Red Tree scares me, and makes me think that FFG is too eager to put very strong effects on IDs. The problem with Red Tree and AgInfusion and suchlike is that the only way to counter them is to use Estrike, which is a card I dislike. If you don’t counter them, you literally can’t run without either an AI capable of being strength 8 on the spot, or SMC.
I feel like these effects should have been printed on Currents or “until your next turn” operations or assets.
That Jinteki corp could also be superb with ambush ice (Archangel etc) and a few “+1c to trash costs” assets. If only there was more of them 
What? Why? Purely to keep them in hand and leave HQ open? I don’t really see the point.
One thing I could see working with it is Levy University to tutor all your Chiyashis.
Red Tree is also efficient: You really don’t need to install ICE until the runner starts to poke servers. Just use your clicks to do other stuff. If they run, you can install an ICE without additional costs. Like a growing tree: Slowly, but kind of like Quicksand ICE it’s getting harder to run each time. So I’d pack 3x An Offer you can’t refuse into this glacier ID.
I thought there was time to jack out if Redtree. I was wrong, it’s super busted. Thank goodness there are ways to play arou…oh wait there aren’t.
A full “ambush ice” deck would have the following strong points :
You don’t need ambush ice for any of that. Just load up on Komainus, DNA Trackers, Chiyashis and let the ID install them in the runners face.
Then your HQ / R&D is only 0-1 deeper than expected, not 0-1-2 (increasing this was the goal : because last access is the one were you can trash so 0-1 isn’t very strong actually).
Having lots of KomaTrackYashi asks you in theory an economy that can provide >5c a turn. I’m unsure of this. You’d better play lots of Cricks & Aikis.
Great corp to play a Susano-No-Mikoto, as that ice is better innermost.
And Nisei MKII of course.
Also : Inazuma. And Chum and Cell Portal would have been funny there if they had not rotated out.
Excalibur, etc…
At first glance it seems like an ID where you can hit your opponent with a surprise piece of ICE – whatever they cannot break. It is that but the ID has more subtle benefits to it as well.
• It saves on clicks for the ICE you install.
• It saves on credits for installing multiple ICE in the one server.
• It makes positional ICE stronger.
The third point is probably still not worth playing positional ICE but having an ID that gives/saves you clicks or credits has always been strong. This one does both of these (albeit the runner gets to choose when it triggers) as well as has another strong function to it. I think it is going to be a super strong ID.
Is MTI broken? Will we see SMC used out of faction? Does MTI mean Temujin can come out of timeout?
I wouldn’t have called it broken, but then I opened up the RRG and confirmed that “approach the server” means “after passing all the other ICE”, so now I’m a bit worried. In addition to the spooky “all un-ICEd servers could be Komainu” sort of shenanigans, it also means you can turn your 3 ICE scoring server which the runner has calculated the cost of into a 4 ICE server without having to pay for install.
I doubt there is anything that will mean Temujin can come out of timeout.
MTI also totally weakens Inside Job’s usefulness cause Runner doesn’t know which remotes to consider ICE’d.
Can I just fully establish the rules for jacking out? You are approaching the new ICE, so you can only jack out if you’ve already encountered an ICE. Correct?
My interpretation is that, if the server has no ICE, then the runner must encounter the ICE that Mti installs just as if it was there when they declared the run. Step 2.2 in the run timing chart says
Either the Runner jacks out: go to [Step 6] (cannot jack out if this is the first ice approached this run)
and it would be the first ICE approached.
I’m surprised how scared people sound about Mti. There’s a lot of awful ICE you can faceplant, true, but the corp won’t always have those available or be able to afford to rez. Anarchs will have heap breakers, Shapers SMC. Admittedly, Criminals are in bad shape…what else is new.
But this ID (like Aginfusion before it) actually makes ICE good! Is that really bad for the game? Anything that centers the ICE-Icebreaker interaction has tended to be heralded as “traditional Netrunner” while archetypes that move away from that (no-remote FA, asset spam, combo) generate community complaints. The designs of both these Jinteki IDs are wonderful to me and they also highlight some good ICE design in that very few things can kill a careful runner outright—look at Mlinzi, which is a brutal piece of ICE but one which gives the runner the choice to mill themselves instead of die. Komainu is similar, it needs a House of Knives combo to actually kill. These can both be terrible against Anarch in certain situations (Mlinzi tutors for retrieval run, Komainu surges up Clan Vengeance); they have natural predators in the card pool.
I think MTI is broken, and I think its broken with asset spam.
Asset spam is never a no-ice deck. Its often low amounts of extremely high impact ice (when you need less ice, the ice you have is the very top tier). Some of your favourite things to do in asset spam is to force them to be unable to hit the key asset without having to faceplant some awful high impact ice (architect, cortex lock) and lose the tempo they need to actually destroy the board.
The way asset spam often fails is being unable to figure out the best asset to ice for the current gameplan, or not having enough ice in general. MTI is busted because you can use one piece of ice and the runner has to facecheck it early game in order to interact with the board. In reality this will probably just mean that the runner will not interact with the board for at least 2-3 turns and the corp will get a massive tempo start.
MTI with Kitsune, Snare!, and Political Assets will be tough 
My favorite thing about this cycle is that they reeeally tried hard to make expose a thing for Criminal. I mean, a thing that is more than just a gimmick - and then, in the very last pack, they drop a Corp ID that makes expose kinda pointless. You can’t expose ICE that’s not even there until you run. Well played, FFG!
Question for the new Red Tree ID:
If I use Spearfishing to run a 3-ice remote, do I:
Basically I want to get 2x bypass as the identity of the innermost ice changes with the fresh install.
I think you’re right for 1 & 3. So 2 may never be the corp’s choice.
I’m not sure I agree the optimal runner strategy vs. MTI asset spam is to not run early. If you just take your lump from cortex lock on the first turn (if they even have it (~33%), and if your not Hayley and can’t soak up some MU), they probably don’t have any more ice in hand and your smooth sailing for a turn or two from there.