Grappling hook probably still isn't a real card, but it's worth noting that it's been slowly growing in power as ice gets bigger, uglier and multi-subbier. The old combos with e3 Feedback Implants and the newer ones with Tracker are still as unwieldy as they ever were, but there's an increasing number of commonly played cards that are effectively mitigated by having a 'hook on the table. Fairchild 3.0, DNA Tracker, Chiyashi, and now Tithonium all have potentially game-winning facecheck penalties that Grappling Hook can reduce to a manageable level. That's added to its efficacy against old standards like Archer and Komainu. It's also hilarious against Little Engine, although that's unlikely to come up these days.

Grappling Hook has nice synergy with Mammon because you can facecheck ice with a single counter knowing that you have a viable breaking option on the table if needs be. It isn't an AI - it's not even an icebreaker - so it can even deal with the nasty subs on AI hate like Swordsman and Hortum.

God knows what you cut for it, but it's definitely better than it used to be.

Everyone should try scoring one of these at least once. It's bananas. I can have whatever I want? Really? Oh, and I have to discard down. Of course I do, I just scored out a 5/3 that grabs three cards. There are two obvious things to go and get: 1/ A fast advance combo, 2/ A death combo. Very occasionally you might opt for 3/ ALL OF THE MONEY. That's an important possibility to consider when comparing this to High-Risk Investment. Packing one or two Beanstalk Royalties makes score-and-recover plays a little more feasible.

Bear in mind that this has a "reveal" clause, so if you fetch an Agenda to fast advance you have to show it to the runner. Maybe showing them a Hunter Seeker too will make them think twice. I haven't tried the death combo - my initial reaction is "too expensive, too many pieces." It strikes me that the reveal is an extra death knell though. LOOK - I'M PLANNING TO KILL YOU! While you're recovering from your big score, the runner will find their counter or money up against a trace.

Overall, a really fun card.

There are three types of cards: The good, the bad and the janky. The difference between the latter two is the list of possible combos and pie-in-the-sky fantasy scenarios. Zaibatsu Loyalty for instance is bad. Not only does it not have a power that justifies slotting it for its own sake, it doesn't have any interactions with other corp cards that could make it part of a ludicrous combo or game busting 1:100 play. By contrast, Mumbad City Grid is jank, because if the stars align you can make the runner encounter the same Komainu three times in one run, which is AWESOME!

Sunset recently got a promotion to serious jank status. Previously, it's best claim to jankitude was setting up combos with positional ice: Cell Portal and the like. But with the advent of AgInfusion: New Miracles for a New World, it suddenly has a new lease on life. Why? Because for AgInfusion every ice is potentially positional ice. Say you have a Chiyashi rezzed on your scoring remote. Ordinarily, that would be a significant but eminently overcomeable obstacle for the runner. But throw a couple of ice on top of it and then send them to the back with this card, and suddenly your remote is a seriously proposition. Now the runner has to break Chiyashi before you fire your redirect power. It's like a Nisei MK II counter that makes them encounter the Excalibur you've got rezzed on archives.

I've been playing this card some on jinteki.net, and just in case it ever becomes a thing I'd like to be in on the ground floor of saying that it is Way Better Than It Looks (TM). You heard it here first folks. Obviously it's a build-around card (It's pretty good Jinteki hate, but who's packing Jinteki hate?) requiring you to play lesser-used self-damaging cards like Stimhack, Stim Dealer, Amped Up, Net-Ready Eyes and even Titanium Ribs. Because your in-faction options are all brain damage, you'll want hand size increases too. Brain Cage is amazing with this because it's self damage AND handsize. You probably want to supplement it with at least one Public Sympathy for good measure.

That's a lot of Jank. I've been playing this out of Whizzard because he counters asset spam and lets you play a deck with some set-up time, which this card definitely requires. When Whizz rotates I don't know if this will be feasible anymore. It depends if anything else happens in the meta to counter the horror of Friends in High Places and related asset spam grimness (the last MWL only really cut off a couple of the hydra's heads)

Preamble dispensed with, let's assume that you've built up a bunch of counters on one or more of these babies. Is it worth it? Surprisingly I think it's arguable that the answer might be yes. For the Corp, a loaded Clan Vengeance is one of the most upsetting things it's possible for the runner to have installed. Its instant speed means that it's a constant threat. Every time the corp does something you could theoretically respond by trashing their hand. That's really unreasonable to play around. Here's a few things you can do:

1/ Run archives and trash HQ immediately before access. Do you like Legwork? As long as Jackson Howard isn't on the table this option is way better than Legwork. As a default use, this is a really strong option.

