D4v1d-Gr43b3r's excellent review talks about the functionality of Physarum, so I'll stick to its impact. Put simply, Physarum is the best single card answer to nearly every non-barrier ICE in the game. You'd think this would make it a strong contender in Criminal lists, but no, it's awkward and mostly a worse Boomerang because you can't blindly put this onto ICE for fear of it being a Barrier and getting blanked or getting purged out.

Of course, it's not Criminals that are playing Physarum, it's Shapers. At 3 influence, it does strain deckbuilding slightly, but you only need one copy to tutor/recur with cards like Self-modifying Code, Simulchip or Muse at potentially instant speed, meaning you can avoid its downside of potentially putting it down blind and discovering it was a barrier all along. If you're Arissana Rocha Nahu: Street Artist, it's a Trojan you can slap on from hand too and break any non barrier for (usually) 2-3c. The fact that it bypasses on when encounter begins means, as D4v1d-Gr43b3r points out, that it skips many of the "on encounter" triggers that lots of taxing ICE such as Tollbooth rely on. Basically, if a Shaper has SMC down and ~5c (or a Simulchip with it in heap), they can face check nearly anything without consequence (the only favourable interaction for the Corp is Anansi, as seen by the ruling above this page).

The effects of this on Corp deckbuilding, just due to this card's existence, are extremely severe. Since Shapers have been the clear dominant force of the RWR meta and Physarum is a common one of in almost every one (except Rielle “Kit” Peddler: Transhuman), playing strong face check Sentries or punishing Code Gates is strongly discouraged (not entirely out, Jinteki and HB have enough scary face checks that the one Physarum can't hit them all with cards like Saisentan or Gatekeeper) as a Physarum Entangler will break them for pennies. Large and expensive Sentries/Code Gates like Cloud Eater, despite being strong from a strength/subs/facecheck point of view are completely unviable when "rez for 10, break for 3" is the standing. I won't deny the weakness to Mavirus; if the Corp has an upgrade on the table it can be risky to use a Physarum to break, and currently we do see Mavirus in Rush PD and Ob Superheavy Logistics: Extract. Export. Excel. decks).

Ultimately, though, Physarum Entangler is one of the strongest Shaper cards to ever be printed in Criminal. Sadly, it's not even the only Criminal card Shapers found more reliable use for (Cupellation). As you can probably tell, I really don't like this card; it lacks so many of the downsides of other ICE cheating methods NSG has printed (Botulus is slow, Boomerang and Slap Vandal lose to certain ICE and S-Dobrado and Inside Job can be played around via positionality and need to be hard drawn) by being an immediate and fast solution to too many ICE in the game, and has only further strengthened the "ICE doesn't matter" endgame lots of Runners end up in. I would not be against seeing the card go on the banlist, just because the strain it puts on Corps and efficiency at which it cheats ICE on encounter effects compared to something like Femme Fatale is absurd to me.

As of 2023, with the printings of Strike Fund and Steelskin Scarring, patchwork has seen a resurgence in popularity and many new headaches. This document I have written up contains answers and questions that maybe don't show up in the rulings for the card.

With the addition of Cupellation to rip deal is in a much better place. Mixing in Docklands Pass as well and you're quickly able to recur a hand full of cards with Rip Deal. Being it's a run event this slots really well into Prepaid Ken. With 3 Prepaid VoicePAD you actually gain a credit and are click neutral with Swift.

Ken “Express” Tenma: Disappeared Clone also has 17 influence which makes importing high impact run events in from other factions. With just 1-2 copies of key events you can grab them back alongside key event economy or even have a zero influence way to recur your Ashen Epilogue if you're going that way.

Cupellation is what really makes this card shine. I am currently running three copies in my Ken Deck. The interaction is such that you trash Cupellation before you recur with Rip Deal so it can self target the copy you used to expand your access amount. I will occasionally even do some cuppellation juggling. Have two Cupellation in play, one loaded and one empty. Run and access 4-5 cards so that you can extract key corp cards like End of the Line or Punitive Counterstrike. Next use Rip Deal to charge back in, get back your Cupellation and some other toys.

In faction you have plenty of solid targets

• Diversion of Funds is ofc S Tier
• Emergency Shutdown or Forged Activation Orders in ice shutdown/denial decks
• Window of Opportunity if you're doing Saci things.

Out of faction Rip Deal lets you virtually run extra copies of cards you've dished out precious influence for. And puts them directly back in your hand.

• Khusyuk is my current flavor.
• Deep Dive is a great target and Rip Deal counts as one of your runs.
• Trick Shot if you're gonna do some sort of Trick shot ken deck you could maybe make this work
• Divide and Conquer is popular in some Criminals and this could get you a couple more uses.
• En Passant going from 3 copies to 6 or 9 is pretty interesting in an econ denial crim...
• Bahia Bands is actually a fantastic recurssion target vs Asset Spam where you'll want to keep getting runs, trash credits and card draw.

You do need to either empty your hand or have extra hand size to deal with the influx of cards.

Overall this card paired with Cupellation is performing a bit better than Initially anticipated for me.

I've never used this card before but it's clearly broken. Here's why:

Hard-Hitting News was an extremely broken card. This card was notorious for breaking the game. This card is not much different, except for the fact that it's better, because you don't need to win a trace anymore. Now the runner either uses their whole turn removing tags or they'll die to End of the Line or get slammed with Hypoxia. (Compare this concept with BOOM!) Also NBN: Reality Plus is crazy enough.

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