• Probably not worth it if you take the 2 brain damage. At that point, you're spending 3 draws and an install and $1 on this card to gain 1 click/turn for the rest of the game and a penalty on hand size which makes things much harder against Jinteki, HB, and many Weylands. If you plan on using Hippocampic Mechanocytes to restore your hand-size, it's five draws and two installs and $1 to gain 1 click/turn. Ouch.

• Basilar looks alright if you can prevent the brain damage. Having a 5th click increases the expected # of agendas stolen on a Deep Dive by around 50%. On average the 5th click adds something like .75 - 1 additional agenda point per Deep Dive depending on the agenda suite. If your deck's entire gameplan builds to 2-3 super Deep Dive turns, working in $9 for Caldera costs might be worth it.

• Outside of Deep Dive Shaper, this might see niche usage in Apex, either using Heartbeat or Assimilator to avoid the damage. Apex's influence is extremely tight, but the amount of value Assimilator can generate from an additional click is promising.

Somehow, this AI is both really good, and really clunky, at the same time! Which is a fantastic spot for an AI to be in. If they're too limited, they won't see play. But if they're too good, they run the risk of just replacing peoples' standard breaker suites entirely. (Remember Faust?)

So. Matryoshka. On the good side - its a reusable breaker with break costs that are identical to Corroder. That's pretty darn efficient - breaking any ice for the same cost as a one of the best breakers in a faction is impressive, and being able to target any ice type means that early game, it's hard for the corp to lock you out with gear checks.

On the clunky side though - the install costs. Not the 3 - that part is quite reasonable. No, I'm talking about the part where you have to draw and install (costing a ) the extra copies to make it function. In some ways, it's reminiscent of the old Crypsis, except that when you spend clicks to "wind it up" it stays wound. (At the cost of having to draw into more copies first.) And it doesn't even do anything until you've drawn at least two copies! But luckily, you can include 6 copies in a deck, so there's actually a decent chance to get it online early enough to provide some pressure.

One interesting thing about it is that it doesn't play nicely with very many card tutors. Self-modifying Code, Into the Depths, etc, all install a program after searching for it. But since you only install the first one, Matryoshka prefers cards that bring it to your hand. Mutual Favor is the obvious choice. But I'm not sure it's really necessary - with 6 copies in a 45 card deck, you have a ~40% chance to draw two of them in your first 10 cards. And that's not even taking into account if you mulligan for them. Also, extra shoutout to Ayla "Bios" Rahim, who's extra 6 cards at startup make it way easier to get something like this online.

Also, it's worth remembering that tutors can still help you with the initial install. If you have a Matryoshka and a Self-modifying Code in your hand, you can always use the SMC to install a Matryoshka out of your deck, and then just click to host the one you already had in your hand. This only works for the first one of course, but it can be a good way of getting the ball rolling.

Once you get it installed, the only real question then is "what else do you pair it with?" If you're spending 6 deck slots on Matryoshka copies, (and maybe 3 more on tutors), that's a lot of your deck already taken up. You probably don't want to include more than 1 copy of each breaker after that, if that. But you probably want at least some other way to get past ice, so that the corp doesn't just lock you out with big ice towers.

I've actually been having decent luck in Startup Format lately, paring it with everyone's favorite big dumb console, Endurance. They make a pretty good pair - Endurance deals with the big expensive stuff, and Matryoska helps save on power counters so Endurance doesn't have to waste time on the dinky ice. But Botulus is also pretty good partner, as well as standard criminal tricks like Inside Job. The thing is - it's not THAT common for corps to put more than 2-3 ice on a server. So while Matryoshka's limit is definitely something you have to keep in mind, it doesn't actually keep me out as often as I would have expected.

One other thing that probably bears mentioning is its apparent weakness to program destruction. In a set that has Nanisivik Grid and ZATO City Grid, (As well as lots of ways to land tags for Retribution) the corp can trash programs if they really want to. Losing a pumped up Matryoshka is very sad. But it's actually more resilient than it appears - the trick is that you don't really need very many copies for it to be a useful threat. 1-2 hosted copies, and you can still get through enough ice to keep Endurance fueled up, and even if it gets trashed, you still have a few more copies in your deck to fall back on.

So overall - a surprisingly good AI breaker. I find I am liking it a lot more than I thought I would, before trying to play it. The credit cost to install and break is actually really good for what it does. The extra card-draws and clicks required to get it rolling are a little taxing, but still probably fair for the value. It's not something you just drop into your deck as an occasional backup like Mayfly. It requires you to actually structure your deck around it a little. But if you do, it can provide a surprising amount of early game pressure and consistency!

--Plays very well with any deck that has small agendas and/or negative-point agendas like News Team and Nightmare Archive. If runner has at least 2 agendas and/or fake agendas, which will probably be most of the game, this is better than a Hedge Fund. If you're building for the late game, this has much more upside than a Hedge Fund.

--Very playable in Thule/Sportsmetal and PE. HB has Nightmare Archives and cards like Djupstad Grid and Big Deal which you might slot in rich builds. PE is cash-poor and can win long games. It has many cards that can convert cash into damage (Anemone, Snare, Reaper Function) or into economic drain ($8+ ice) or into forcing runs that the runner cannot afford yet (Dr. Keeling).

--Runners currently don't have any cards that can get rid of negative-point agendas. (Data Dealer and Art Colony have rotated).

