I have no idea why this doesn't have a review because it already shows in up 2/3s of Anarch's decks at the time of writing so here we go.

It's a card draw engine, with complexities, that can make it hard to read and hard to estimate so I'm going to break it down into 3 components:

1. Draw a card once per turn (specifically on the Corps turn)
2. Do so only if the corporation has installed a card in the root of a server
3. You must trash one card off the top of your deck

First off, drawing a card once per turn is frankly amazing, it's what makes Hoshiko Shiro: Untold Protagonist one of the best Anarchs and what makes Lat: Ethical Freelancer one of the best Shapers. In Lago's case, it's also somewhat reminiscent of MaxX: Maximum Punk Rock if that's your sort of thing. It's worth noting that outside of ID abilities, most card draw is finite, Diesel, Steelskin Scarring, Moshing even card draw you install often runs out like Dr. Nuka Vrolyck, Earthrise Hotel or The Class Act (though Class Act is a bit more complicated).

For this reason, the best analogy is Verbal Plasticity, which also functionally gives you one extra card draw per turn (assuming you click to draw at least once). At a glance, it's easy to argue that Verbal is better, it's less conditional since you can choose to activate it instead of relying on your opponent to do something, and it doesn't require you to trash your own cards at random, sure Lago's a credit cheaper and doesn't require the continual investment of a click but still, the flaws clearly outway the benefits right?

Wrong! This card is amazing! Precisely because it trashes the top card of your stack, not in spite of it. That's not inherently intuitive looking at this card in isolation, to understand why we have to look at the kinds of other cards Anarchs regularly include in their deck

1. Buffer Drive offsets half of the downsides of this card, since you can recur every card trashed off the top of your deck if you so choose. Since Lago technically triggers on the Corps turn it satisfies Buffer Drives "once per turn" phrasing, which means you can use Buffer Drive to recur cards trashed by Lago and still use it on your turn to recur cards trashed by Moshing, The Price, Patchwork, Bankhar etc. Not only that but you can choose not to recur cards instead, so if you trash a dead draw that you didn't want anyway, you can just leave it in the Heap to give you a distilled, high value second half of the deck (the opposite of Class Act where your worst draws end up clumped together at the bottom of your deck)

2. Steelskin Scarring and Strike Fund, I'm grouping these cards together because they do something very similar to each and always show up together, and by always so up together I mean they're in every Anarch deck. Since Lago trashes the top card of the deck, there's a substantial chance that whenever Lago fires, it doesn't just draw you a card, it actually draws you 3 cards, or a card and 2 credits, a nice little surprise bonus that propels you forward more than Verbal ever can, since it doesn't interact with any other cards to give you that extra value. With the help of Buffer Drive, you can do this combo multiple times per copy of Strike Fund or Steelskin if you draw through your deck multiple times.

3. Aniccam Anarch is another reason to play Lago, Aniccam Anarchs have been rising in popularity recently and I think Lago is a big reason why. Whenever you trash an Event with Lago, you'll clicklessly draw two cards with Lago instead of one, which is crazy good. And like Buffer Drive, it has a "once per turn" trigger meaning it can draw you two cards with Lago on the Corps turn and still draw you another card on your turn off of playing (or trashing) any event. If you trash a Steelskin or Strike Fund it starts to get crazy good, since you could end up clicklessly drawing 2 cards and gaining 2 credits or even clicklessly drawing 4 cards!

4. Labor Rights / Ashen Epilogue. Even if you don't want to include Buffer Drive, or if you want to install Lago before you've found your Buffer Drive then having additional sources of recursion can be very useful to salvage the most important cards you happen to trash, or recur your entire Heap back into your deck to repeat the process again. Either way, recursion always pairs nicely with decks that are prone to trashing their own cards

With all this in mind we can see that with the proper support and setup, Lago is not only as good as Verbal Plascitity but has several notable upsides and factional synergies that Verbal lacks. And since many of these cards are already common or becoming more common it's really not much of a deckbuilding burden to include Lago anyways.

That being said there are a couple limitations I want to discuss for completeness sake.

