Yeah, NBN. Wipe that smug look off your face. Your toys aren't that fancy now, are they? Did I mention I'm cheaply included in other factions? Three of me and you'll never want to trace again!

In my opinion, Compromised Employee is superior. Same install costs, same influence costs, similar trace effect - only that Compromised Employee also has an effect on ice being rezzed.

In my opinion, Compromised Employee is superior. Same install costs, same influence costs, similar trace effect - only that Compromised Employee also has an effect on ice being rezzed.

Yeah. Currently, pretty much every other card is superior to this one. It is simply bad, with no practical redeeming characteristics. Traces are relatively uncommon to begin with, and relatively non-deterministic in their occurrence, so even at $0 to install this would be a very unreliable / inconsistent card. But at $2 to install it just becomes laughably bad.

Decks worried about traces can simply include + link cards, and decks looking for more economy can choose from an array of better cards.

In my opinion, Compromised Employee is superior. Same install costs, same influence costs, similar trace effect - only that Compromised Employee also has an effect on ice being rezzed.

Conceptually, I can see where this has an advantage over Compromised Employee, at least in those cases where you've got a high-link Runner who can just walk-through trace subroutines . . .

Get 3 of these on the table, walk through a Caduceus, make 6 bucks.

In reality, I think you'd be looking at using Power Tap alongside Compromised Employee in such a deck. It's interesting, and I've tried to put it together without success: 8-10 link down; basically immune to traces of any sort (Punitive Counterstrike? Ha!); making money for walking through a fair amount of Sentries.

You can guess what the problem is: too many cards to be otherwise effective; too slow to set up; too dependent on the Corp's board state. The idea is cool, but it's very difficult to really get it working on the table.

It's an interesting thought, Meadbeard. So, let's say you face a NBN tagstorm deck, which will be far more popular and dangerous with Data and Destiny released. Since most (if not all) traces will give you tags, you might make a Dorm Computer run and simply let all of those traces fire, gaining credits from Power Tap while being immune to the tags. Simply ignore Data Raven, Turnpike, Muckraker, Virgo, etc. and get rich in the process.

I'm going to highlight that I started that post with the word "conceptually."

When Andromeda first came out, I tried her with lots of link for a while (something like 7 or 9, and she could get it going relatively quickly).

She walked through a lot of nasty business, and she'd be a good candidate to get this going with Power Tap. The problem? You'd be using Andromeda to do it, and there are just better ways to make her good (really good).

Still, tagstorm is on the horizon, so it may be worth exploring as a money-making counter -- then again, Net Police is a hard counter to high link, at least until it is trashed. Dorm Computer certainly is an option, as is Networking, etc.

(edit): Andromeda worked (and would work here) with high draw (both initial and continual). This thing is a resource, so it is very hard to dig 3 out of your deck quickly enough to make it count.

Note that Sunny Lebeau makes this card also quite useful. Even if the corp has no tracers, her Security Nexus console may start a high-strength trace every turn to bypass a piece of ICE. So, if you take advantage of that, Power Tap pays off pretty quickly.

RE: Sunny: yes, you make a good point. At 1 influence that is worth consideration.