Not a very complicated card. Pay 4 to install and from the next turn onward you can remove a card in the heap from the game for 2.

Obviously this is not great if you still need those cards but the effect is optional. Since it takes at least 2 turns to get the install cost out of Bloo Moose this is not a card you can put in any deck. You do need to generate enough trash.

There are a few obvious candidate deck types:

• MaxX fills up the heap very quickly and Bloo Moose can turn cards that won't be useful against your current opponent into credits.
• Ken and criminals with lots of run events obviously get cards in heap. Of course you'd want to reuse those events but if you can't turning them into credits is a nice alternative.
• Geist trashes even more quickly. Same deal as with Ken, it's a nice consolation price.
• Shapers of all sorts that use Aesop's Pawnshop for money can double up with Bloo Moose for a whopping 5 per previously installed card. Given enough cheaply installed cards that starts to sound like an engine, especially for Hayley.

A noteworthy interaction is Populist Rally. That's not a great card but if can reliably install Bloo Moose at least you have the option to play Populist Rally. And played at the right time it can generate a window of opportunity.

While I don't think Bloo Moose will pull its weight in any or even most decks it is a useful addition to decks that can afford to feed it.

I rate Water Monopoly a bit differently than Cpt_nice. The thing is, I don't see it getting scored early enough often enough for the effect to be great.

It's useful to consider the alternatives for a Jinteki deck with 3 advancement cost (* = will rotate out soon):

• Ancestral Imager - Damage when the runner jacks out. Decent in kill decks, mediocre otherwise.
• Braintrust* - When over-advanced cheapens rez of ice. A 3/2 with no downsides so great.
• Chronos Project - Remove all cards in the runner's heap from the game. Devastating against some decks, nearly useless against others.
• Dedicated Neural Net - Once scored gives you a 2/3 chance to make the runner not access agenda's from HQ. Decent to good.
• Encrypted Portals - Gives credits for code gates, boosts code gate strength. Decent.
• False Lead* - Can be forfeited to make the runner close a click. Useful in the right kill deck, though usually that will be HB.
• Genetic Resequencing - Put an agenda counter on a scored agenda. Meh.
• Gila Hands Arcology - Click for 1.5. Mediocre.
• House of Knives - Deal damage during a run, three times. Decent in general, great in the right deck.
• Merger - 3/2, but 3/3 for the runner and costs 1 influence. Not terribly great but good for fast advance.
• Philotic Entanglement - Deals damage and is a 3/2. Little reason not to include it, though only one copy per deck allowed.
• Profiteering* - Lets you take bad pub for credits. Not great.
• The Future is Now - Tutor for a single card. Always useful.
• Unorthodox Predictions - Effectively block the runner from accessing reasonably protected servers for a turn. Mediocre.
• Veterans Program* - Remove bad pub. Good if you expect bad pub.

At the very least Braintrust, Philotic Entanglement and The Future is Now are better. Chronos Project and House of Knives are probably better as well.

Given the competition and the not great chance of Water Monopoly firing early enough to make a large impact on the game I expect it to find a permanent home in the binder.

What a nice stack of ice you have. Would be a shame if some of it would get ... derezzed.

Leave No Trace (LNT) puts the corp in the unenviable position of rezzing ice to keep you out and losing the investment in rez cost or not rez ice and have you walk in cheaply.

The main downside of LNT (beside not abbreviating to TNT) is that being a run event you can't use it with a run event like Legwork. And when running on an agenda you probably won't keep the corp from rezzing ice to stop you. And if you make a run that's not threatening enough the corp simply won't rez any ice.

All this makes LNT a bit tricky to play. I think the ideal time to play it is click 1 on an agenda run, have the corp rez ice to stop you, eventually bounce if you can't get through the ice and then try again in the hope that the corp won't have enough credits to rez again. Even if the corp manages to stop you you'll have drained a good chunk of their credit stash which is enormously helpful when you sing the old criminal song "I'm rich, you're poor. I run, you hide. I win, you lose."

To get the same effect without an agenda on the board is more tricky. You want to make a threatening run but you can't use any run event and that precludes the aforementioned Legwork, Account Siphon, High-Stakes Job (imagine combining that with LNT), etc.

The obvious tool is multi-access. However HQ Interface will rotate soon, as will Nerve Agent. The Gauntlet is good but it's anti-synergic with LNT (LNT needs unrezzed ice, The Gauntlet needs rezzed ice). The Turning Wheel takes long to charge up high enough to be threatening.

I fail to see a use of LNT outside of an agenda run to force the corp to lose money or let you get an agenda cheaply. And given that there are other options for agenda defense it seems hard to justify including it in your deck.

