Looks made for Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist.

Let's assume you are also playing Marrow and other core damage cards, so early in the game it's plausible that you can do 2 core damage to yourself. If you then install Begemot what does that help you do?

You can break all of these ice for 1:

• Ice Wall
• Eli 1.0
• Hagen
• Akhet
• Bran 1.0 eventually, if you can do one more core damage to yourself
• It's probably going to be too hard to break triple advanced Pharos with this at any point in the game

So, this looks like a potentially high impact card in Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist, a runner that often isn't rich in the first place. This may help a lot in the Haas-Bioroid: Precision Design matchup for instance, because you will be able to contest servers much more cheaply, for Chastushka and Light the Fire! runs.

For comparison, many runners break Eli and Hagen for 2 using Boomerang. But this requires you to draw Boomerang, and spend a click installing Boomerang. And you can only have one Boomerang installed at a time. So Begemot would save you a lot of clicks compared to that.

The card has some significant drawbacks though:

• Costs 5 to install which is pricey. Maybe you plan to Simulchip this out at the last second?
• Takes 2 MU which is a lot, and Marrow only gives you one MU. This would leave you with only one extra MU for flex. So you will have a hard time playing a lot of viruses, which is also something that many Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist want to do to take advantage of Avgustina Ivanovskaya. You can run T400 Memory Diamond but then you are spending precious money and clicks building a pretty big rig. (OTOH that also helps you sustain more core damage)

Breaking Bran cheaply is very attractive because you need to land your Chastushka's and then be able to check archives. So this definitely can help your game plan.

But, it looks like if you are playing this card you probably aren't also running a bunch of viruses. If you don't have Leech then, you probably aren't on Buzzsaw either, you probably pull in Unity and Bukhgalter. You probably need to pull in Boomerang to deal with cards like Pharos.

So this looks like an Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist that's all in on brain damage and not on Avgustina Ivanovskaya and viruses. Maybe less sabotage potential but more consistent landing of Chastushka?

Another point: If you are on Begemot then you no longer have a good reason to use Chisel + Devil Charm to blow up Bran 1.0. You can reserve that particular power tool for troublesome code gates and sentries, which will help make all the servers more porous.

This sounds like a fun version of Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist. But this is a runner that needs to breach servers to win. Without a lot of room for Fermenter and without Keiko you are going to miss out on a bunch of econ opportunities that power many contemporary Hoshiko Shiro: Untold Protagonist decks.

As corp, if I see you install this, I will likely assume you aren't on Stargate because of memory pressure. You may not even have a lot of room for Imp. That takes a lot of pressure off of me to ice up R&D, and let's me put ice everywhere else instead, which is probably a bad thing for Esâ Afontov: Eco-Insurrectionist.

Ultimately this will give the corp a lot of headaches. A lot of servers that are taxing for almost all other breakers will suddenly not be so taxing, and you won't really have any counterplay like you do around Botulus. And many alternative ways to make taxing servers, like Manegarm Skunkworks and Anoetic Void, will get blown up by Light the Fire!. (NEXT Activation Command might still help you score though.)

So, everyone will splash Gold Farmer now?

This is an interesting card which combines two different elements:

• When your turn begins, gain 1 . This is comparable to cards like PAD Campaign (which is one more to rez and one more trash) and Tiered Subscription, which is one less to rez, but only pays you if the runner makes a run. (And costs one influence to bring into Jinteki, which usually can't be justified)
• Then, if you have 4 or less, do 1 net damage

The latter effect reminds of cards like Bio-Ethics Association, which was a pretty powerful card, even with it's restrictions. It meant that if the runner allowed you to establish a board presence, you could suddenly rez Bio-Ethics association and get some net damage without spending a click, possibly contributing to a kill. But also, even if you don't get the kill, the runner must run and trash this or suffer on-going net damage. So if you suddenly rez two of these, this is a tempo hit to the runner, even if it's only two to trash it, and you can follow up with more pressure the next turn.

