Ah. This one.

Out of the three consoles given to us in Core Set, I used to despise this one the most.

This reminds me of what dad used to say: I have no son.

Compare Desperado. Gives you one mem and also one credit for every run that is successful. Definitely has its merits, yes, but the run has to end in an indisputable success in order for you to claim your prize. And, let's face it, you are not going to run more than two times a turn, save for the rare occurences when you'll really have to, and rarely all of them will really be successful. You either run good or run a lot.

Toolbox gives you two creds. Up front-like, no matter how many runs you are going to make during your turn, you get two creds. The catch? They have to be spent using icebreakers. And you know who uses icebreakers a lot? Yeah, you guessed it - everyone. It is your favourite black hole you try to clog with money bills after you're about done setting your rig up. Refunds really quickly, too, as these are two creds a turn you won't spend on breaking subroutines - you can now spend them somewhere else.

What else is in the box? Two mem units. Mostly useless, except, you know, for the cases when you'd like to have your full suite of breakers, a backdoor or a bitcoin miner AND a sniffer. So yeah, useless. Totally. Right?

And two additional links, because every good workplace has at least a solid sheet of tinfoil to make hats with. What's there to do with two links? They enable cloud breakers right off the bat, for instance, which lets you drop even more things on the board. Avoiding certain death by helluva tags and missile launchers is made a bit easier. Only a few brands of lesser tracer ICE will get neutered like a kitty-cat from a good house, but most of them you'll see blunted just enough to avoid any serious harm they might've caused. Link is a really a good thing to have which most of us completely underestimate.

To sum things up, it is kinda double Desperado with some additional link to sweeten the deal. It also gives you creds indiscriminately, no matter if you manage the run or not, while also enhancing quality runs over quantity of runs.

By the way, do you know what is a cool multifunctional console that doesn't cost nine creds?

The answer: Modded Toolbox. That's a joke I've just made up. I know it isn't funny. Shut up.

This card makes me really excited for the coming of Weyland Consortium: Builder of Nations in Flashpoint #2: Blood Money. Why? Because it essentially turns this agenda into House of Knives! This makes the prospect of constant pressure Weyland decks even more real and scary.

What House of Knives doesn't do, though, is make your ICE better, cheaper, faster, stronger. Or let you save yourself from economic crash as advised by Mark Yale. You can advance your ICE at instant speed, so it might let you defend yourself even against unlikely odds. Say, advance your Wormhole thrice and use it to stop the runner for free? It's a helluva thing! After you spend all your counters, there is no loss in feeding it to Archers, Corporate Towns or whatever, since it's a 3/1. There's even a possibility of smart, janky fast-advance with any ICE and Trick of Light.

Conclusion: this is your Swiss knife. Eat soup, open beer, gouge eyes out, all-in-one. Hugely underplayed, but I expect a huge comeback of this little thing very soon.

You must be really tired of this horrible man Whizzard waltzing in and tearing down all your moneymaker assets. I might just have the solution for it.

Let's say you failed a trap. Dropped a Snare! on board, or a Junebug, Overwriter, Secretary, you name it. The runner didn't bite, because sheesh, who you're trying to trick?

Don't lose your spirit! Now it is the time to convert your failure into success! Just follow this simple step-by-step guide I have prepared for you:

Step one: admit to your defeat. Rez your failed trap.

Step one A: ignore the puzzled, condescending stare from the other side of the board.

Step one B: seriously, ignore it.

Step two: install this on your trap-server, then rez.

Step three: enjoy your free, safe profit every turn.

Step four: move mountains with the sheer size of your manhood.

Now the real fun begins. Are they really willing to walk right into a trap they despised earlier just to mess with your economy engine?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: heck no.

This little thing over here has quickly become one of my favourite schticks.

Basically, for one click and one cred, it is going to flood you with bits of additional information that can only help your position, never hinder it, You can drop it on the board and then just go on about your usual business - do some Banks, more banks, some Laundry, Security Testing even, while this tells you everything you need to know about your opponent's deck, tactics, maybe even how badly is he screwed at the moment, might even give you a signal to launch this Legwork you were clutching from the very beginning of the game.

Enhanced Vision will even warn you about these Snares, Archangels and many other ugly things waiting out there in the HQ for you to reach out to them and burn your fingers.

Especially helpful against these ugly asset spam decks of late. While they hope to keep you distracted with all the trashable stuff they put between you and them, you will know when these precious points will be there to grab them, so you can finally put these Windows Solitaire fans out of their misery.

In a game which involves knowing, what's not to like about some additional knowledge as a reward for what you were meaning to do anyways?

DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. For you guys who aren't familiar with the term, it is an actual technique of causing internet disturbance, involving hitting the target server with lots and lots of internet traffic by sending loads of packets to it that it has to respond to, quite possibly with a wide array of computers at the same time, infected earlier with a trojan or Remote Administration Tool client - these would be so-called zombies. The goal is to flood the server in question with a number of requests enough to cause it to either respond slower or completely crash, thus denying further service.

Enough gibberish. The flavor text of this card says everything - you can literally do whatever you want, because you've got a horde of zombies. Tread where they don't want you as many times as it pleases you. It is an Anarch card that actually fits Criminal a lot more. You are going to put the Corp in a situation where he has money that he can't spend on anything! How messed up is that?

Say, a winning agenda is hiding behind an unrezzed glacier. DDoS alone won't let you through, but it is going to make things a lot easier than anticipated. Instead of three ice, there is two you have to pass. And that might just be not enough to stop you.

Another example. You're going to stop the Corp in his tracks by launching an early Account Siphon, but the HQ is behind an unrezzed piece. Install DDoS and all of a sudden there is no problem. What's more, the Corp doesn't even have anything he could spend these credits on, because he's been DDoSed. And now he's also bankrupt, with an useless piece of ice before he manages to catch up.

The combination with False Echo has been described above in great detail. I shall waste no more of your time with it.

You were happily digging with Medium on an unprotected R&D, but then some jackhole has put a scary ICE there. Launch DDoS and keep digging. High chances of getting a quick, clean victory.

Firing Apocalypse with DDoS on board is made so easy that it's almost poetry.

I'd also like to add that I love the art on this card. SUPERHOT comes to mind.

Ready to become an online necromancer?

EDIT 04/13/2017

DDoS now costs additional three pips per piece regardless of faction due to level 3 MWL restriction, which brings it to whopping six influence for non-Anarchs. This seems to make it a lot less reliable. DDoS is still a strong option, yes, but since it's really expensive to slot more than one copy, it best be used as a failsafe, backup or plan B - the additional costs really limit its potential use in combo decks.

EDIT 11/01/2017

Haha, not anymore! Let's get back to making zombies!