1. Per-turn effects - These are naturally better the longer games go on and the sooner you can get them started. For this reason even the identical text would be better on an ID than a Resource, once again that's part of what makes Hoshiko and Lat so good, and why someone like Smoke was worth more than just another Cloak. However since IDs and Resources innately take up very different deck slots that's less of a problem and more of an observation, and I've even seen decks with built-in card draw like Hoshiko or Loup play this card in addition to their innate card draw. Additionally, as the meta can be rather fast at the time of writing with PD games or Reeducation Azmari games being as short as 6 turns it can be hard to generate consistent value from slow cards like this over burst card draw. But that also means that this card will likely only get better if the meta slows down even a little (due to Rashida's rotation, for example). Lastly, you'll want to install this card as soon as possible, but that's not much of a problem since Anarchs are happy running three copies of a unique card an then just feeding the "dead draws" to cards like Patchwork or Moshing.

2. Counterplay - Generally you don't want to give your opponents much of an opportunity to counter-act your plans, this is part of why Wildcat Strike sees limited play while Sure Gamble is ubiquitous. Giving your opponents the option to mess up your plans if able is generally a bad idea and since Lago only fires if your opponent does something, that can be a drawback that causes it to fire less consistently than once per turn. Notably, it checks if something is installed in the root of a server, so that includes Upgrades on centrals and Upgrades or Assets in remotes. Taking a turn off installing ICE, playing Operations, Advancing an Agenda or using a card ability like Regolith Mining License won't trigger it. Furthermore, you can "batch" installs together, since Lago can only fire a maximum of once per turn. While this is some counterplay for the Corp, most Anarchs can put on enough pressure that denying them a Lago draw is the least of your worries. And several Archetypes like Rush or Asset Spam require you to install something pretty much every turn, with the occasional turn off to score an agenda. Meanwhile, the kind of decks that can afford to take turns off from installing cards in the root of a server (like Glacial) generally play slower and make games last longer, which gives you more "opportunities" for Lago to fire. Thus, Lago can provide a deceptively consistent amount of card draws over the course of a game. Though the pace and pattern can be very inconsistent and it's for this reason that I wouldn't recommend relying on this card as your only source of card draw.

Lastly, Seb does have some bonus value he can derive from this card since it is a 2-credit connection that he can install clicklessly for free off of taking a tag. But otherwise, it generally works pretty well in any Anarch deck.

I wouldn't recommend exporting it to any other faction as it's nowhere near as good without all the support cards I outlined (especially Steelskin and Strike Fund), and importing a full playset of Lago, Strike Fund and Steelskin Scarring is going to set you back your full 15 influence, leaving no room for Buffer Drive or Ashen.

Thematically, Lago Paranoa Shelter looks like a kind of animal shelter that Seb and his family/friends also use for meetings and other "insurrectionist purposes" or just generally hang out there it seems. Lago Paranoa means "lake Paranoa" in Portuguese which in turn literally translates as "lake sea cove" as derived from Paranoa River, it's an artificial lake in the capital of Brazil, Brasilia where much of the Liberation Cycles story takes place. I'm somewhat unclear as to the ludonarrative intent here, why does the corporation installing something cause the runner to trash something and then draw and what does that have to do with an animal shelter on the shore of a lake? The Corporation doing Corporate stuff incidentally hurts citizens and animals but then Lago Paranoa Shelter helps them get better perhaps, it's a bit tenuous and I'm struggling to follow along but there you go. I don't particularly like the art, I can't quite put my finger on it but it just sort of creeps me out. Anyway, that's my problem.

TLDR: This card is somewhat unintuitive, and it can be hard to appreciate its power, but in the right "trash-forward" Anarch package and with the right support cards, it can be an absolute powerhouse of clickless card draw and value generation.

NBN has an unfortunate history of impotent ICE, with criticisms ranging from "porous" to "useless" to "weak" to just plain "terrible." Capacitor isn't helping those stereotypes.

But wait! I hear you say, 4 for 5 strength is amazing, with just a little bit of support, this could be one of the most cost-efficient pieces of ICE in the game! Eli 1.0 levels of efficiency, without any of the porous drawbacks associated with Bioroid ICE.