However, this is really a pretty different card from Bio-Ethics Association, because, the corp usually cannot just sit below 4 . They will not be able to threaten to rez ice, play kill cards, score agendas, and so on. Ending turn at or below 3 is usually bad because you cannot trigger Snare!, so the runner will hammer HQ and R&D. So the corp is not really looking to trigger the net damage from this card in an on-going way.

Instead, the way I could imagine this card being used is the following:

• Bladderwort is face-down on the board. (More ideally, two of them.) The corp is on 5-10 or so during the runner's turn.
• The runner runs HQ or R&D and hits a Snare!.
• The corp is now on low credits after paying for Snare!. If necessary, they rez other assets on the board, like Storgotic Resonator perhaps, at the end of the runner's turn, to get to < 4 .
• At the end of the runner's turn, the corp rezzes any Bladderwort on the board. At the start of the corp's turn, each one does one net damage and gives the corp money to cover its rez cost.
• If we are lucky, we trash some cards matching the runner's faction, charging Storgotic Resonator. We spend our clicks clicking on that for additional net damage, which doesn't cost any money. Each time we click on it, there's a chance it will charge itself again, so hopefully we can do 3 net damage this way.

This may not be a reliable kill, it depends greatly on what cards are in the runner's hand. There are a lot of neutral cards that are commonly played that won't help us out much here.

However, the silver lining is, even if we don't get the kill, we still did net damage for each Bladderwort, which builds tempo, and now we have rezzed Bladderworts on the board, which are about as good as PAD Campaign. If the runner doesn't run these now, we get on-going money, and if they hit Snare again later without trashing these first, then they may get more net damage.

So to recap:

• It cost us 1 click to install Bladderwort
• By waiting to rez it until the opportune time, we got one net damage out of it, and this was credit neutral
• It costs the runner a click to draw that card back, and a click and 3 credits to go trash Bladderwort

For Jinteki: Personal Evolution decks that are primarily looking to win by taxing the runners clicks, this may be like a more playable version of PAD Campaign.

That's the most positive argument for this card.

The argument against this card is like:

• PAD Campaign is not exactly a staple of Jinteki: Personal Evolution, because usually what will happen is, you play it, the runner either runs and trashes it, or waits for you to rez it and then trashes it, which takes a credit from you, and didn't do any damage to the runner. Trading a click for a click is not a tempo advantage. Even if it cost the runner some money to trash it, the runners usually have plenty of economy to trash PE's board.
• This card has a one less trash cost than PAD Campaign, so if that's all that happens, then this was slightly worse than playing PAD Campaign
• This card only does something more than PAD Campaign if you manage to install it, it doesn't get trashed, and at some later point, you have very few credits.
• Usually, the corp is not trying to go down to very low credits -- that usually means you are losing. In the turn where we rez Bladderwort, we get to do some net damage, but after that we have a strong incentive to click for credits for the rest of the turn, because if we end on 4 or fewer credits then we risk not being able to trigger traps like Snare! and Cerebral Overwriter. So if this turn doesn't result in a kill, then arguably we aren't ending our turn in a good place.

In other words, a lot of things have to go just right in order for this card to advance our game plan meaningfully, and more likely, it's slightly worse for us than a PAD Campaign.

One of the issues here is, if the corp count is not in a pretty narrow range, then hitting Snare! won't push you down into Bladderwort range. But keeping your credit count in a narrow range like this at all times may not be viable -- sometimes the corp wants to play a bunch of Hedge Fund or Celebrity Gift and bank for a power turn later.

So to make this more viable, we'd like a way to sit on a lot more credits than this, but suddenly dump them in a way that helps us do a lot of damage to the runner on their turn, and then follow up with Bladderwort on the start of our turn.

