Special Order is especially useful in a deck that relies on "temporary" breakers (e.g. Faerie). While recursion should of course be a priority in a deck loaded with these, the ability to search up a replacement in a pinch can function as a very useful backup to a standard recursion suite.

Special Order also functions as a "toolbox" card, allowing the Runner to use a number of one-of Icebreakers that each have a limited niche, but are exceedingly effective WITHIN that niche. Then when they draw Special Order, they can fetch one that happens to be applicable to the current game. This is probably the best way to use oddball icebreakers like Gingerbread, allowing the assembly of a rig tailor-made to efficiently run against the servers presented in the current game at the cost of some time and credits (as well as the hidden cost of sometimes drawing icebreakers that are currently useless).

Sharpshooter and Deus X deserve special mention here, as they are both temporary AND highly situational. Thus having a single copy of each along with Special Order to fetch them can allow a Runner to gain surprise accesses when it's most important. At only one influence each, slipping a one-of into a Criminal deck running SO can offer a nasty surprise to many corps at low cost (especially in the case of Deus X, which doubles as net damage protection and is thus useful in more matchups)

One thing that should unfortunately be noted is that D4v1d is NOT an Icebreaker and thus cannot be fished up with this card. Given the number of nasty ICE that D4v1d is specifically a potent silver bullet against, this is a pretty hefty strike against Special Order in any Anarch deck.

One question you should ask yourself before running Special Order, however, is "why am I not using Self-modifying Code?". The answer will often be influence (SMC is 3 while SO is only 2, and they are different factions so a Criminal deck will of course prefer SO even more), but other possibilities include MU tightness, a desire to specifically have the icebreaker in hand, and stuff that interacts favourably with Events. Note that the one credit saving is NOT a good reason to take this over SMC, because SMC takes one less click to install your program which can simply be spent for a credit if desired.

Overall, Special Order is a tool for reducing the jankiness of fringe icebreakers as well as a general safeguard against getting randomly screwed out of a complete rig. However, due to SMC it is probably best played in-faction or as a one-of to make use of the last two influence in some specific Anarch builds.

I'd like to address a specific potential use of this card: Imported into Haarpsichord Studios: Entertainment Unleashed NBN. There's a number of generic NBN tricks Kitsune has access to, but Haarpsichord opens up a specific and very powerful one: If you force the Runner to access (and thus steal) a one-point Agenda, they cannot steal any other Agendas this turn (including, say, the 5/3 that Kitsune was in front of!)

Combined with the fact that NBN has Agendas like TGTBT, Quantum Predictive Model, and especially 15 Minutes, the interactions here can very quickly become hilariously irritating. Protecting a Franchise City with just Kitsune means when the Runner steals the one-pointer you threw them at you can rez and claim Franchise City, which causes the server to disappear and even denies the Runner the usual benefits of a successful run (e.g. Desperado credit). This is particularly useful against nasty run events. In Haarpsichord this means a one-for-one Agenda point trade...but the Runner is locked out of stealing for the rest of the turn.

One way to open a large scoring window in this scenario is Award Bait. Simply place Kitsune in front of a Restructured Datapool or neutral 5/3 of choice, then when the Runner attempts to access give them the Award Bait and place the two advancement counters on the protected agenda. They can no longer steal it, so you are free to score it next turn.

If you're willing to go all in on the jank, Mushin No Shin offers the possibility of EIGHT advancements on a single Agenda (three from Mushin, two from a possible Award Bait, three from next turn's advancement clicks) although this is generally overkill (six is enough to score a Vanity Project and Project Beale only provides more points at nine).

Kitsune can also support a Haarpsichord kill strategy instead, throwing the Runner at cards like News Team and imported Jinteki traps, or useless/low value Agendas in order to stall the Runner's attempts to score out. Or both if you have TGTBT. News Team is notable because if stacked with a simple Data Raven it threatens with either three tags or -1 Agenda point, both of which represent significant slowdown (or a tag float!)

The strategy's weaknesses include AI breakers (all traps are weak to these), Imp and other trash enablers (it's easier to trash the card you send the Runner at, and in Haarpsichord they can still trash further accessed Agendas even if they can't steal them), Film Critic (Haarpsichord in general falls over to this), and probably some other things I haven't come across yet. Imp can at least be mitigated by including Cyberdex Virus Suite, which interacts well with things already discussed, but of course a well-built deck will use Kitsune as one of many tools to frustrate and defeat the Runner.

In summary, the interaction with Haarpsichord combined with NBN's reasonable pool of irritating to access one point agendas makes Kitsune worth considering in a Haarpsichord deck already built to utilize those, either to stall for a kill or to force through larger agendas and/or Franchise City, simply due to the sheer volume of favourable interactions with already effective NBN cards. Further synergies are left as an exercise for the reader.

I've been testing a Haarp deck recently, and I find this potential to be very interesting. It is actually fairly easy to win with Haarp by scoring if you can just keep pushing the runner into traps and 1-point agendas while scoring out 2's. —
This is actually a very good point. I talked a lot about the best cases, but Haarp can be very effective at grinding out a win from a small point advantage so throwing the runner at 1's and scoring out 2's is a perfectly legitimate path to victory. —

Just wanted to flag interaction with Quantum Predictive Model here...QPM triggers on access and I THINK the result is you can rez this after they pass their last jack out window and claim two Agenda points. It's a neat interaction, but it requires them to be tagged which is unfortunate as you can't just naked remote the QPM unless the runner is tag floating and sticking it behind a solitary Data Raven is liable to raise eyebrows.

2 cost trash means it can't really be just left out undefended unless you've got potential traps lying around, although if you defend it with a single Kitsune you can rez and activate this on approach, then send them at an agenda in HQ (QPM with a tagged runner is obviously the dream, but that's way too many moving parts to really have a go at).

Given that Kitsune has decent interactions with News Team and this works best with low cost Agendas, it might be worth including one or two copies in the deck Hayati is proposing. Plus with Haarpsichord Studios: Entertainment Unleashed Kitsune can also hilariously throw the Runner at a one-point Agenda while they're running on something bigger...but that's a story for another review. It does seem to have several specific points of synergy in this build though.

15 minutes is an even better kitsune fire. Get your point and take theirs back. —
I just stumbled across 15 minutes and was heading here to edit it in. Looks like you beat me to it! Also it turns out I can't write the big "why Kitsune is good in Haarpsichord" review I was planning because I don't have any reputation, but it turns out there's a whole pile of synergies there that make it worth looking into. —