Merlin is the heavy hitter of a Grail Ice Suite. It is expensive to rez at 6 and because many players face-check using a sentry breaker they may not be prepared to get damaged by a code gate.

Merlin can support or be supported by Lancelot for program desctruction and/or Galahad for End the run. The best support for Merlin is another Merlin, or even better, two Merlins, you might even be able to get a flatline. The most likely way you can get another Merlin in your hand is to use this in The Foundry: Refining the Process decks. Another way is to tutor for it with cards such as The Future is Now, Project Atlas or Levy University. Now levy will give the game away, but it does force them to get all three breakers (or a good AI breaker) out before running unrezzed Ice again (alternatively they could just run with 4/6 cards in hand).

Another less likely possiblity is Excalibur which may or may not be relevant depending on which server you have located your Ice on. Often central servers get run 1st in multi-run turns, either to deactivate Jinteki: Replicating Perfection, build up Datasucker tokens, during a multiple-run Medium dig or sometimes during a Account Siphon/Vamp and then run unrezzed Ice play. Defending a scoring server with Ash 2X3ZB9CY, Caprice Nisei, Red Herrings, a Nisei MK II agenda token or even Marcus Batty becomes much more effective when it is their owly run that turn.

Grail Ice will take up a big chunk of influence in whatever deck it's played in. Decks that synergise such as The Foundry: Refining the Process or possibly NEXT Design: Guarding the Net can support grail Ice and The Foundry in particular is very synergistic since it lets you pull additional Grail Ice to your hand.

In general grail Ice is not particularly good because of the following drawbacks:

1. Moderately high rez-to-strength ratio

2. Influence hungry neutral cards (except for Excalibur)

3. Require additonal Ice to sit in the hand until the runner runs on a server containing rezable Grail Ice. The additional cards clog up the hand and compete for slots with Agendas, Operations and even installables that are not quite ready to hit the table.

4. The Corp has limited deckslots for Ice and usually needs to defend several servers including Centrals, the scoring server and possibly Asset economy, Ice that stays in the hand may become a temporary or permanent 'dead draw', especially if the runner is not running the relevant servers.

Ultimately I do not recommend using Grail Ice except for #Excalibur, which is a superb piece of Ice for many types of decks. I tried using it and it's simply too easy to break and not much of a threat once surprise is lost. Since there is no point 'splashing' Grail you will need to commit half your hand and half your influence to it - yes it can be fun to play with, but not in any deck you want to regularly win games with.

Potential Combos:

TL;DR to double the number of subroutines. Since they are both 'when' constant abilties you should be able to trigger them in the order of your choice.

Marcus Batty to try and trigger one of the gained subroutines.

Mumbad City Grid to keep adding additional subroutines.

Snare!, Shock!, Shi.Kyū or even Fetal AI in your hand to finish the job. House of Knives, Hokusai Grid or a next-turn Neural EMP/Ronin/Philotic Entanglement score can be the finishing move.

Lancelot is the least useful of the Grail Ice suite and that is saying something. If they are facechecking with a program installed it is either a Sentry breaker, Barrier breaker or something expendable. The only way you will land a hit is if they are using a barrier breaker, even then they might still get through and get a successful run.

Considering the low strength of this Sentry I think it is fair to say that in most cases it will be functionally similar to Rototurret - except Rototurret can cross the road without having another piece of Ice to hold its hand. The only advantage Lancelot has over Rototurret is that it takes an extra 2 Datasucker counters to Parasite. Lancelot is such poor card that I think even Grail decks should consider whether it is worth the influence include it.

If you do get Lancelot in hand, I suggest that you don't play it - keep it in hand to support your other grail ice, you'll get a lot more mileage out of it that way than by paying to install and rez it.

Lancelot can support or be supported by Merlin for net damage and/or Galahad for End the run. Another less likely possiblity is Excalibur which may or may not be relevant depending on which server you have located your Ice on. Often central servers get run 1st in multi-run turns, either to deactivate Jinteki: Replicating Perfection, build up Datasucker tokens, during a multiple-run Medium dig or sometimes during a Account Siphon/Vamp and then run unrezzed Ice play. Defending a scoring server with Ash 2X3ZB9CY, Caprice Nisei, Red Herrings, a Nisei MK II agenda token or even Marcus Batty becomes much more effective when it is their owly run that turn.

Grail Ice will take up a big chunk of influence in whatever deck it's played in. Decks that synergise such as The Foundry: Refining the Process or possibly NEXT Design: Guarding the Net can support grail Ice and The Foundry in particular is very synergistic since it lets you pull additional Grail Ice to your hand.

In general grail Ice is not particularly good because of the following drawbacks:

1. Moderately high rez-to-strength ratio

2. Influence hungry neutral cards (except for Excalibur)

3. Require additonal Ice to sit in the hand until the runner runs on a server containing rezable Grail Ice. The additional cards clog up the hand and compete for slots with Agendas, Operations and even installables that are not quite ready to hit the table.

4. The Corp has limited deckslots for Ice and usually needs to defend several servers including Centrals, the scoring server and possibly Asset economy, Ice that stays in the hand may become a temporary or permanent 'dead draw', especially if the runner is not running the relevant servers.

Ultimately I do not recommend using Grail Ice except for #Excalibur, which is a superb piece of Ice for many types of decks. I tried using it and it's simply too easy to break and not much of a threat once surprise is lost. Since there is no point 'splashing' Grail you will need to commit half your hand and half your influence to it - yes it can be fun to play with, but not in any deck you want to regularly win games with.