OK... let's be objective and consider all the possibilities

1. How good is this piece of ICE without support?

2. How good is this ICE when the runner has a single tag

3. How good is this ICE when the runner is buried in tags

4. How good is this ICE when paired with guaranteed tags (such as having a Funhouse installed on top of it)

Scenario 1:

Pretty terrible. 4 for a 3 strength 1 sub barrier is atrocious, Cleaver, the gold standard Fracter eats it for a credit and you'll notice that no other 3 strength barrier sees consistent play for this exact reason. I've almost never seen Klevetnik and Maskirovka and I've only really seen Hafrún as part of Stavka Ob Superheavy Logistics: Extract. Export. Excel. combos. All good Barriers in the format fall into 2 categories: cheap, utility gear checks like Tatu-Bola, Ablative Barrier or Ping and large value ICE like Bran, Logjam, Pharos and arguably Boto. Capacitor without tags has the misfortune of falling right in the middle, where you end up paying a rez cost that is twice as much as an Ablative Barrier for the exact same taxing power, without any chance of recursion to sweeten the deal. I feel confident saying that as long as Cleaver remains the go-to Fracter you should never play Capacitor without tag support.

Scenario 2:

The runner has a single tag, you're probably playing some sort of tag punishment so the runner is almost certainly not ending their turn tagged, so we'll assume that for the sake of argument, they somehow managed to take a tag on their turn, maybe they've run a trap and then run the Capacitor without removing the tag, perhaps they're playing Seb and took a tag for Manuel, perhaps they used Eru. Whatever, it's not important, still arguably a lacklustre piece of ICE, the dominance of K2CP Turbine in the current meta ironically makes the difference between a 3-strength Barrier and a 5-strength Barrier somewhat mute, and the difference between having 2 live subs and 1 live sub equally as irrelevant when it comes to Cleaver. Perhaps if you're expecting more Shaper playing Gauss/Pressure Spike or Criminals playing Curupira then maybe you tax them an extra 2 credits, maybe an extra 3 credits if they're willing to spend a credit to deny you a credit but considering how niche a situation this is and how meagre the increase in efficiency, I'm still not about to include this ICE just because my deck happens to give a few incidental tags.

Scenario 3:

The runner is swamped in tags, we're talking Behold! into Oppo Research or AMAZE Amusements + Oracle Thinktank into Oppo Research, pick your poison but the fact of the matter is that clearing tags is no longer an option and the runner now has to go "tag me." This does 2 things, first off, the ICE is always 5 strength from now on, rather than needing a niche scenario, and the first sub is giving you 5-10 credits now so the runner really feels the need to break. It's still not very good, everything I said about Cleaver and Turbine is still true and you're still only taxing Shapers and Crims a few extra credits (unlike Starlit Knight which scales continuously with the number of tags the runner has). In total, you tax Shapers and Crims 6 credits with Pressure Spike or Gauss or Curupira (assuming they haven't hit threat, aren't flickering Gauss or aren't bypassing it). These numbers sound good on paper but when more than a third of the meta is on some form of Anarch, when runner econ is so high that even 10-strength Barriers aren't enough to consistently keep runners out and when you remember that the Runner is going tag me so you probably have much better things to do like Mindscaping + End of the Line or Shipment from Vladisibirsk or scoring out a Freedom of Information for free then this ICE really just isn't making much sense.

Scenario 4:

Paired with guaranteed tags, perhaps the most interesting and least conditional option is simply pairing this kind of ICE with guaranteed tags effects, the most obvious example of which is just to install this, then install a Funhouse on top of it, somewhat reminiscent of installing a Data Raven on top of a Data Ward. This way, you guarantee it's always 5 strength, regardless of whether the runner hit a trap the click before or is going full tag me. The only way to beat this is paid-ability window tag-removal like No Free Lunch or Flip Switch and this is probably a poor use of such powerful cards so let's a assume everything works out. This whole situation is still absolutely rubbish for you, you're now paying at least 10 credits (4 for the Capacitor, 5 for Funhouse and 1 for the added install cost) to get yourself a 5 Strength Barrier and a porous code-gate, Yikes! the Runners are just quaking in their boots I'm sure.