2/ Utterly counter any combo. Remember that this can be done as a response. The corp cannot Power Shutdown their deck. They can't count on having Accelerated Diagnostics after playing The Space Penguin. If they trace you with SEA Source or Midseason Replacements then the clan will protect you from targeted ordinance and civic redevelopments, no problem.

3/ Trash the corp's hand immediately after their mandatory draw. This option means that the maximum number of counters that has a practical use is six, not five as you might expect. It's also a handy option if you've seen the top of R&D and you disapprove of the line of play that it suggests.

4/ Make sure the corp isn't going to respond to your Medium by installing any ice.

5/ Trash HQ just before the Corp's last click. This option creates (even more) economy pressure. The Corp can spend their last click to gain a credit (inefficient) or to draw a card, which could potentially leave them with an agenda and nothing else in HQ. This is also the most satisfying time to smack down Friends in High Places. That's not a tactical consideration, but it is immensely gratifying.

6/ Trash HQ when the corp creates a new remote. Now that ice has nothing to protect. Alternatively, that agenda has nothing to be protected by. Or maybe they were planning to fast advance and they realised that they couldn't play their Biotic Labor before installing because...

7/ ... you should definitely fire this the moment the Corp plays a Biotic Labour with their first click.

I feel like I'm giving away a big secret by posting this review, because I haven't seen anyone else playing this, and even if it turns out that it isn't the best card in the world I promise you that it's an absolute blast use and abuse. Honestly though, it's actually pretty strong in the right deck.

This card is getting some love in the reviews so far. I really hope the positive reviews are right - heck, I argued in favour of Fisk Investment Seminar on this very site. I want cards to be playable and powerful and fun. Here though, I'm going to play devil's advocate. My suspicion is that in the final analysis this card sucks.

Compare this to Archived Memories from a purely economic perspective. They both take a to play. With Archived Memories that's the end of the story. You've recurred a card that you want in your hand. By contrast, Allele repression needs advancing before it does anything. 1 and a for each card you want back. Then you have to rez it for a cost of 2. Then you have to spend another card for each card you want to recur. That's some expensive recursion. Sometimes the extra cards you discard will be stuff you don't need: silver bullets that aren't appropriate to the match-up, ice that doesn't help your current board-state, Shocks and the like. That's not going to happen reliably though. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not in the habit of putting cards that I consider 'junk' in my deck.

All this expense might be justified if Allele Repression was the key to combotastic awesomeness, and it's clear that a lot of folks think that it is. The card most often mentioned is Snare!, and I think that's the best argument for repressing alleles. I'll come back to it. Other candidates mentioned by Bigguyforyou are Neural EMP and Trick of Light. With the former, Ronin instead of Allele Repression does the same job better. Allele Repression offers more versatility, but it will never be king of the kill. The latter could be helpful sometimes, but you need an awful lot of advanced things on the table to make that work. If your deck advances things and then Tricks out agendas it's already quite complicated. More moving bits increases the need for your deck to come out in a particular order and put pressure on slots that you'd really like to fill with ice and economy.

At this point I should talk about Mushin No Shin. With Mushin you can circumvent the cost of playing Allele Repression and with Allele Repression you can recur Mushin. It's a match made in heaven! Except no. Mushin is in many ways an economy card, so saying it makes Allele Repression playable is like saying Hedge Fund makes Clairvoyant Monitor playable. There are already quite a lot of good targets for Mushin. The opportunity cost for a Mushined Allele Repression is a Mushined much-better-card. On the other hand, if you're recurring Mushin with Allele Repression then your strategy is eating itself. I'm going to install and advance a card in order to recur (with some additional expense) a card which provides economy with which to install and advance cards! It can't possibly go wrong.

So. Snare. I can imagine the situation where a runner plays Legwork. In the paid ability window after the runner has committed to access I pop my Allele Repression (which I'm imagining I mushined more than a turn ago and further imagining the runner chose not to run) and fill my hand with three Snare!s. I imagine the requisite Snare!s are already in my archives after a long hard fought game. At this point I imagine the runner's legwork will hit two or more of the Snare!s. The odds are in favour of such an outcome given the circumstances. I'm also imagining that the runner hasn't siphoned me broke because I'm Jinteki and that's what happens to Jinteki if it doesn't spend its precious utility slots on Caprice Nisei instead of Allele Repression. In this situation that I'm imagining Allele repression would win me the game. I'm sure it will happen sometimes, but probably not often enough.

One last criticism. It's a 2 to trash, so on top of everything else, it makes R and D porous. Like I say, I'd love to be wrong, but the bottom line for me is that the expense and opportunity cost just aren't going to justify themselves often enough.