--It's less useful in Weyland which has efficient and fast cards but generally not great cards or ID support for winning a long game.

--Most corps can recur ~4-6 cards depending on how many Spin Doctors they find. This is a much better target for recursion than most economic cards. A 4th copy of Hedge Fund only adds $2-3 to your deck's economic potential. An additional copy of Stock Buyback will probably add $8-10.

--It's a terminal, which makes it harder to combo with Hard-Hitting News but otherwise is not too awkward. Most of the decks that need this card do not need a huge spike to do something this turn but rather need a huge amount of money floating around.

--The art is beautiful. The most obvious approach to this card would have been more boring (a bunch of investors hashing out a business deal).

--"A stock dropping sharply is bad for shareholders, but not necessarily bad for the company." Unless the company is secretly shorting itself, no. Keep in mind your shareholders didn't become The Board by NOT setting people on fire that tried to rob them.

This card looks very bad. However, it is actually quite good and valuable for Weyland decks using Regulatory Capture.

Taking bad publicity is generally bad. You're generally supposed to be compensated with money for taking bad publicity. This is why Hostile Takeover, Too Big to Fail, give you big money in exchange for taking it, so the corp accelerates their game to try to win before the runner get get too much leverage. This card, when you rez it, you LOSE 6 credits, and you take a bad publicity. And increasingly more bad publicity, not profiting from it at all (you profit a little if you are The Outfit: Family Owned and Operated.)

The trash cost is high, but its win con only lets you win after a ridiculously long amount of time, and the closer you get to winning, the easier it is for the runner to trash it. So as other reviewers say, it looks more like a Tik Tok challenge than a part of a legitimate strategy.

The point of this card is the following.

You play a big-money bad-pub weyland deck like The Outfit: Family Owned and Operated or Weyland Consortium: Building a Better World. You have 3x Hostile Takeover, big 3 pointers, and 3x Regulatory Capture. You probably have Punitive Counterstrike, to force the runner to play around that.

Good news, 8 turns went by. You scored 2 Hostile Takeover from hand. You scored Send a Message, simply IAA'ing it like a boss because you had 40 credits and the runner only had 15, and they had to respect the double Punitive Counterstrike. So you're now on 5 points.

That's when you install the Superdeep Borehole. You rez it at the end of the runner's turn, taking 1 more bad pub, to a total of 3. Now, the runner absolutely must trash this thing on their turn, or you will get to 4 bad pub on the start of your turn, and be able to score Regulatory Capture from hand for the win. If the runner is a Nyusha "Sable" Sintashta: Symphonic Prodigy on Tunnel Vision, odds are they won't get past your remote server ice on this short notice anyways.

Congrats! You managed to get 2 bad pub from the borehole. You can now simply Extract the borehole, you don't need any more bad pub, and its built-in win con is goofy anyways. Now you simply draw into Regulatory Capture and win the game.

What's that? The runner huffed and puffed and trashed your Superdeep Borehole before you could get a second bad pub from it? That's okay, install another. If they don't trash it (face down) before the start of your turn, you'll get your 4th bad pub and proceed as planned. If they do, they paid 6 to trash something that you didn't even rez.

Or, at this point, just draw into the third Hostile Takeover. Then you are at 4 bad pub. What's a runner to do.

So, particularly in the (Parhelion) startup meta, this card is key to any weyland decks that want to run Regulatory Capture, because this and Hostile Takeover are the only ways for you to get bad publicity in Parhelion startup. And while it may seem crazy expensive for what it does, because it gives you a path to score Regulatory Capture as a 2/2 from hand, it creates a win con that is actually very hard for the runner to disrupt. You don't need to have both a 3/2 and Trick of Light in hand, and have advancement counters on the board, to fast advance. You don't need to have Biotic Labor and a pile of money and a 3/2. You just need to have played normal weyland for a while, and at some point installed a borehole that stuck around for two turns. And you don't have to try to score a second 5/3 pointer behind ice to win anymore, which is often the achilles heal of Punitive Counterstrike decks, which gets mooted once the runner steals 4 points from R&D before you can win.

So, contrary to what other reviewers are saying, do not "install this early", and don't focus on the "when it is empty, you win the game" text on the card. Install and rez only when you are 2 points from victory so that all you have to do is draw into Regulatory Capture to close out the game.

• This is a high-impact deck slot. 7 clicks to net $13 adds roughly +$6 to your economy more than you would have gotten clicking for credits. In contrast, Hedge Fund is ~2 clicks to net $4, which adds roughly +$2 to your economy more than clicking. If your gameplay can spare a lot of clicks for earning money, this is a really really good card.
• You could have this card take your scoring server a few turns, but the trash card on this card is high enough that it does a reasonable job protecting a naked install in a new server. If you install this card naked and they run on it, you're probably winning on the exchange. (You've spent a click and a card, and they've lost $3 and a click). If you install it naked and immediately collect $6 from it, you're definitely winning on the exchange against an unassisted run. (You spend 3 clicks and a card to net +$4, and they lose a click and -$3... spending 2 net clicks and a card to cause a credit swing of $7 is fantastic, this is better than a Diversion of Funds/Boomerang play).
• Even if the runner has a Dirty Laundry, installing this card naked breaks even on the play (both players spend 1 click and a card, and no money changes hands) if no other card support is available.
• A $2 rez cost makes it one of the easiest options for bouncing back from a cash crunch.