The effectiveness of this card is largely up to the Corporation and that's not great.

The default choice is "Rez THIS" or "Trash THIS". That the corporation gets to choose is straight downside. You get the effect that is least bad for the corporation every time. Between two effects, you generally want the one that's least bad for YOU every time, not the one that is least bad for the opponent.

For a card like this to be good, you really need to be able to have really good abilities on the card OR you need to be able to eliminate one of the two options that is least bad for you. At least to some extent, this card does actually do both of those things, and therefore this card isn't completely worthless.

It's possible to cast this when either option is really good for you. It could make them rez an ice you don't care about or lose money they need. The least bad of those for the corporation could still be worthwhile for you.

I want to focus more on the latter of those possibilities, though, the ability to turn one side off.

Ideally, at some point, the corporation is going to be low on money. You can control when you use this to correspond to that time. If you also have Account Siphon or Vamp, you have even more control. Additionally, early game is a time when both players really want more info and more money.

To a large extent, you can just face check and accomplish the same thing, but that puts you at risk of hitting face check ice. This can be a bit safer way to accomplish the same thing. Maybe you have a plan of face checking and then using Special Order and going back in. Using Forged Activation Orders is way better for that because you don't suffer the potentially massive resultant penalties.

It sucks to face check into a Brainstorm. This card is way better than face checking a Brainstorm.

Is it better enough to be worth deck slots? That's a tough one. Most of the time, probably not. Very possibly, though.

I just want to throw it out there that this can be used as a consistency pick if you don't want the ability from another console more.

There are many ways to get screwed by draws and this gets around all of them. If you don't have money, get a money card. If you don't have breakers, get a breaker. If you have a 1 of in deck that you could really use this match, then you have it.

It sucks to let them score agendas, for sure. That's never the goal. Even if you have this out you still want to score stuff, obviously. Realistically, they are probably getting one or two through anyway with whatever tricks they are using.

I don't think this consistency is something that should just be pushed aside either. Whatever your game plan is, there is probably some card or series of cards that you want to see every game. Sometimes, that doesn't happen even if you burn through 20 cards. This console helps ensure that your 3x Account Siphons or whatever aren't the last 3x cards in your deck. If that's the card you want this matchup, it's pretty likely you won't have to play the whole match without it.

That's really not bad as a console ability.

Would anybody use an ID that said "After drawing the normal 5 cards at the beginning of the game, look through your stack and take one and put it in your grip"? You don't even have to show it to the opponent That ID would at the very least be "good". Maybe not the best ID, but a solid choice. This console isn't that, but it's somewhere in the same ballpark.

I really want to like this card. I am a Johnny and I really just want to brew. This card is built to appeal to people exactly like me.

It's just so disappointing, though. It costs 5 and does nothing by itself. You have to cast this first. It has base zero strength and that really matters when it goes back to zero strength every ice by default. That 5 cost is huge in the first turn, making this card very slow. There is so much not to like about this card. It uses up 40% - 60% of your influence before you add your 4th card. It costs an MU. Literally everything is working against it.

Still, it has so much promise. Look at it.

You really want to be using something like Gordian Blade or Houdini with this, so you can pump one time for the run and that's it. You really want something like Faerie to break many sub sentries for 0. You still need something that can break barrier subs for 1 after both of those. There probably isn't a better card to use The Personal Touch on, so you might as well use that if you are in Shaper. If you can get a Sharpshooter out, at least you might be able to prevent something from trashing this unexpectedly while still getting cheap pumps.

Ultimately, this is likely to end up as Johnny's Bane. One of those cards you spend 25 hours building a deck around and it all just turns out disappointing no matter what you do. No matter how much you try to make it work. That will be me.

Also with all the AI hate in recent packs, it seems like it had a window and saw the window shut in the same breath. —

I just wanted to throw it out there that criminal decks often want to play a bunch of single copies of breakers and Special Order for them. This fits pretty well with that. You can play 3x Faerie and 1x each of actual breakers along with the 3x Special Order and maybe you don't have to use the first special order on a sentry breaker if you really want something else to push the early game aggression.

Also, now that Baba Yaga is out, this isn't bad at all as a card to throw on it. You can have all the benefits and none of the drawbacks.

Even if you have another sentry breaker out, Faerie has some utility as a second possibly lower cost sentry breaker if you have a free MU. Faerie gets around Archer for 4 and that's as good as it gets in this game outside of stealth. That potentially lets you be even more aggressive. This gets around Brainstorm for 0 also, which can be a pretty wreck you card sometimes as well.

Also has some utility around Mongoose for doubled up sentries.

Not great that you have to draw it and play it and it costs an MU, but it's exceedingly good early game protection for your game plan and will prevent you from most ways to lose the game on turn 1. Not bad for a zero coster.

faerie used to be an immediate three of in my crims decks, but slots are so tight! —
Am I missing something? After 1 subroutine and she gets trashed. Can't be good if shes my only Icebreaker —

I am not a tournament pro, but I will attempt to do a decent review on this anyway.

First of all, this card can't win the game on it's own. In fact, it can't do anything on it's own that you would normally want to do in a game. It doesn't give you credits or get you past ice or anything like that. That's a strike against it.

Secondly, this card costs a lot to actually use. One action to draw it, two actions worth of credits, and another action to lay it out is already a lot to pay for a card that doesn't help you directly get closer to winning by itself. Then you see that, in order for this to even be good in a janky combo, you have to spend a lot of clicks on it.

In order for this to be worth very much, you have to play it and some number of other viruses to combo with it. You have to have both out at the same time or just the other card and not this.

There are indeed plenty of decent cards that this could work with for anyone who has it in mind to make a janky combo deck, but said deck probably still won't win.

If you insist on trying this card out, you might want to try pairing it with such cards as Orion, Darwin, Hivemind, Datasucker, Parasite, Fester, Grimoire, Imp, Medium, Nerve Agent, Pheromones, Progenitor, and Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire.

Better yet, just don't use this. Incubator is probably better for everything you would want to do with those cards anyway. Or just use those other good cards and don't use either this or Incubator.

I don't think you mean Orion. Otherwise, good review. —
I will blame that on autocorrect. —