We could imagine like:

• The corp is on 15-20 . Saisentan is on R&D, already rezzed, and we install Corporate Troubleshooter in the root. The runner most likely guesses this is Hokusai Grid or Crisium Grid or something. Hoshiko Shiro: Untold Protagonist has a killer out and decides to run to clear the way for Stargate.
• The corp dumps almost all of their credits into Corporate Troubleshooter, so now it's like a 15 strength Saisentan or something. They also rez Storgotic Resonator, and sacrifice False Lead if possible.
• It's possible that Saisentan kills the runner outright, but if it doesn't, we follow up with rezzing of 2x Bladderwort at the end of the runner's turn, and on our turn, clicking on the Storgotic Resonator, or perhaps, scoring a Sting! that was sitting on the board. We can make sure we pay exactly the right amount into Corporate troubleshooter so that we have exactly 3 credits before rezzing the Bladderwort, and therefore have enough credits to score Sting.

Is this play likely to succeed?

• For most killers, like Bukhgalter or Odore, if we pay e.g. 15 into Corporate Troubleshooter then they have to pay about 15 to match strength. So this only works if we have a credit lead over the runner. That's not exactly common for Jinteki: Personal Evolution. But it could happen, because when playing vs this identity, it's often correct for the runner to decide not to play their econ cards in order to conserve them as shields for net damage and avoid being milled out. There's usually no risk of things like Punitive Counterstrike which can cause them to lose the game if the corp gets a credit lead, so they may not be concerned about the corp having a credit lead when the corp is Jinteki: Personal Evolution.
• If the runner is on Mimic, they may be screwed.
• If the runner is on Afterimage, if they have two stealth credits then they will bypass Saisentan and then the corp is screwed, otherwise they are likely screwed.
• If the runner planned to Chisel and Devil Charm the Saisentan, then they are probably screwed, because the corp can boost the strength after the runner has decided to encounter the ice.
• If the runner used Boomerang or Botulus on Saisentan, then the corp is screwed. But this is not likely once Saisentan has already been rezzed and is already known to the runner.
• If the runner has Endurance installed, then the corp is probably hopelessly screwed.

So again, this is kind of a marginal play. Some runners may be surprised by the Corporate Troubleshooter + Saisentan combo, but it requires the corp having a credit lead and the runner not having certain cards. To be able to pull this off reliably, the corp probably needs to run several Corporate Troubleshooter. But then if the runner sees one of them, that will be a massive tip-off to what's going on. It's hard to see any other ice in jinteki that would be interesting to pump up with Corporate Troubleshooter.

• Corporate Troubleshooter is pretty janky (but props to Bowlsley for finding a way to make it work in this deck)
• Bladderwort is also pretty janky
• The net damage part is probably too hard to trigger in an interesting or useful way. The only reason to play Bladderwort is that it's one less to rez than PAD Campaign, and that may be more important to Jinteki: Personal Evolution than the trash cost being one less.

Edit (2025): In the time since 2022, it has become much more clear what role bladderwort plays in the meta, and what makes it good.

The power of bladderwort comes from the following tactics:

• End your turn with a fairly large amount of credits, enough to rez one or two small ices, and face-down assets, with cost enough to bring your credit total down to bladderwort range.
• If the runner runs your ice etc. you have credits to rez if you want to, and if you do, you may go back into bladderwort damage range, which somewhat discourages the runner from running. However, if they don't run, then at the end of the runner's turn, before your turn starts, you rez your face down assets and get down into bladderwort damage range anyways.
• During your turn, you may get more credits somehow, install more assets, etc., and try to repeat the process in the next turn.

