth Program: it directly taxes the runner's time and money by removing something they had to draw and pay for, keeping them too poor to make runs, clear tags, trash assets, and steal Bellona or pay other taxes NBN may present to them. As a rule of thumb, Retribution will generally slow criminals the most and shapers the least, outside of the most gimmicky criminal decks that barely install anything, at any rate; Self-Growth Program may be a better option if you're specifically trying to target Shapers. It is still competing with a few other tag punishment options that exist in-faction, but for single tag punishment, it's one of the better options in slot.

In other factions, Retribution has yet to make a splash, but The Automata Initiative did just add the most compelling reasons yet as to why this could be worth a one-influence splash by adding Jaguarundi and Phoneutria as solid ICE that makes avoiding tags uncomfortable for the runner, but giving neither faction a particularly great way to capitalize on a single tag (outside of Hypoxia which needs a very specific deck to generate enough value for the corp). That said, Retribution is still a bit at odds with the normal gameplan for these factions, which makes it hard to earn its slot.

Before you get all hyped about this card, you need to realize that it does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER until the runner would have 7 points if it wasn't there. That's right, this is a 2-point liability that offers zero economy, zero pressure, zero benefit to the corp whatsoever (but a large benefit to the runner if they're that one guy who still plays Iain Sterling). As an active liability with zero benefit, it's a serious contender for worst card in the entire game. If you see this as a runner, calmly ignore it entirely unless the corp leaves it exposed with no upgrade, or if you snipe it from a central and can afford the trash cost. You don't care about it at all until you're on seven points, and if you go for it early the corp will have an easier time scoring.

When the runner hits 5 points before the Board modifier, now trashing it wins them the game. The corp needs to scramble to protect this at all costs, or blow it up with Self-destruct... again, before it's actually benefited them in any way whatsoever. All of this is no doubt making it incredibly hard to score, so the corp needs to work out some kind of miracle flatline victory in the meantime. The Board does have a hefty trash cost of 7, and that's its one saving grace, but that won't actually come into play if you're forced to blow it up to save it. Forcing a runner to go through a server after this has its benefits, but those benefits are much more cheaply realized by an MCA Austerity Policy or IT Department, and those actually leave the server you paid so much into intact afterwards.

At 7 would-be points, this card becomes the whole game. The corp can no longer trash it themselves, and the runner will be going after it with everything they've got. The corp's best plan at this point is to just put all resources on guarding the Board while throwing 1-pointers behind a token amount of ice just to keep the runner from accumulating resources. I can't really see this plan resulting in success outside of the surprise Biotic Philotic play.