I'm thinking of getting back into Netrunner now that a couple of friends started playing more and I got news about the Most Wanted list or whatever it's called. When I heard about the list, the first five cards I could think of that would fit a list like that were on it. Yog was a surprise to me as I haven't really seen it, but I guess there's been some recent Code Gates that needed breaking. Then there were some new cards that I didn't even know existed.
But I'm currently more than 1,5 whole cycles and two deluxe expansions behind.
Yog is a weird fellow. The thing is, all the red decks were running 3x Data Sucker, 3x Parasite, usually Ice Carver and occasionally Net-Ready Eyes (a cheap hardware that can give an ice breaker 1 strength temporarily). In that kind of environment Yog becomes a strength 3 with "0: break code gate sub" and "1: +1 strength", because you have access to all these abilities that cost roughly a credit to activate and let Yog meet the strength of any Ice it needs to match.
That means it's the best codegate icebreaker for Anarchs (though Noise skipped it because he likes to do silly stuff instead of playing Netrunner). It's actually fine that it's the best code gate icebreaker for Anarchs. Gordian Blade is the best code gate breaker for shapers and Passport is the best code gate Icebreaker for criminals. That's all ok.
The problem is that future design was stifled by knowing Yog.0 would just be hanging around all the time. The design team can't make a cool neutral code gate with 3 strength, a sub "the runner draws a card, then trashes two cards from his or her grip", "The runner loses 1 credit", and "End the run" (made up example). Because no one would ever, ever play it, because Yog is omnipresent as Anarch's best breaker. Gordian blade doesn't stifle design this way (it stifles design for a code gate that says "When you encounter this code gate, all codegates in this server gain +2 strength", but that's much more narrow than everything strength 3). Passport doesn't stifle design this way either.
The designer said Yog being on the list was for the sake of making new cards more so than Yog's current strength. There's common consensus that raw power wise it's one of the weakest cards on the list of right now, but the idea is that putting it on the list is a helpful good idea going forward.
The main current impact is that you can play more Yagura, play a Viktor 1.0 and that not be awful, and counter Faust by putting Turing on a central without getting wrecked for trying to make your opponent pay credits to break ice.
It's definitely the opposite of "there's some recent Code Gates that need breaking" 4 out of the last 5 code gates release have had more than 3 strength, perhaps because design felt the need to evade Yog, and the 3 strength code gate has never touched a sleeve (and looks a bit like a funzie card that wasn't definitely supposed to)