Say hello to my Grappling Hook.

Wait a minute, am I reading this right? The 3rd Subroutine is "The Runner Gains 5 Creds"...why? Why is that a thing?

1) It encourages the runners in your meta to take Grappling Hook with them, so an otherwise underplayed card sees play more often.

2) Place a Chum in front of it and laugh like a maniac. (I call this combo "Doomtrain")

3) This is a 5 to rez, 7 strength ice with two ETR subroutines... if it weren't for its third subroutine to compensate, this card would be insanely powerful.

I look at it like a rebate offer. The Runner needs to pony up a lot of dough to get to that subroutine, and then they get some of it back. It helps balance out the low rez cost vs. the high strength.

I think it's a reasonable piece of ICE, provided that you are selective in when you choose to rez it. If you notice that the Runner's economy engine is starting to dwindle then this has the potential to keep them out for a full turn or two.

Obviously it's weak to Grappling Hook, D4V1D and other things, but all ICE has its drawbacks.

The bar for entry to get in is high, but the tax is refunded and it can be abused by a clever runner. Obviously this is intended to further a "keep the runner broke" version of NBN, backed up by cards like Closed Accounts, Reversed Accounts, Tollboth, etc. wherein the runner never has enough money to pump up a breaker to strength 7 and can't get past the Little Engine's first subroutine.

And maybe people will start exploring that sort of deck if fast advance keeps getting nerfed. But in the meantime, this card offers very little upside to the corp that has Tollbooth in faction.

I believe this card is pretty good protecting a central server with 3 ice, as the inner most ice. If we look at it with a commonly used icebreaker like gordian blade, it costs 7 to break and then getting 5 back, so it consumes 2 credits. But in a scenario where the runner encounters it with less money than that it just end the run. So in a server that has this on the inner most position and maybe a tollbooth on top, it gets pretty cool. The 5 rez cost makes it easier to despose it if you see the runner playing a femme fatale or grappling hook e.t.c.. I don't believe its a very strong ice but i can see it being used in decks.

(sorry for bad english... )

encourages use of the Dog breakers to - 1 token breaks the first 2 subroutines, leaving #3 to fire.