Or am I missing something?

So Maven is a break system (as opposed to a build system) that looks pretty crappy due to 2-per-sub cost.

I'm curious however if it's really that bad and since I still have my ultra-hacky code from the Flashbang review it's easy to do some comparisons.

First up barriers and a comparison with Paperclip. Paperclip costs max(number_of_subs, strength-1) to break a barrier. Percentages are Maven in terms of Paperclip (100 * maven/paperclip).

• Strength 0: 5 cards
• • Mean subs 1.00, median subs 1.0
• • Mean paperclip break cost 1.00, median paperclip break cost 1.0
• • Mean maven break cost 2.00 (200%), median maven break cost 2.0 (200%)
• Strength 1: 7 cards
• • Mean subs 1.00, median subs 1.0
• • Mean paperclip break cost 1.00, median paperclip break cost 1.0
• • Mean maven break cost 2.00 (200%), median maven break cost 2.0 (200%)
• Strength 2: 4 cards
• • Mean subs 1.75, median subs 1.5
• • Mean paperclip break cost 1.75, median paperclip break cost 1.5
• • Mean maven break cost 3.50 (200%), median maven break cost 3.0 (200%)
• Strength 3: 4 cards
• • Mean subs 2.50, median subs 1.5
• • Mean paperclip break cost 3.00, median paperclip break cost 2.0
• • Mean maven break cost 5.00 (150%), median maven break cost 3.0 (150%)
• Strength 4: 10 cards
• • Mean subs 1.60, median subs 1.5
• • Mean paperclip break cost 3.00, median paperclip break cost 3.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.20 (107%), median maven break cost 3.0 (100%)
• Strength 5: 5 cards
• • Mean subs 1.80, median subs 2.0
• • Mean paperclip break cost 4.00, median paperclip break cost 4.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.60 (90%), median maven break cost 4.0 (100%)
• Strength 6: 3 cards
• • Mean subs 2.33, median subs 3.0
• • Mean paperclip break cost 5.00, median paperclip break cost 5.0
• • Mean maven break cost 4.67 (93%), median maven break cost 6.0 (120%)
• Strength 7: 2 cards
• • Mean subs 2.50, median subs 2.5
• • Mean paperclip break cost 6.00, median paperclip break cost 6.0
• • Mean maven break cost 5.00 (83%), median maven break cost 5.0 (83%)
• Strength 8: 4 cards
• • Mean subs 3.25, median subs 3.0
• • Mean paperclip break cost 7.00, median paperclip break cost 7.0
• • Mean maven break cost 6.50 (93%), median maven break cost 6.0 (86%)
• Strength 10: 1 cards
• • Mean subs 4.00, median subs 4.0
• • Mean paperclip break cost 9.00, median paperclip break cost 9.0
• • Mean maven break cost 8.00 (89%), median maven break cost 8.0 (89%)

For sentries I'll compare to Mongoose.

• Strength 0: 5 cards
• • Mean subs 1.40, median subs 1.0
• • Mean mongoose break cost 1.00, median mongoose break cost 1.0
• • Mean maven break cost 2.80 (280%), median maven break cost 2.0 (200%)
• Strength 1: 6 cards
• • Mean subs 1.83, median subs 2.0
• • Mean mongoose break cost 1.17, median mongoose break cost 1.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.67 (317%), median maven break cost 4.0 (350%)
• Strength 2: 11 cards
• • Mean subs 1.64, median subs 1.0
• • Mean mongoose break cost 3.18, median mongoose break cost 3.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.27 (98%), median maven break cost 2.0 (67%)
• Strength 3: 13 cards
• • Mean subs 1.69, median subs 2.0
• • Mean mongoose break cost 3.08, median mongoose break cost 3.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.38 (104%), median maven break cost 4.0 (133%)
• Strength 4: 14 cards
• • Mean subs 1.64, median subs 1.5
• • Mean mongoose break cost 5.14, median mongoose break cost 5.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.29 (63%), median maven break cost 3.0 (60%)
• Strength 5: 13 cards
• • Mean subs 1.92, median subs 2.0
• • Mean mongoose break cost 5.31, median mongoose break cost 5.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.85 (70%), median maven break cost 4.0 (80%)
• Strength 6: 6 cards
• • Mean subs 2.17, median subs 2.0
• • Mean mongoose break cost 7.33, median mongoose break cost 7.0
• • Mean maven break cost 4.33 (58%), median maven break cost 4.0 (57%)
• Strength 7: 1 cards
• • Mean subs 1.00, median subs 1.0
• • Mean mongoose break cost 7.00, median mongoose break cost 7.0
• • Mean maven break cost 2.00 (29%), median maven break cost 2.0 (29%)
• Strength 8: 2 cards
• • Mean subs 3.50, median subs 3.5
• • Mean mongoose break cost 10.00, median mongoose break cost 10.0
• • Mean maven break cost 7.00 (70%), median maven break cost 7.0 (70%)

Finally let's take a look at Gordian Blade, assuming there's only one code gate in the run (no leftover strength from previous boosting).

