Another great ice for HB. Early game, it is a gear check for fracters. But it shines on the late game, letting you bring back an essential piece for closing the game.

Examples of essentials pieces that will help you close the game :

• The Holo Man
• Anoetic Void
• Gaslight
• Bass CH1R180G4
• Border Control

In the mid game, it can help you bring back cards that will push you forward, such as :

• Spin Doctor
• Rashida Jaheem
• Nico Campaign
• Regolith Mining License
• Cohort Guidance Program
• Manegarm Skunkworks

Unfortunately, since it brings back a card (or install from HQ) only to put it in a different server, it cannot be used to give a better defense where it is positioned. But it can save an agenda that is in HQ or Archive, especially if the runner went in on a last click.

Still, an ice that have a mild recursion ability, coupled with an End the Run and a price of only 2, it is fairly good. Not the best, but good for the price. Very much worth it, if you are looking for a cheap barrier in HB.

I understand that an ablative armor is. a form of reactive protection, which is a way to say that this barrier can have a reaction to do something when rezzed. It fits with the effect of the ice. However, the art is a bit on the abstract side for my taste. Maybe with more contrast, I would get the intention of the art. Is that a face I see in the flames?

Ablative Barrier is an early-game gearcheck and late-game non-agenda installer/unarchiver.

Design:

• Threat-gated “when rezzed” effects, like Threat-gated operations, play differently than Threat-gated repeatable/continuous abilities (Jaguarundi’s “when encountered”, Vovô Ozetti’s static abilities, and so on). This means that by the mid-game, when choosing whether to rez or even install Ablative, you'll be weighing “now” against “more”.

• Install 1 card from HQ or Archives is narrowed with non-agenda and in the root of or protecting another server. This keeps the rez cost (and threat level) low, and lets you play more with (still broad) subsets of a (super broad) effect, to weave a distinct texture.

For example, you can bring back the (self-trashing and easily-trashable) Rashida Jaheem (which, against a run-last-click, reads When you rez this ice, draw 3 cards and gain $3.!); but you cannot sneak in a Project Vitruvius, nor can you ice up the current server with a Magnet.

Compare:

• Drafter and Ansel 1.0.
• Echo, Tatu-Bola, and Ping.

(Tatu-Bola being Jinteki's 1↳-and-1s-for-$2 ETR ice with some “post-ETR” value.)

By the way, any gearcheck can (implicitly) act like a Pulse trigger, since they waste the click spent on that run (by ending it), which synergizes with click-taxing (in HB esp.).

When you rez this ice during a run 
against this server, the Runner loses [click].

Flavor: In Pathfinder, an "ablative barrier" is a spell that blocks things and pushes them away.

Invisible layers of solid force surround and protect the target, granting that target a +2 armor bonus to AC. Additionally, the first 5 points of lethal damage the target takes from each attack are converted into nonlethal damage.

Ablative is the cat.