Even in Deep Red/Caïssa builds, Bishop doesn't see much love. There's a lot to dislike about Bishop, not the least of which is that one of only four Caïssa programs is wasted here. Sorry, chess decks.

Unlike Rook, Bishop targets one piece of ICE rather than a whole server. Unlike Knight, Bishop provides no utility for making runs on its own. Unlike Pawn, Bishop offers no utility for accelerating the pressure you're ideally putting on the Corp. (This may be the only time someone has complained about the cheapness of a program, but Bishop's 0 cost doesn't even synergize well with Pawn!)

I suppose Bishop could be used to increase the utility of Mimic and Yog.0, but that would require you to either know in advance which cards need targeting or blindly facecheck ICE until you find the one that needs weakening. At that point, you've probably lost the damn thing to the damage you took anyway. And God help you if you need to move the Bishop to another piece of ICE on a central, because its convoluted movement rules make it all but worthless if you're focusing on either centrals or remotes.

The ideal situation for Bishop is to be able to Yog something like a Tollbooth, but for your money, why not just use a more general-purpose Datasucker or Parasite? Just pack a MemStrips and save the Deep Red memory for Rooks and Knights.

I'm surprised this card - at least from my experience - doesn't see play. Cyber Threat is great in any anarch deck attempting to bankrupt the Corp through forced ICE rezzing. For 1, you can give the Corp two pretty bad choices: Rez a piece of ICE without making the runner suffer its effects unprepared or give the runner one free access. This effect is somewhat lessened once you're staring at 2-3+ layers of ICE, but it still allows you to make a run with perfect information about the ICE you'll be facing.

The not-so-great side of Cyber Threat is when you take a shot at HQ and the Corp rezzes a Pop-up Window or similar, you've wasted a credit. This could be mitigated if you're running Reina Roja and/or have a Xanadu out, both likely options if you're going for econ denial/ICE taxing.

I think it's not seeing play because most Anarchs don't actually care much about the Ice they face, or don't want it rezzed. Valencia wants it all facedown, and anybody running an Eater/Knight rig doesnt care what it is most of the time. Anarchs just facecheck a lot and while I agree that originally I was surprised it wasn't being played I think it's understandable, on reflection. —
The problem with this card is that most of what it does can be accomplished by just running on that server first click. The only really valuable use case is if you suspect there might be some dangerous ice in a server and want to scope it out first. Otherwise, why wouldn't the Corp just rez their cheapest ice? "Rez some ice or I get in this server" is the same threat made by any normal run.. —
Does this card get around RP? Either way it probably only serves a purpose in a Reina deck as mentioned, forcing either a rez or a free run unless they want to pay the increased cost. But even then the utility is limited. —
Little late, but @Otacon: this card does not get around RP. —
RE: Roja. Pick a server and if the Corp rezzes there, pick a different server to do a run on. Even if they rezzed cheap ice, they have less to rez where you really go. —

Guess who just got a promotion? Our girl Isabel is finally moving up in the ranks at Haas-Bioroid - all thanks to a new facility on the Breaker Bay Grid.

Install the grid, use it to immediately rez an Eve Campaign, Adonis Campaign or Private Contracts, to pick it back up with Isabel, and then to put it back down and rez ANOTHER asset for free. Or, return it to your main server where you're running an Awakening Center to discount your Big Bad Bioroids.

Box-E is an incredibly efficient and versatile Shaper console, with the only downside being that they painted it blue.

  • Any deck that uses the Stimhack and Personal Workshop combination to pay for their rig will want to use Box-E to mitigate the effect of Stimhack and reduce the need for Akamatsu/CyberSolutions Chips. A single Box-E lets us have a full suite plus an AI breaker and a Magnum Opus or any other fun-but-ridiculously-intensive Shaper toy. (Yes, I'm talking to you, Collective Consciousness.)

  • Stealth rigs will get a lot of benefit from Box-E, paying for the memory cost of 3 cloak + 3 breakers and allowing you to Diesel or Quality Time to find the recurring credit pieces without having to throw a bunch of stuff away.

  • Hayley Kaplan loves Box-E if she's abusing the Personal Workshop installs as it allows her to hold all the pieces she needs to install from hand to combo with the Workshop installs.