• Strength 0: 5 cards
• • Mean subs 1.40, median subs 1.0
• • Mean gordian blade break cost 1.40, median gordian blade break cost 1.0
• • Mean maven break cost 2.80 (200%), median maven break cost 2.0 (200%)
• Strength 1: 6 cards
• • Mean subs 1.83, median subs 2.0
• • Mean gordian blade break cost 1.83, median gordian blade break cost 2.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.67 (200%), median maven break cost 4.0 (200%)
• Strength 2: 11 cards
• • Mean subs 1.64, median subs 1.0
• • Mean gordian blade break cost 1.64, median gordian blade break cost 1.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.27 (200%), median maven break cost 2.0 (200%)
• Strength 3: 13 cards
• • Mean subs 1.69, median subs 2.0
• • Mean gordian blade break cost 2.69, median gordian blade break cost 3.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.38 (114%), median maven break cost 4.0 (133%)
• Strength 4: 14 cards
• • Mean subs 1.64, median subs 1.5
• • Mean gordian blade break cost 3.64, median gordian blade break cost 3.5
• • Mean maven break cost 3.29 (86%), median maven break cost 3.0 (83%)
• Strength 5: 13 cards
• • Mean subs 1.92, median subs 2.0
• • Mean gordian blade break cost 4.92, median gordian blade break cost 5.0
• • Mean maven break cost 3.85 (73%), median maven break cost 4.0 (80%)
• Strength 6: 6 cards
• • Mean subs 2.17, median subs 2.0
• • Mean gordian blade break cost 6.17, median gordian blade break cost 6.0
• • Mean maven break cost 4.33 (67%), median maven break cost 4.0 (67%)
• Strength 7: 1 cards
• • Mean subs 1.00, median subs 1.0
• • Mean gordian blade break cost 6.00, median gordian blade break cost 6.0
• • Mean maven break cost 2.00 (33%), median maven break cost 2.0 (33%)
• Strength 8: 2 cards
• • Mean subs 3.50, median subs 3.5
• • Mean gordian blade break cost 9.50, median gordian blade break cost 9.5
• • Mean maven break cost 7.00 (73%), median maven break cost 7.0 (73%)

A very rough analysis is that if you can get Maven boosted to strength 5 it becomes competitive with other breakers. Of course that means 5 programs (including Maven). That's not as hard as it may sound however due to nice little helpers like Dhegdheer. Other non-memory eating programs are: Pawn, Scheherazade, Progenitor and Harbinger. Due to Harbinger being on this list Maven could potentially be interesting in a Apex: Invasive Predator deck.

If you use Maven in a typical AI way, as a fallback, in combination with a full breaker suite and if you're running a big rig with extra programs it's not all that hard to get like 7 programs installed (two Dhegdeer, 4 breakers including Maven, a support program). The gains however are still not terribly great considering the relatively low odds of encountering strength 6/7 ice.

I don't think Maven will be a card to build a deck around. Rather it's an AI that goes relatively easily into a big rig shaper deck to fill the AI role. And in such cases it's a pretty decent AI.

Flashbang is ... interesting. Instead of breaking ice it derezzes it at fairly great expense. Whether that's worth it depends a lot on whether the corp can rerez the ice quickly which in turn mostly depends on how expensive the ice is.

It costs 6 to derez a sentry plus 1 per strength (since you have to match the strength in order to derez, much like how Wyrm needs to match in order to reduce strength). So it costs a whopping 10 to derez a 4 strength sentry. 4 strength sentries cost on average 4.5, median 5 (here's the list). So you're paying roughly double in order to derez.