Potential Combos:

TL;DR to double the number of subroutines. Since they are both 'when' constant abilties you should be able to trigger them in the order of your choice.

Marcus Batty to try and trigger one of the gained subroutines.

Mumbad City Grid to keep adding additional subroutines.

If you manage to score Private Security Force and The Cleaners you could tag your opponent and do 6 meat damage for 3!

Or you could. you know, score your last two Agenda points and win the game, instead of screwing around. This is pretty likely, since if they can't stop you from scoring a 5/3 and a 4/2, then you could easily score Project Atlas (or just 2 Hostile Takeovers).

Now you could potentially play this as NBN, but who would want to replace AstroScript Pilot Program, Project Beale or any other card out of NBNs beautiful delicious agenda suite with useless garbage like this card?

Eden Fragment is a useful 3/5 agenda for both Glacier and Rush decks. Rush decks will be able to push it out early behind two types of ETR Ice and Glacier decks can just put it in the scoring server like any other agenda.

In Glaciers it will save you significant economy when it comes to building up highly taxing servers. In Rush decks the cheap ice that is less taxing in the late game can be stacked extremely deep, using quantity to make up for lower quality.

Strengths:

• Saves a lot of money when installing additional Ice on central and scoring servers. Going form 2 Ice to 5 Ice on a server usually costs 9 just to install - with Eden Fragment its free. This card is quasi-economy.

• Lower your Agenda density.

• Unlike Priority Requisition your opponent does not know what Ice you have waiting for him or her. It also helps all your servers, not just one.

• Zero influence cost - available to all factions.

Weaknesses:

• 5 advancements to score means there are no realistic FA possibilities, even if you make a never advance play. You will need to play, advance and protect this agenda against anything your opponent can throw at you.

• 3 Agenda points without any form of self defense unlike NAPD Contract, Global Food Initiative or The Future Perfect etc. Losing this agenda to a lucky access could easily lead to losing the game.

• Limited to one per deck. This makes it difficult to design your deck around it, since you have no guarantee of even seeing it in a timely manner, unless you use Fast Track. Eden Fragment needs to be played in a complementary deck.

Combos:

• Partially defended by Utopia Fragment

• Can be 'activated' by Media Blitz

• Edge of World can become stunningly dangerous

• Tenma Line will help you re-order your Ice in response to the runner's Icebreaker suite and the situation on the board.

• The Foundry: Refining the Process can potentially have an Ice to install every turn.

• Akitaro Watanabe and Amazon Industrial Zone finally start looking economical, especially together - Free Ice! Don't forget to share the love across all your servers using Tenma Line! (WARNING: Jank Alert)

• Mumbad City Grid who says you need to spend money on rezzing more than 1 piece of Ice? Let the runner break Tollbooth only to hit it again and again, cackle like a maniac as your Komainu gains 15 Do 1 net damage. subroutines.

• Valley Grid can set up a kill all by itself with a sufficiently deep Ice server.

• Midway Station Grid can significantly increase the tax factor of your servers.

• Priority Requisition, Eliza's Toybox, Oversight AI and Bioroid Efficiency Research will help you rez the Ice. If you are using Oversight or Efficiency Research it's better to rez Ice at the 'inside' end of the server, so your opponent can't 'snipe' your rezzed Ice.

• Experiential Data starts looking almost playable. Please do not be fooled, it is NOT playable, you are better off slotting an econ card.

Galahad is commonly the front-man for a Grail Ice Suite. It is cheap to rez at only 2 and most players face-check using a sentry breaker and may not be prepared to get damaged by a barrier.

Galahad can support or be supported by Lancelot for program desctruction and/or Merlin for net damage and a potential flatline. Another less likely possiblity is Excalibur which may or may not be relevant depending on which server you have located your Ice on. Often central servers get run 1st in multi-run turns, either to deactivate Jinteki: Replicating Perfection, build up Datasucker tokens, during a multiple-run Medium dig or sometimes during a Account Siphon/Vamp and then run unrezzed Ice play. Defending a scoring server with Ash 2X3ZB9CY, Caprice Nisei, Red Herrings, a Nisei MK II agenda token or even Marcus Batty becomes much more effective when it is their own run that turn.

Grail Ice will take up a big chunk of influence in whatever deck it's played in. Decks that synergise such as The Foundry: Refining the Process or possibly NEXT Design: Guarding the Net can support grail Ice and The Foundry in particular is very synergistic since it lets you pull additional Grail Ice to your hand.

In general grail Ice is not particularly good because of the following drawbacks:

1. Moderately high rez-to-strength ratio
2. Influence hungry neutral cards (except for Excalibur)
3. Require additonal Ice to sit in the hand until the runner runs on a server containing rezable Grail Ice. The additional cards clog up the hand and compete for slots with Agendas, Operations and even installables that are not quite ready to hit the table.
4. The Corp has limited deckslots for Ice and usually needs to defend several servers including Centrals, the scoring server and possibly Asset economy, Ice that stays in the hand may become a temporary or permanent 'dead draw', especially if the runner is not running the relevant servers.

Potential Combos:

TL;DR to double the number of subroutines. Since they are both 'when' constant abilties you should be able to trigger them in the order of your choice.

Marcus Batty to try and trigger one of the gained subroutines.

Mumbad City Grid to keep adding additional subroutines.