1. Even if 1 net damage doesn't lead to a kill, it does affect the tempo of the runner, and it can disrupt their strategy if by chance you get important cards (e.g. Deep Dive, Diversion of Funds, etc.). Bladderwort thus must be dealt with by the runner, or it enables asset-based corps to harrass the runner to their tempo advantage.
2. Because the corp is able to rez assets at the end of the runner's turn but before their own turn starts, any face-down assets create uncertainty as to whether the corp's credit count will cause bladderwort to do net damage. This guessing game works in the corp's advantage, and helps force the runner to try to trash bladderwort and ignore other goals.
3. Bladderwort has strong synergy with cards like Reaper Function and Hostile Architecture, which are high cost assets which can be rezzed at the end of the runner's turn to bring the credit total way down, triggering bladderwort and either doing additional damage or protecting the bladderworts.
4. Bladderwort sees play in asset-based Ob Superheavy Logistics: Extract. Export. Excel. decks, since the 2->1 chain is very popular, and now Cybersand Harvester makes it even more accessible.
5. Bladderwort naturally sees play in jinteki asset decks, for example in Dr. Vientiane Keeling decks before that card was banned, and now particularly AU Co.: The Gold Standard in Clones. A common tactic is to protect it with Tatu-Bola, with the idea that the corp gets money from bladderwort or from tatu-bola no matter what the runner decides to do.
6. Bladderwort sometimes sees play in Pravdivost Consulting: Political Solutions, because it's presence strongly encourages the runner to run it, triggering the Pravdivost Consulting: Political Solutions id, and then giving opportunities for Public Trail, Oppo Research, etc.

Why does Jinteki want to defend Archives?

A couple good reasons come to mind:

• Jinteki: Restoring humanity wants to get their sweet drip credits
• Kakurenbo works a lot better if there are facedown cards in archives at the start of your turn. Usually the question for the runner is, did you use Kakurenbo to replay a trap out of Archives, or did you play something like an agenda from hand. If archives was revealed before you play Kakurenbo, then after you play Kakurenbo, the runner can run Archives and if it looks exactly the same, then they know you played something from hand.
• In Midnight Sun, we have new cards like Moon Pool and Regenesis, enabling Archives focused shenanigans described in a blog post by Doomrat
• Counterplay to Security Testing builds, Sneakdoor Beta, Sabotage focused runners, etc.

How do popular icebreakers fare?

• Bukhgalter breaks it for 2, including the discount. This is the same cost as Drafter, which is also rezzed for 3. I posit that Drafter is quite playable in the current meta.
• Afterimage needs 1 normal and 1 stealth credit, or two leech counters and a normal credit, so this is fairly taxing to that icebreaker
• Carmen breaks it for 3
• Mimic cannot break it unless the runner can reduce the strength by 1.
• Echelon likely breaks it for 4, (but only 1 if you have 4 icebreakers installed)

What alternatives stand out?

• Saisentan (probably) does more damage to the runner if they face-check without a killer. But it costs 5 to rez rather than 3, and is broken for the same or less with all of the above killers. On the flip side, Saisentan resists Boomerang and Botulus better than this ice.
• Karuna costs one more to rez, has one more sub and one less strength. A face-check without a killer is usually only going to do 2 net damage. Karuna is a bit weaker vs. Afterimage and Mimic. This ice is not often played in the current meta, because it usually is pretty low impact -- the runner either runs with their killer, or hits it with boomerang before running, and then it costs 4 to rez and probably does nothing for the rest of the game. In most cases you'd rather have Saisentan, because if they facecheck it it can kill them outright, and even if they hit it with Boomerang, you still probably do 1 or 2 net damage.

This ice is a lot closer to Karuna than Saisentan, and the same arguments against Karuna applies to this ice -- boomerang and botulus completely break it, and most runners won't blindly face-check this. But the difference is that it is bit more efficient than Karuna -- it's still 2-ish to break and it's only 3 to rez rather than 4. So we're reaching towards Drafter levels of efficiency in a faction that is usually pretty poor.

In Jinteki: Personal Evolution, it's possible that Anemone is an all around better choice than this for defending Archives.

• Anemone is only two and a card to rez. Anemone does 3 net damage if the sub fires, but does 2 guaranteed net damage even if the sub is broken -- even if the runner played Inside Job and bypassed the ice.
• Because when you rez Anemone you pitch a card from your hand into Archives, it is possible that the corp pitches Sting! into archives when Anemone is rezzed. If there are a bunch of other facedown cards in Archives, then it's possible that the runner can be flatlined. So when Anemone is rezzed, it is likely that the runner actually jacks out. This is very tempo positive -- you paid two and a card, did two net damage, and the runner jacked out, abandoning their click. They probably spend the rest of their turn drawing up and don't actually run Archives until the next turn.
• This probably isn't what happens with Bathynomus -- they probably break it for 2ish, take no net damage, and complete their run.
• This argument doesn't apply if the runner is using Sneakdoor Beta, in that case you'd rather have Bathynomus.