As you can see despite the alluring promising of 4 for a 5-strength Barrier the truth is far less glamorous and far more disappointing, this ICE just rarely makes sense, even if you're playing a tag-centric deck your ICE is probably more interested in giving tags to set up other, aforementioned pieces of tag-punishment then getting a slightly more taxing barrier.

This is really a shame because NBN has occasionally had pieces of ICE that made sense in that respect, the perfect example being Data Ward of course, even accounting for the combined install costs of Data Ward + Data Raven (only 11 credits actually) the payoff is so much better, 1 guaranteed tag, + 2 more possible tags unless the runner pays 3 and beats the trace, plus an 8 strength 4 sub barrier, all 4 subs needing to be broken for access so something like Boomerang, Botulus or Slap Vandal will still struggle with it. Capacitor is like Data Ward's little brother, Data Ward's sad, pathetic little brother no less, something that just doesn't live up to it in any respect. Which is a real shame, because the idea of making NBN ICE care about tags and be conditionally really good when supported by something like Funhouse is a cool idea, unfortunately, the simple reality is that Capacitor just isn't enough of a payoff.

This might sound hilarious and maybe I'm just being naive but I do really hope that NBN gets some genuinely good ICE next set.

Thematically a Capacitor refers to a kind of device within electrical circuits designed to temporarily store electrical energy and can be used in power transmission to smooth and stabilize the flow of electricity. How this relates to this card is eluding me as it neither gains nor stores charges or power counters or advancements and it's not like it temporarily removes tags and then releases them like some kind of modern Data Raven or something. In regards to the quote, presumably, Seb is struggling with this kind of ICE because he's exactly the kind of runner who would otherwise normally like to be running tagged but honestly if Seb is playing Cleaver + K2CP Turbine or Arruaceiras Crew or Tsakhia "Bankhar" Gantulga or Botulus or any of the other tools Anarchs have at their disposable, it's really not all that much of a struggle.

TLDR: Yet another mediocre piece of NBN ICE that sees no play, absolutely gets shredded by Cleaver and fails to fill the big shoes left by Data Ward.

Kind of just throwing ideas out there but I recently realized that this is the first and only "Mandate" card released. After trawling through the card list and eventually just searching by keyword I found that Rebellion Without Rehersal not only introduces a new mechanic in the form of Mandate but that this card right here is the only Mandate in the game.

What is the Mandate mechanic and why does this card's special effect only trigger if this is the first mandate? Well, that's exactly what I want to talk about.

The Possibilities:

1. A Mandate is a card that draws other cards - Unlikely, there are Operations in the same cycle that draw cards yet are not Mandates (Corporate Hospitality and Mindscaping)

2. A Mandate is a card that plays another card - Also Unlikely, there are Operations in the same cycle that play other cards yet are not Mandates (Greasing the Palm and Pivot)

3. A Mandate is a purely cosmetic subtype like Deep Net (see World Tree or Seraph) - Maybe... but probably not, otherwise why would this card care whether another Mandate has been played

4. An internal non-combo to prevent fast advance

This is the most likely consideration, as far as I can tell. If the Mandate sub-consideration did not exist, it would be possible to play 3 back-to-back Sudden Commandments, netting yourself 2 Clicks and enabling the ability to fast-advance a 4/2 from hand. Interestingly enough however, even if this was possible, it would be inadvisable because for the same number of cards (3) and the same number of credits (12) you could play 3 back-to-back Biotic Labors gaining 3 Clicks and scoring a 5/3 from hand.

That being said, Biotic Labor is rotating soon and it's possible the designers wanted to preemptively shut down fast advance combos and make it clear that this is not the new Biotic Labor, it's meant purely for tempo plays. Except... it can be used to fast advance, using this card and another card that could otherwise not be used for fast-advance like Subliminal Messaging, Red Level Clearance or Business As Usual it is possible to fast advance agendas from hand with this cards help, even post rotation.

So... why is the limitation there? Is Sudden Commandment meant to be a pseudo-fast advance tool, yet limited to only being able to fast-advance 3/1s and 3/2s, not 4/2 or 5/3s? Again, maybe it's just an attempt to curb future fast advance but since fast advance tools can be comboed together, it's still possible to use this card + RLC + The Holo Man to score a 4/2 from hand. Or use this card + Business As Usual + Vladisibirsk City Grid to do the same thing. Is the only goal to force more complex multi-card fast advance lines instead of just being able to chain one card into itself.

