Whenever you do damage or trash 1 or more cards from HQ, place 1 power counter on this identity.
When your turn begins, you may remove 2 hosted power counters to look at the top 3 cards of R&D. Trash 1 of those cards and add the rest to HQ.
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The Corp uses AU Co.'s ability to trash 1 of the top 3 cards R&D and add the rest to HQ. Is it open information which position in R&D the trashed card came from?
Yes.
The Corp starts their turn, and AU Co.'s “turn begins” ability becomes pending, but there are no power counters on AU Co.. If the Corp triggers AU Co.'s first ability twice while resolving other “turn begins” abilities, such as those on Reaper Function or Cohort Guidance Program, can they still use AU Co. to move cards out of R&D that turn?
Yes. The Corp can resolve their “turn begins” abilities in the order of their choice, and they only need to pay the cost of AU Co.'s ability at the time it resolves.
The runner chooses to suffer 3 net damage from Semak-samun's subroutine. Does AU Co. gain a power counter?
No. Semak-samun's ability has the Runner suffer damage directly, so the Corp is not considered to be “doing damage”. AU Co. only gets power counters through damage done by the Corp.
AU Co. Flavor Review:
Gold Company might be the first thing you notice, but there's a very complex double entendre with Âu Cơ, a Vietnamese Immortal who married a dragon and bore an egg sac that birthed 100 children, which would become important figures in vietnamese history. AU Co.'s "perfect clones, made to order" theme is a twisted version of the vietnamese origin myth. In their short story, they literally fabricate world leaders, after all.
Somehow, as of mid 2025, AU Co.: The Gold Standard in Clones is the most competitive corp. This will probably change, as all meta change over time.
I encourage you to read D4v1d-Gr43b3r review for the excellent explanations of mechanics and flavor.
AU Co demonstrates that having more draw power is the best thing a corp can get. But it gets better. Because Jinteki is the faction with the most archive manipulation, the "trashing a card" when the ability triggers allow for some very potent interactions, such as :
And you get this by either making money (Cohort Guidance Program and Hansei Review), using powerful ices (Hafrún and Anemone), stop the runner from getting to an agenda (Anoetic Void).
But also by doing damage to the runner, for which about half (probably more) of the Jinteki card pool will do for you.
This means that getting to triggers the ability is fairly easy.
Jinteki: Restoring Humanity might give you money, but it is nothing compared to the power that AU Co gives.
AU Co is a powerhouse. Is it the best in the Jinteki faction, maybe, but it will change with the ebb and flow of the meta.
The art is amazing, which gave the nickname of the corp ("the egg"). Easy to recognize, hard to forget. Splendid!
AU Co. batches damage with “discard” (Whenever you do damage or trash 1 or more cards from HQ, …); and pairs both with draw, which is mechanically-related to discard, since you refill your hand, as well as thematically-related to damage, since you're “stealing” cards from the grip to HQ (CF. Vampyronassa).
For example, resolving a Boto or Empiricist double-“charges” it, which lets you double-“draw” next turn. Or even a 3rd power counter if the Runner facechecks Saisentan without a Killer, or Attini without credits. (IIUC, rezzing Anemone triggers it twice? Since there's a cost and an effect, even if both are in one sentence via the trash _ to do _ templating. But IDK.)
BTW, I like that placing the counters is unbounded (it's a "whenever", not a "first time each turn"), while spending them is bounded (it's "remove up to two counters", not "remove any number of counters"), and that the ratio is 1-to-2 ("spend two at a time, place only one at a time"). So when deck-building (or jank-brewing), you are rewarded for jamming a lot of different cards that can trigger it (especially multiple times at once, or repeatedly over time). So:
This is not PE, it only cares about dealing damage (like Prāna Condenser or the new Phật Gioan Baotixita), while PE was dealing the damage; thus protecting your agendas (even unrezzed assets), hardening your AP ice, tempoing out the grip (even grinding out the stack), literally winning the game, and so on. Damage is self-synergistic, because of flatlining, so it "dealing damage" implicitly cares about "damage being dealt" too.*
However, in the best-case, AU would be like When your turn begins, you may draw 2 cards. (!), with some self-mill and card-selection too.
BTW, this first one was my guess on Reddit before spoilers:
Maybe a PE that's less grindy but just as spiky, like:
Whenever an agenda is scored or stolen, do 1 net damage. Put the trashed card on the bottom of the stack.Whenever an agenda is scored or stolen, the Runner adds 1 card from their grip to the bottom of their stack, then the Corp may draw 1 card.CF. the NSG-era Daniela Jorge Inácio and Bring Them Home, which are still random (like damage is) but cannot flatline you (like damage can).
“Au” is the chemical symbol for gold (which is “aurum” in Latin).
I suspect that Anenome's rez effect does add two counters. The phrasing "Whenever you do damage or trash 1 or more cards from HQ, place 1 power counter on this identity." seems to be looking for each instance of game-state change. A phrasing which would keep Anenome or the like to a single counter might be "Whenever an ability does damage or trashes 1 or more cards from HQ, place 1 power counter on this identity."
— lp87