The dream:

• Import this into Near-Earth Hub: Broadcast Center
• Make infinite money via asset spam
• Install-advance-advance a Vlads Grid behind Tollbooth(s)
• Score a Project Beale with 7 advancement counters from hand

This is going to be a must-have for the classic shell-game Jinteki: Personal Evolution decks I predict.

Previously, the highest tempo move that can be made by such a deck is, installing 3 cards.

• If the 3 cards are, say, Urtica Cipher, Snare!, and an agenda, and the runner runs all three, they will take 6 net damage.
• If the runner didn't start with 5 cards in hand then they don't have enough clicks to draw up to 6 before running.
• If the runner gets lucky and hits the agenda first, they may stop running, but they won't know if the others are agendas (or Ronin's) which could kill them later.
• The existence of Sting! also compounds the difficulty. Also throw in False Lead -- if False Lead has already been scored, then this turn the runner could hit the Snare first and then lose the rest of their turn, and then die to the Sting that they didn't run. etc. etc.

Now, the highest tempo move will be play Mitosis, then install a third card.

• If Urtica Cipher is under the Mitosis, then it's now 4 net damage if you hit it, significantly amping up the threat of running even one of the cards. If you run both cards then you may sustain 8 net damage. You might survive if you started with 5 cards and Earthrise Hotel on the board and you drew once before running, or if you have tricks like Steelskin Scarring, but lacking such a trick most runners won't survive. So the corp will know if that Urtica cipher is one of the cards under Mitosis, the runner most likely cannot afford to run the second card.
• Sometimes the runner may be able to reason that both cards cannot be Urtica cipher, because two are in the bin. Or, they see one in the bin, and think it's unlikely that the corp already drew all three. However, it is also possible that the corp played Mitosis on Urtica cipher and Snare. Normally Snare cannot be advanced but the text of Mitosis allows you to play cards that cannot be advanced with it and put advancement counters anyways. So sometimes, a runner may see 2 Urticas in the bin, decide that the other card cannot be Urtica cipher and reason that it probably can't do more than 2 damage to them, and run it, and then die to Snare. (It may feel bad to put advancement counters on Snare, but you can also use them with Trick of Light later)
• If the corp uses Mitosis and one of the cards is Cerebral Overwriter, and you run it, this will cripple your ability to contest Mitosis plays in the future. Using Cerebral Overwriter with Mitosis is obviously much higher tempo than just IAA'ing it normally, and that weaker move was already considered viable.
• If the corp uses Mitosis on Ronin and Clearinghouse, and you don't run either, then the corp can do 2 meat and 3 net damage on their next turn.
• If the corp uses Mitosis and one of the cards is a 3 pointer, then the corp can make a lot of progress towards scoring out, and force you into bad decision making.

If False Lead has been scored, then you may not be able to safely contest the Mitosis play at all (!).

• If one of the Mitosis cards is Urtica cipher, you have a 50% chance to hit it and take 4 net damage. If you started your turn by drawing up to 6 on first click, then you now have 2 cards in hand after you hit it.
• If the corp uses False lead after you initiated the run, then they could kill you on their turn if, for example, the other Mitosis card was Clearinghouse, and the 3rd card they installed was any 3/1 agenda. Or, if the other Mitosis card was Ronin.

All this analysis speaks only to the pressure the card creates on the runner (because the card allows the corp to essentially get 4 clickless advancement actions). But even from a credit point of view it's favorable to the corp -- you only pay 3 credits and get 4 advancement tokens. This would probably be a great card even if it cost 5 or 6 credits to play.