Perhaps the more interesting questions are;

A. Will more Mandates be coming in future sets and

B. What similarities and differences will future Mandates have?

Will future Mandates all allow you to gain an extra click if it's the first Mandate played that turn, or would they enable other effects like gaining credits if this is the first Mandate played that turn or installing a piece of ICE ignoring costs if that is the first Mandate played that turn or allowing you to shuffle agendas back into the deck if this is the first mandate played that turn?

Only time will tell but it's an interesting new mechanic that was slipped in without nearly as much hoorah as the new Threat N mechanic was for example.

One of the more interesting recursion cards in the game, it can be difficult to analyze and evaluate this card, but I want to give some heuristics and speculations.

Let's consider this card in 3 different contexts:

1. How useful it is for the average Anarch
2. How useful it is for Sebastião Souza Pessoa: Activist Organizer (for whom it is designed)
3. How useful it is out of faction (and by extension whether it is worth importing into Shaper or Criminal)

It's not perfect but I think the best comparison is Retrieval Run, as they are both run events that target Archives and replace access with the ability to install a program from the Heap.

There are three main differences I can see:

1. The program recursion only works after Threat 3
2. The difference in costs
3. The tag and added resource recursion

For the threat effect, I would say that it's generally true to assume that you want recursion later in the game and as others have noted, Threat 3 is substantially preferable to Theat 4 due to the technicalities regarding Agenda distributions. If this had said Threat 4, that might have been a problem, but Threat 3 is tolerable.

In regards to costs, Privileged access is free, but requires you to pay the installation cost of the program, while Retrieval Run costs 3 up front, but installs the program ignoring all costs. While this might matter in a Faction like Shaper that plays Lobisomem and Orca it's of little importance to Anarchs due to the cheapness of the vast majority of their most common programs.

Cleaver, Audrey v2, Boi-tatá and Mimic all cost 3 to install, meaning it's a break-even whichever way you do it.

And while there are a handful of slightly more expensive programs like Buzzsaw, Stargate, Odore, Num, Banner or Begemot. They are balanced out by programs that cost less than three like Leech, Fermenter, Imp, Botulus, Chisel or Utae.

In this sense, Privileged Access has already broken even with Retrieval Run so for this card to be on par the first effect just needs to not be a drawback.

While the wording can be somewhat overwhelming and difficult to follow, let me rephrase it as this: would you be willing to take a tag to install a 1 credit Daily Casts from your heap? The answer is probably yes. I don't think taking a tag to get a little bit of extra money is a true downside and in some situations, it may even be a bonus.

Because of this, Privileged Access is competitive with Retrieval Run, perhaps the bigger problem for the average Anarch is that Retrieval Run itself often isn't competitive. Anarchs are spoilt for choice when it comes to recursion, and are also the most common users of neutral recursion, the average Anarch deck of today probably runs a Buffer Drive, an Ashen Epilogue and 2-3 Labor Rights which allow them to cycle through the entirety of their deck more than twice, allowing a 45-50 card deck to function more like a 100+ card deck. In such extreme situations limited single or double target recursion like Retrieval Run or Privileged Access just can't compete at that scale and often get ignored as a result.

When it comes to the second consideration, Sebastião Souza Pessoa: Activist Organizer can stretch this card's value proposition quite well, getting all the major benefits regular Anarchs do while also counterbalancing the cost of the tag. Not only that but Seb often runs cards like Valentina Ferreira Carvalho and Friend of a Friend that further diminish the drawbacks of taking a tag and as a result, Privileged Access already sees play in Seb decks. At minimum you can take a tag, install a card from hand and reinstall an already used Friend of a Friend and an already used Fermenter, turning this into a high-value soft econ card, that can also be used to recur trashed breakers or unique connections in a pinch. I suspect this card will continue to see play in Seb for the foreseeable future unless something changes dramatically in the meta.

