Quest for the Source

When Custom Biotics was spoiled, I wondered why it had an Arthurian reference in the flavor text. Then, two cycles later, they came out with the Grail ICE, which coincidentally required influence. In order to run the maximum amount of Grail ICE, most normal 15-influence corps end up with only 6 influence left to spend on support cards. This identity still has 13 influence to spend after going all-in on Grail, which makes it a perfect fit.

Of course, now we have The Foundry, whose ability synergizes better with Grail ICE, but still... it's hard to resist putting this deck together, mostly from a flavor perspective.

Most of the deck is designed as a support structure for the Grail ICE, hoping to use it to keep the runner locked out of a server long enough to create some significant scoring windows. Research Station is obviously useful for keeping your hand size up and plenty of Grail subroutines handy. Aggressive Negotiation and Levy University are perfect for finding your Grail ICE as quickly as possible. If you can overscore a Project Vitruvius early on, you can start using Security Subcontract to dump superfluous Grail ICE into Archives, only to pull it back mid-run using a Vitruvius counter and taking advantage of the subroutines on it. Isabel McGuire can accomplish a similar thing, though not mid-run; you have to plan ahead. She also helps make the most of Eve Campaign, bouncing it to your hand when it's down to just 2 credits so it can be re-played.

I can't resist slipping Domestic Sleepers into any HB deck, and Archer has such great synergy that I wanted to stick it in as a surprise 1-of. A mid-game surprise Archer can really mess the runner up and sometimes create huge scoring windows.

I thought that fragments of the original source code were a worthy quest for this Arthurian tale, and each one helps the deck out in one way or another. Eden Fragment allows you to build a deep server at minimal cost for scoring more large agendas. Utopia Fragment makes those large agendas harder to steal. And Hades Fragment gives you a way to recycle cards trashed with Security Subcontract besides Project Vitruvius and Jackson Howard.

The deck probably has a lot of issues; I'm not convinced it has enough economy cards, but it's hard to find deck slots when I want to try out all these interesting interactions. With testing, I'd probably end up dropping some of the Assets/Upgrades/Ops for more econ, but I can't decide which ones until that testing happens.