Here's a full calculation of the current sentries and cost to derez with Flashbang:

• Strength 0: 5 cards
• • Mean rez cost 1.6, median rez cost 1.00
• • Cost to derez 6
• Strength 1: 6 cards
• • Mean rez cost 3.3, median rez cost 3.50
• • Cost to derez 7
• Strength 2: 11 cards
• • Mean rez cost 4.1, median rez cost 4.00
• • Cost to derez 8
• Strength 3: 13 cards
• • Mean rez cost 3.4, median rez cost 4.00
• • Cost to derez 9
• Strength 4: 14 cards
• • Mean rez cost 4.5, median rez cost 5.00
• • Cost to derez 10
• Strength 5: 13 cards
• • Mean rez cost 5.8, median rez cost 6.00
• • Cost to derez 11
• Strength 6: 6 cards
• • Mean rez cost 6.2, median rez cost 6.50
• • Cost to derez 12
• Strength 7: 1 cards
• • Mean rez cost 9.0, median rez cost 9.00
• • Cost to derez 13
• Strength 8: 2 cards
• • Mean rez cost 15.0, median rez cost 15.00
• • Cost to derez 14

The 2-5 strength sentries are most common in the cardpool and there the rule of thumb that cost to derez with Flashbang is twice the cost to rez holds pretty well.

The value of Flashbang however depends strongly on how much better it is than other breakers. Mongoose seems to be the most popular killer, so let's take a look at how well it fares. The percentages are how much Mongoose costs to break all subs relative to Flashbang derezzing.

• Strength 0: 5 cards
• • Mean subs 1.40, median subs 1.0
• • Mean break cost 1.00 (17%), median break cost 1.0 (17%)
• Strength 1: 6 cards
• • Mean subs 1.83, median subs 2.0
• • Mean break cost 1.17 (17%), median break cost 1.0 (14%)
• Strength 2: 11 cards
• • Mean subs 1.64, median subs 1.0
• • Mean break cost 3.18 (40%), median break cost 3.0 (38%)
• Strength 3: 13 cards
• • Mean subs 1.69, median subs 2.0
• • Mean break cost 3.08 (34%), median break cost 3.0 (33%)
• Strength 4: 14 cards
• • Mean subs 1.64, median subs 1.5
• • Mean break cost 5.14 (51%), median break cost 5.0 (50%)
• Strength 5: 13 cards
• • Mean subs 1.92, median subs 2.0
• • Mean break cost 5.31 (48%), median break cost 5.0 (45%)
• Strength 6: 6 cards
• • Mean subs 2.17, median subs 2.0
• • Mean break cost 7.33 (61%), median break cost 7.0 (58%)
• Strength 7: 1 cards
• • Mean subs 1.00, median subs 1.0
• • Mean break cost 7.00 (54%), median break cost 7.0 (54%)
• Strength 8: 2 cards
• • Mean subs 3.50, median subs 3.5
• • Mean break cost 10.00 (71%), median break cost 10.0 (71%)

In the "big" 2-5 strength range Mongoose's cost to break all subs is about 40% of Flashbang's cost to derez, so derezzing with Flashbang costs 2.5 times as much as breaking with Mongoose.

What does this tell us?

In order for Flashbang to be roughly on par with Mongoose, assuming only one sentry per run (so Mongoose's restriction doesn't come into play) and only looking at the runner economy side, a sentry would need to remain unrezzed for 1-2 runs after the run in which you derez it.

But wait, there's also the cost to the corp that comes into play. To calculate the credit swing I'll assume that the corp rerezzes as soon as possible. In such a situation the derez cost of Flashbang is effectively a break cost, but we'll subtract the corp rez cost from the cost of the Flashbang to see how much it costs in terms of credit swing. Percentage is relative to cost of Mongoose to break (note: this is inverted from percentage in Mongoose table).

• Strength 0: 5 cards
• • Mean break swing 4.4 (440%), median break swing 5.00 (500%)
• Strength 1: 6 cards
• • Mean break swing 3.7 (314%), median break swing 3.50 (350%)
• Strength 2: 11 cards
• • Mean break swing 3.9 (123%), median break swing 4.00 (133%)
• Strength 3: 13 cards
• • Mean break swing 5.6 (182%), median break swing 5.00 (167%)
• Strength 4: 14 cards
• • Mean break swing 5.5 (107%), median break swing 5.00 (100%)
• Strength 5: 13 cards
• • Mean break swing 5.2 (97%), median break swing 5.00 (100%)
• Strength 6: 6 cards
• • Mean break swing 5.8 (80%), median break swing 5.50 (79%)
• Strength 7: 1 cards
• • Mean break swing 4.0 (57%), median break swing 4.00 (57%)
• Strength 8: 2 cards
• • Mean break swing -1.0 (-10%), median break swing -1.00 (-10%)

Flashbang is worse than Mongoose in terms of swing for most sentries, though it's not really bad.

There's a difference between you gaining (or not losing) credits and the corp losing credits. Sometimes it's better to spend some more money to make the corp spend more money or gain some other advantage (like running through ice for free). If that's your game Flashbang is certainly worth considering.