For other factions this card doesn't look so promising, Shapers have plenty of in-faction program recursion like Simulchip or Muse as well as strong general recursion in the form of Harmony AR Therapy so they're hardly desperate for a card like this. And unless you are DJ Fenrising Seb then most Shapers will probably regard the tag as toxic and avoid it like the plague. Criminals, on the other hand, are desperate for recursion, lacking good options of their own and theoretically have synergy with run events in the form of Ken “Express” Tenma: Disappeared Clone, Swift and Debbie "Downtown" Moreira but I still don't think criminals are likely to play this card as if you've already decided you need to spend influence for importing something you'd probably prefer to spend the same amount of influence on a Labor Rights or spend one more influence for Harmony AR Therapy.

Some worthwhile mentions:

1. Seb cares about Connections, which are a specific subtype of Resources, but Privileged Access can theoretically recur any type of Resource, Connection or otherwise
2. This card can recur up to 2 other cards but does not remove itself from the game like most multi-recursion options do, which in turn makes it an exceptional target for other forms of recursion
3. This card installs the cards it recurs rather than put them back into the stack like Labor Rights or back into the hand like Katorga Breakout, which means the added click compression could be valuable
4. You don't have to immediately remove the tag after taking it, so you could use this card for set-up/econ and then just run HQ or R&D for some additional multiaccess off Manuel Lattes de Moura
5. You cannot play this card if you are already tagged, which is probably obvious if you've already got into the habit of playing Seb but it's meaningful that this card will not work with proper tag-me decks that play Counter Surveillance for example

More broadly I think I like the direction NSG is taking with Runner Recursion, specifically with rotation in mind, cards like Katorga Breakout or Privileged Access are more specific, limited and intentional recursion than something like Labor Rights. And Ashen Epilogue has clear downsides and risks when compared to Levy AR Lab Access, which is probably for the best since excessive runner recursion, a state of the game I think we are currently in, risks creating problematic game states for the corp where Runner econ seems both fast and limitless and it's impossible to tax them out, (DJ Fenris + Steve Cambridge: Master Grifter in Shaper is particularly disturbing in my opinion and I think the game will be easier to balance with it rotated from Standard). Plus, well-balanced Runner recursion reduces the need for aggressive counterplay like Skorpios Defense Systems: Persuasive Power, Blacklist or Chronos Project all of which have their own problems.

Thematically I quite like this card and would honestly have loved to see more Seb + Eru cards as they seem like such a cute couple. The quote is a neat reference and the art well represents Eru's ability to sneak in and recover important data from the corp as a result of her position inside the corporations due to being a clone (see Eru Ayase-Pessoa). In regards to her ability to recur a Resource... perhaps it's a reference to rioters working with Seb and Eru getting arrested and the two of them using their privileged positions to help break their friends out? That would be a cool touch. Plus the creepy dude in the background well represents the fact that you can get it, but not without being watched and noticed (hence tagged). Very cool card, a great theme, Seb and Eru may not have landed well in the meta, but the story telling of these cards is top tier.

It's somewhat strange to see an ID with no review, now nearly nine months after its release. Interestingly enough, "somewhat strange" may be the perfect way to describe Mr Pessoa, affectionately known as Seb by the community. While Shapers were clearly the big winners of the Liberation cycle (looking at you Trick Shot), I'd say Anarchs have had it pretty good too, Strike Fund and The Price have quickly become staples across a wide range of trash me Anarch decks, Solidarity Badge sees a solid amount of play even outside of tag me decks as a card draw engine for Imp decks. Audrey v2 is a potent AI breaker seeing a lot of new play as what is perhaps a more balanced "near-print" of Faust, Banner has applications in both Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist decks and breakless Mercury: Chrome Libertador decks. Even out of faction, Hannah "Wheels" Pilintra is a staple of Deep Dive shaper decks and Monkeywrench sees some play in Arissana Rocha Nahu: Street Artist. And of course, we cannot talk about Liberation Anarchs without mentioning Arruaceiras Crew which has brought ICE destruction back with a vengeance, arguably being one of the most versatile and easy-to-use ICE destruction tools yet.

Seb however is not exactly the most promising Anarch card in Liberation, which is always somewhat odd as "his toys" see more play in other hands than his own. But why, what makes Seb so hard to utilize?

Well, let's start with what he does, whenever you take a tag, you can install a connection resource paying two credits less. Because removing a tag requires a click and 2 credits, even if we assume you have a connection resource that costs 2 or more that you want to install in your hand whenever you take a tag, that still means that you only really break even from taking a tag, since you save yourself a click and two credits on the install and spend a click and 2 credits removing the tag. Which... is kinda pointless.

Normally that would lead us down the obvious road of tag-me Anarchs; if you never need to remove the tags, the install is pure profit, then, rely purely on programs, hardware and events so that there is nothing for the corporation to trash, go all out with Counter Surveillance or both.

Unfortunately for Seb, his text specifies, that whenever you take a tag "if you had no tags" ... and some of his associated cards like Privileged Access or Eye for an Eye share similar text, which means that tag me is out of the question for Seb, to utilize him to the fullest you have to continually take and remove tags, kind of bobbing and weaving in and out of the spotlight. Once again, this means he functionally has no profit margin, you gain the equivalent of a click and 2 credits on the proviso that you will spend a click and 2 credits, it's power neutral, and it might as well not even exist in isolation.

To get value from Seb, therefore, you need to play cards that treat a tag as a drawback paired with an otherwise powerful effect, Rogue Trading and Hot Pursuit are notable examples on top of his aforementioned cards released in the same cycle like Crew, Privileged Acess or Eru Ayase-Pessoa. By cancelling out the downside of the tag, you can improve the underlying value proposition of any cards that otherwise treat taking a tag as a cost.

The second application is to get more value from cards like Valentina Ferreira Carvalho, normally an extremely niche tech against tag flooding from Oppo Research, Valentina improves the value proposition of any tag combo. Now, you can take a tag, install a connection paying 2 less, ultimately saving you a click and two credits and then only have to spend a net of one click and 1 credit to remove the tag, letting you not only cancel out the bad effect of taking a tag from a card like Eru or Rogue Trading, but actually profiting you a single credit from the combo.

The other strategy, what I like to call "Spicy Seb" involves floating a tag for a single turn, then utilizing Solidarity Badge and Amanuensis to clicklessly remove the tag and clicklessly draw two cards, which is incredible value. This strategy utilizes Seb's secondary ability, as well as effects like Manuel to disincentive the corporation from trashing your precious connection resources during that turn. However, the corporation still has the opportunity to trash non-connection resources and even critical connection resources they feel are worth the sacrifice and it enables other tag punishment. This strategy gives Seb far more value from tags at the expense of a far more polarizing match-up spread, particularly against NBN and Weyland who are the most likely to be packing tag punishment of their own. However even HB and Jinteki have cards like Greasing the Palm, Hypoxia or Mindscaping, all of which enable some scary tools like damage and fast-advance. As such, this strategy is not for the faint of heart, nor would I recommend it to beginners learning the game as it can be incredibly punishing if misplayed.

The biggest problem from here is arguably a lack of good combo targets, as there is a limited number of connection resources, let alone connection resources that cost 2 or more, let alone in faction ones. Additionally, getting the right hand-states where you can install a connection whenever you want to take a tag and take a tag whenever you want to install a connection resource can be unreliable at best and can make it hard to continually generate value from his ability.

That being said, I want to quickly run through some good ways to combo with Seb to give you some deckbuilding ideas, I'll mostly focus on cards released in the same cycle as Seb to avoid referencing cards about to rotate, and I cannot predict what future card combos will arise as new cards are released:

• Eru + Manuel is a neat way to repeatedly get a Maker’s Eye worth of value off of an Archives run while simultaneously triggering Seb's ability to offset the cost of taking the tag, plus you can even use Seb's ability to install Manuel mid-run, giving you a tempo-positive way to pressure the corp and get lots of accesses

• Valentina is practically a must-include as she makes every tag combo better. By giving you a credit whenever you remove a tag instead of technically making removing tags cheaper, she also synergizes with all sorts of "non-basic-action" ways of removing tags like Friend of Friend, Bahia, Hannah or Solidarity Badge if you want to go down that pathway as well as out-of-faction and out-of-cycle cards like No Free Lunch or Flip Switch if you prefer

• Friend of a Friend is a great way to smooth the inconsistency of his deck, it's an in-faction 2+ cost connection resource and it's not unique like many connection resources are, which makes it the perfect target for Seb's ability, not only that but it can either remove a tag or give you a tag for greater gains, which means it's always useful, whether you are installing it off of taking a tag from another source, removing a tag in a credit positive way or taking a tag to install another connection, this card does it all and bridges a lot of the shortfalls of Seb decks, I'd highly recommend including 3 copies and I would probably include 6 if I could

• Privileged Access gets you value from the tag in addition to the recursion, allowing you to quickly build and rebuild board state by installing connections from your hand and archives at the same time, as well as potentially grabbing a lost program, notably, by making recursion cheap, you also further disincentive the corp trashing your connections in the first place, which adds an extra layer of protection on top of Seb's ability, alternatively it can just be a good way to grab a card lost to self-trashing like The Price as well as other out of cycle cards like Moshing or Labor Rights or Isolation. Worst case scenario you can just grab an already used Friend of a Friend for even more econ

Somewhat interestingly a disproportionate number of Seb's associated cards have Threat 3 triggers, while the Threat N mechanic, in general, is a new addition to Netrunner introduced in the Liberation Cycle, Seb arguably has more than most, Shaper's have Pressure Spike but that doesn't trigger till Threat 4 (quite late in the game) and isn't a staple in Arissana decklists while Living Mural sees arguably even less play. Criminals have S-Dobrado, which is potent as well as Debbie "Downtown" Moreira but Malandragem sees little play and Jeitinho's Threat effect is not the main draw while Shibboleth gets actively weaker.

Perhaps more than any other runner, Seb cares about the Threat level for a large number of his most important cards, and I would highly recommend keeping an eye on that as your deck can switch into overdrive after just a single 3-point steal.

Less notably:

• Hannah can be used to remove a tag and can incidentally give you a tag, but you only take a tag on an unsuccessful run, which isn't reliable and trashing her just to remove a tag and gain a click isn't her peak potential, Shaper decks tend to use her as a tech against asset spam to make guaranteed runs on unprotected remote servers and then either use her secondary ability on Deep Dive turns to access multiple agendas or use it to save themselves from False Lead + Oppo Research kill combos. I'm not saying you shouldn't include Hannah, but don't expect her just to be another Friend of a Friend, her potential applications are very different and more complex.

• Arruaceiras Crew is a potent and scary card to many corporations, but once again, IDs like Freedom Khumalo: Crypto-Anarchist or Hoshiko Shiro: Untold Protagonist can often do better with it than Seb and use other forms of strength shredding like Devil Charm or Leech while rarely using Crew's own strength shredding effect. I'm not saying you can't build a Crew Seb deck but if you like Crew and aren't really sold on Seb I'd refer you to either of those other two IDs

• Bahia Bands can also give you a click-compressed way to remove tags and make a run, in addition to one of the other effects like installing another card, drawing some cards or making trashing cheaper. However, it inadvertently has some anti-synergy with other Seb staples; successful runs triggers resolve before access, so if you remove your only tag you could end up preventing Manuel from giving you extra accesses and since this is a run event it cannot be used at the same time as Eru's ability or Hannah's ability either

• Eye for an Eye is an interesting multiaccess tool that blends Jailbreak and Carnivore, giving you multiaccess and unconditional trashing, anecdotally it sees very little play, even in Seb decks and it's worth noting that both Jailbreak and Carnivore see very little play either. Perhaps once Imp rotates with Dawn, Eye for an Eye will be reappraised as a tool to trash cards you otherwise couldn't like Operations, ICE or nasty defensive Agendas. To trash a corp card you have to trash one of your own and as with all self-trashing it's best used on spare copies of unique cards, tech cards not needed in the current match-up and intentional trashables like the new Strike Fund. It also synergizes nicely with Manuel, to let you access a total of 3 cards from HQ, a kind of make-your-own Legwork, which together with Eru can give you respectable pressure on all three central servers.

TLDR: A fascinating ID that does something new in the tag me space, having an almost rhythmic pattern of taking and removing tags to maximise value instead of simply taking as many tags as possible with reckless abandon like Anarchs historically might have. That being said, he has struggled so far to make a real impact on the meta, and I'd really only recommend him to those interested in the unique playstyle as he's probably not the most competitive.